Financial planning software encompasses a range of tools that assist with budgeting, forecasting, cash flow analysis, and tax strategy. These software programs empower small business owners to make better decisions around resource allocation and growth, extracting deeper insights from the data found on your profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash-flow financial statements.
The right financial planning tool can make it much easier to manage your finances and glean information on your business’s performance. The tools on this list are good options for small business owners seeking affordable, user-friendly financial planning options.
Prophix
Prophix’s Financial Performance Platform offers financial insights as well as streamlined workflows and data security controls. Prophix’s budgeting and planning, reporting, analytics, and financial consolidation features give you more control over your financial performance. Built-in automation and artificial intelligence (AI) also eliminate manual, error-prone tasks.
“Prophix puts a lot of focus on small and medium businesses, and their large customer base reflects that,” wrote The Finance Weekly. Prophix also has high ratings from users on Gartner’s Peer Insights.
Datarails
Datarails is considered one of the best-priced options for small businesses: Its pricing is tailored according to your needs and based on what you wish to achieve. Mix and match features like financial reporting, planning, and analysis with plans based on the number of users and integrations you require.
Datarails also includes automation and AI to speed up financial planning tasks, with one notable difference. Users can keep their existing Excel financial models and spreadsheets and use AI to automate repetitive processes. “The result is an extremely short implementation time of only 6-10 weeks and a high level of ROI off the bat,” wrote The Finance Weekly. If you’re looking for a quick, user-friendly solution, Datarails could be a good fit.
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If you’re looking for a single source of insight for your business, Anaplan could be a good fit.
Anaplan
Anaplan was ranked one of the top financial planning software options by Gartner in 2023. This tool offers access to a wide range of data sources, including transactional and operational data. It also includes features to monitor performance and scale while mitigating risk across the financial planning process.
Anaplan also includes capabilities for functions outside of finance, such as sales, marketing, supply chain management, and HR. If you’re looking for a single source of insight for your business, Anaplan could be a good fit. Alternatively, you can choose to only sign up for the financial planning tools while forgoing the other options. Bear in mind that because this tool is so advanced, pricing is likely to be higher than others on this list.
Workday Adaptive Planning
Workday Adaptive Planning is also a top choice from Gartner and is highly reviewed by existing users: Ninety-four percent of reviewers would recommend this financial planning tool.
You may already be familiar with Workday’s HR solutions; Adaptive Planning is part of Workday’s overall enterprise management cloud, a suite of tools that help run your business. Users can access Adaptive Planning as a stand-alone tool or add it to their Workday account. Regardless, Workday Adaptive Planning integrates with any data source from over 300 unique systems.
“Workday Adaptive Planning includes features for flexible budgeting, modeling, forecasting coupled with workforce, sales, and operational planning for total oversight of business performance,” wrote Wise.
Board
Board offers what the brand calls “intelligent planning” software — predictive analytics and financial planning tools that unify metrics, analytics, and reports in one place. It’s highly customizable with prebuilt dashboards and reports that can be configured and added with no coding experience.
Board is also industry agnostic, with clients in retail, supply chain management, sales, finance, and more. Reviewers also say that Board has great customer support and releases new features according to user feedback. Try Board if you know what features you need and want something specific to solve your financial planning challenges.
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