17 best FP&A software for high-performing FP&A teams in 2024

Spreadsheets are still the technology that finance teams rely on most. According to a study by Ventana Research, 74% of mid- to large-size companies use spreadsheets to manage their FP&A processes.

Why?

Realistically, most finance teams are content with spreadsheets. It’s a place of familiarity, but there are limitations. For finance teams looking for a better way to budget, plan, forecast, and report: meet FP&A software.

What is FP&A (financial planning and analysis)?

Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) is a set of planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting processes that finance teams do to support strategic business decisions and financial health. FP&A activities help CFOs and their team look ahead to inform company strategy instead of always looking in the rear-view

Why is FP&A important?

FP&A is important because it provides finance teams with the tools and strategies to make informed business decisions. Planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting empower finance teams to manage business performance by creating a bridge between strategy and execution. 

What’s the difference between FP&A vs planning vs budgeting vs forecasting?

FP&A is an overarching term that encompasses planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

• Planning is the process of looking at a company’s future financial goals and requirements and strategizing how to meet their targets.
• Budgeting is the process of defining your company’s spending, based on income and expenses, for a specific period. Budgeting involves estimating revenue, expenses, and cash flow to understand how to reach your financial goals.
• Forecasting is the process of estimating your company’s future financial position based on your budget.

Planning, budgeting, and forecasting are elements of FP&A and work together to create an efficient and effective approach to financial planning and analysis, so finance teams can continue to drive business performance.

What is FP&A automation?

FP&A automation allows you to automate your planning, budgeting, and forecasting processes. FP&A automation includes manual, time-consuming tasks via workflows and other dependences in FP&A software, also known as a Financial Performance Platform.

What is FP&A software?

FP&A software is a suite of applications with methodologies, metrics, processes, and systems to manage and monitor planning, budgeting, and reporting. FP&A software is a tool for finance teams to set goals, track progress, and analyze results. 

There are other names for FP&A software, including Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software and Financial Performance Management (FPM) software. The functionality is the same, but the name has evolved over time to reflect how the software supports the Office of the CFO.

What does FP&A software do?

FP&A software streamlines your business performance monitoring and management across all areas of finance.

FP&A software often has the following applications:

• Planning, budgeting, and forecasting
• Financial, statutory, and management reporting
• Financial consolidation
• Profitability modeling and optimization
• Strategy management

For many finance teams, manual tasks and unruly spreadsheets are hard to manage—especially as your business grows. FP&A software streamlines your processes in one centralized platform that helps you save time, minimize errors, and boost your decision-making.

How do you do FP&A?

FP&A encompasses a wide range of activities that support an organization’s planning, reporting, and analysis, all geared towards supporting business decisions and financial health. These processes include budgeting, forecasting, expense allocation, scenario modeling, balance sheet and cash flow planning, performance reporting, and analysis of trends and anomalies.

Speed, accuracy, and agility are key to successful FP&A processes and FP&A software, like Prophix, plays a key role. Prophix not only streamlines processes, but also centralizes data, reduces errors, and enables automatic consolidation with a flexible and accurate platform.

With a Financial Performance Platform, you can consolidate financial, operational, and market data to enable deeper insights to drive strategies, plans, and execution alignment.

Who within an organization does FP&A?

FP&A is done by the finance team, including business leaders like the CFO, VP of finance, director of finance, or director of FP&A, and individual contributors like financial analysts or budget analysts. Non-finance contributors like sales, marketing, and operations leaders also contribute to FP&A.

What models for FP&A do you use?

• Sales and revenue planning to determine the cash that will flow in and out of your accounts.
• People planning to ensure you have the right team structure, skills, and resources to execute your business plan.
• Operating expense (OpEx) planning to understand the money spent on a day-to-day basis to run the business.
• Project planning to determine project costs and associated budgets.
• Capital expenditures (CapEx) planning to budget the investments you have in long-term capital assets like property, equipment, or land.
• Cross company planning to collaboratively plan and budget.
• Balance sheet planning to understand assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Cash flow planning to understand current and future cash position on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis.
• Scenario planning to make assumptions and identify potential outcomes or impact and how to respond.
• KPI planning to measure metrics or drivers that are used to calculate actual dollars, like # units sold x sales price = sales revenue.

Benefits of FP&A software platforms

A key benefit of FP&A software is that it automates your finance processes, but it doesn’t stop there. There are a number of benefits of FP&A software.

Save time

You’ve heard the adage that time is money. With FP&A software, you can automate tasks that take time and manual effort so you can focus on finding insights that drive value for your business. FP&A software also saves time on the maintenance of spreadsheet templates. With FP&A software, you can get a report out in minutes and share the ‘a-ha!’ moments that truly move the needle on your performance.

Reduce data errors

When you’re working in large spreadsheets with countless rows, columns, and formulas, one thing is for certain: the risk of human error is real. Even the smallest typo or miscalculation can break your entire workbook. But FP&A software reduces risk by automating data collection through built-in data integrations. This means that your data is pulled from the source system right into your FP&A platform, so you’re always working with clean, up-to-date information.

