- Several people need to give input on the same thing but from different perspectives
- There is a need for data aggregation
- There is a need for user authorities, roles and statuses
If you try to do the above using Excel, you will run into problems with data inconsistencies, people who can edit and change things they are supposed to, etc.
Whenever there is a need for input, my go-to tool is Planacy. I can easily build whatever scenarios, processes, or templates I want to support my customers’ needs. I can set up drivers to do super-advanced calculations between different processes enabling data to flow from my staff process to my cost process to finally land in the PNL process. Read more about Planacy.
To me, Planacy offers the perfect level of complexity. There is no need to code stuff but I can still make any kind of input Template possible to come up with and populate it with reference data, add validation rules and send the input data to other processes in a super-competent web interface.
Why a controller would love Planacy
With Planacy you can easily decentralise complicated processes and involve more people in, for example, the budget and forecasting work. You can then instead focus on analysing data, what-if scenarios, adjusting drivers like sales index, salary increases etc. which then is added on top of the processes in Planacy. There will simply put, be more time for the fun stuff.
There is of course plenty of possibilities to get the data to and from Planacy to Excel with the newly released Planacy Excel plugin.
As a controller with Planacy, you will be more of a number facilitator rather than a number cruncher.
Why a Windows technician would love Planacy
Planacy is super easy to back up, it runs both on-prem and in a cloud. The recommended way is to use Planacy SaaS in the Planacy cloud, but everything is possible and easy to set up.
In Planacy everything is contained in the SQL database, there are no .dll files or registry entries and all data including the metadata and user authorities are in the database. It makes it super easy to port the entire solution to another machine or another cloud. It takes like 15 minutes to upgrade Planacy and it does not require any reboot of the machine. Last but not least, the Planacy support is so fast to respond, that one almost wonders if they are overstaffed over there.
Why a CFO would love Planacy
Planacy comes with an easy-to-understand per-user-based license model where you pay a monthly subscription fee. That gives a certain number of users access to the system. It is easy to expand Planacy when the company grows, the tool supports several languages and currencies. Implementing Planacy is also considerably cheaper than other FP&A tools mainly because Planacy focuses on input and leaves reporting and BI to other best-of-breed tools.
Planacy also comes with a few very competent pre-configured processes such as HR (staff cost), CAPEX (expenditures), Balance sheet and cash flow and of course the PNL. This means that in a normal project these processes are pretty much ready out of the box and the focus is instead on the revenue and cost processes which usually are tailormade. Check out some customer stories.
Why Planacy loves BI
Planacy is made for input, Business intelligence tools such as Tableau, PowerBI and Qlik are all made for output. There is an interesting contradiction here. It is very difficult to make one tool where input and output work well since input means that you enter data on a higher level and output means displaying data with the possibility to drill down to preferably transaction level.
Planacy elegantly gets around this problem by offering several seamless integration points for Tableau, PowerBI and Qlik. As a user, you do not realise that you are actually looking at both Planacy and a BI graph at the same time.
So lots of love for everyone when it comes to Planacy! Don’t hesitate to contact me if you want more information, have questions or want me to demo some of the above.