Make decisions based on data-driven insights 

What if you could reduce the level of risk associated with every decision? With FP&A software, you can confidently make decisions backed by data. From scenario planning to consolidations, to budgeting and forecasting – with FP&A software, no decision is a shot in the dark. Decisions are made based on the data that shows where you’ve been before, and where you plan to go next.

The 17 best FP&A software tools

There is plenty of choice in the market when it comes to FP&A software. But when you’re making an investment in FP&A software, it’s important to consider the options available and pick the solution that will best meet the needs of you and your business.

1. Prophix

Prophix’s Financial Performance Platform elevates the talents of finance teams by improving the speed and accuracy of decision-making. Crush complexity, reduce uncertainty, and illuminate insights with access to best-in-class planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and consolidation functionality. 

With Prophix, finance teams can modernize their planning needs with centralized data, streamlined processes, reduced human error, and automatic consolidations for planning with greater speed, accuracy, and agility.

Best for: Prophix is a Financial Performance Platform for the Office of the CFO in mid-market companies. The primary FP&A users are the CFO, director of FP&A, and FP&A analysts. Non-finance users, like operations, marketing, and sales leaders can also use FP&A software. 

Features

• Model Manager to simplify the build and maintenance of planning models for multi-dimensional planning, calculations, and analysis
• Customizable data entry templates with Template Studio
• Workflow Manager to automate task assignment and simplify collaboration
• Automate calculations, allocations, and processes
• Microsoft 365 Add-In for flexible data entry in Excel that automatically pushes to Prophix
• Add line-item details directly in your data entry templates

Integrations

• ERP, CRM, or accounting software
• Use an API to connect to almost any business system
• Spreadsheets and flat files

Pricing: Pricing varies depending on the number of users, applications, and integrations. Learn more about FP&A pricing here.

CTA: Chat with a Prophix expert to learn more.

2. Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning helps people gain insights, collaborate, and make smarter decisions, faster.

Best for: Large enterprise teams with complex planning requirements.

Features

• Driver-based plans
• Team-led planning
• Robust reporting
• Linked plans

Integrations

• Integrate with any cloud-based, on-premise, or file-based data source application.

Pricing: Pricing isn’t listed on their website, but there is a free trial available.

Workday Adaptive Planning vs Prophix

3. Vena Solutions

Vena leverages the familiarity and flexibility of an Excel interface within the Vena Growth Engine, the SaaS platform and methodology that powers your plans and guides your journey to growth.

Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses who use Excel for FP&A.

Features

• Excel-native platform and familiar user interface, built for Microsoft 365 with Power BI embedded
• Pre-built templates
• Self-serve access to data analytics and AI-powered insights
• Clear version control

Integrations

• Integrates with cloud-based, on-premise, or local source systems like Excel and CSV files.

Pricing: Vena offers two pricing tiers: Professional and Complete. The Professional tier is their most popular. Full pricing is available by speaking to a Vena specialist.

Vena vs Prophix

4. Planful 

Planful helps businesses drive peak financial performance by streamlining business-wide planning, budgeting, consolidations, reporting, and analytics.

Best for: Mid-large organizations with large FP&A teams and for teams looking to expand their scope beyond finance.

Features:

• Consolidation, reporting, and standard planning on a single platform
• Dynamic planning is built on a separate technology and database
• Use cases include finance, accounting, marketing, HR, sales, IT, and operations
• Collaboration and sharing tools with intuitive web-based user interface

Integrations:

• Integrates with most of your existing data sources but requires additional licensing

Pricing: Planful doesn’t disclose its pricing. 

Planful vs. Prophix

5. Mosaic Tech

Mosaic is a Strategic Finance Platform that offers a suite of tools for business leaders to make profitable decisions.

Best for: CFOs and finance leaders at early-stage companies to large, growing teams.

Features:

• Customizable metric configuration and calculation logic to meet unique business needs
• Metrics Catalog offers out-of-the-box insights
• Automated data aggregation, calculation, and visualizations
• Live integrations with several databases and robust financial modeling, reporting, and forecasting capabilities

Integrations:

• ERP, CRM and HRIS systems
• Billing systems like Zoho Subscriptions, Chargebee, and Stripe
• Snowflake data warehouse

Pricing: Mosaic offers two tiers of pricing: Foundation and Growth. Pricing isn’t listed on the website, but there is a feature comparison table available for each pricing tier.

Mosaic Tech vs Prophix

6. Centage Planning Maestro

Centage Planning Maestro is financial planning and analysis software that manages budgeting, forecasting, and data analysis.

Best for: CFOs and FP&A teams across a wide range of industries and sizes.

Features:

• Building and maintenance of long-term budgets and forecasts
• Test and predict the impact of scenarios and evaluate actuals
• Workforce planning
  

Integrations:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Abila
• NetSuite
• Acumatica
• Sage
• QuickBooks
• SYSPRO

Pricing: Centage offers three tiers for pricing: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. There is no free trial offered, but the website does offer a comprehensive feature comparison for each pricing tier.

Centage Planning Maestro vs Prophix

7. Cube Software

Cube is an FP&A platform that pairs the flexibility and familiarity of your spreadsheet with FP&A software.

Best for: Small businesses and startups who use spreadsheets to manage their FP&A.

Features:

• Report customization and flexibility
• Intuitive user interface design
• Automated workflows
• Report templates
• User management and permissions, admin console, and audit trails and controls for enhanced security and data integrity
• Excel-based templates

Integrations:

• Out of the box integrations for your CRM, ERP, HRIS or BI systems
• Custom connectors
• Self-serve flat files

Pricing: Cube offers three tiers of pricing: Essentials, Premium, and Enterprise. Premium is their most popular at $2450/month.

Cube vs Prophix

8. Causal 

Causal is a modern planning platform that allows you to build and automate your forecasts, financial models, business plans, and board reports.

Best for: Financial modelers, business teams, and executives at companies of all sizes.

Features:

• Dynamic financial modeling for revenue projections
• Easy data visualization and custom views and permissions for stakeholders
• Multi-currency, multi-entity consolidations
• User-level admin. controls and single sign-on (SSO)

Integrations:

• Google Sheets and Excel spreadsheets (CSV)
• Accounting and ERP systems
• Data warehouses or BI tools
• CRM and HRIS systems

Pricing: Causal offers three pricing tiers: Free, Launch, and Growth. The Launch tier starts at $250/month.

Causal vs Prophix

9. Jirav

Jirav is a forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and dashboarding solution that simplifies FP&A.

Best for: From startups to large companies who are focused on growth.

Features:

• Pre-built reports and plans
• Pre-configured integrations and features with room for customization
• Dynamic, driver-based planning

Integrations:

• Spreadsheets
• QuickBooks, Xero, or Stripe
• Workforce and HRIS planning systems
• HubSpot and Salesforce
• Project management, BI tools, and data warehouses

Pricing: Jirav offers three pricing tiers: Starter, Pro, and Enterprise but pricing isn’t publicly available.

Jirav vs Prophix

10. PlanGuru

PlanGuru is budgeting, forecasting, and financial analytics software designed to make business planning easier.

Best for: Small businesses, accountants, and not-for-profits.

Features

• Pre-built 3-way forecasting structure
• 20+ standard forecasting methods
• Formula builder to create custom models
• Unlimited # of scenarios
• Notes payable and line of credit tools

Integrations

• QuickBooks, Xero
• Excel spreadsheets

Pricing: PlanGuru offers a free trial and packages start at $83 per month.

PlanGuru vs Prophix

11. OnPlan

OnPlan is a financial forecasting platform that is built on Google Sheets. With OnPlan, you can build on traditional spreadsheet financial models with data integrations from your ERP and CRM.

Best for: OnPlan is for decision-makers who are frustrated with their spreadsheets, but not ready to adopt a full forecasting tool.

Features:

• Automates manual spreadsheet maintenance: updating actuals, model structures, parallel updates to multiple scenarios, and formula roll overs each month
• Stakeholders can contribute to sheets, reports, and dashboards
• Dashboards and data visualizations for better insights
• Can change and modify your models in Google Sheets with automatic sync of your changes

Integrations:

• Microsoft Dynamics, Xero, QuickBooks and Sage Intacct
• Salesforce and HubSpot CRM
• BigQuery
• HRIS systems like Bamboo and ADP Workforce Now
• Spreadsheets and CSV files

Pricing: OnPlan offers three pricing tiers: Essential, Growth, and Growth+, but specific pricing isn’t available on their website.

OnPlan vs Prophix

12. Anaplan

Anaplan is a web-based, enterprise-level modeling and planning platform that lets you contextualize real-time performance and forecast future outcomes for faster, confident decisions.

Best for: Enterprise customers with large, complex calculations.

Features:

• Hyperblock™ in-memory calculations engine allows for complex use cases and can be scaled across multiple departments
• Highly customizable and can accommodate multiple use cases
• Self-serve solution with limited training required
  

Integrations:

• Use Anaplan Connect to run integration scripts for imports and exports
• ELT and ESB tools to integrate with systems of record
• Prebuilt integrations with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Adobe, or Salesforce
• Custom integrations using REST APIs or transactional APIs
  

Pricing: Three pricing plans depending on your needs: Basic, Professional, and Enterprise, but specific prices aren’t available.

Anaplan vs Prophix

13. Abacum

Abacum is an automated FP&A platform for finance teams to budget, plan, and report.

Best for: CFOs, FP&A managers, and revenue operations leaders.

Features:

• Pre-built reporting templates
• Drill-down or slice and dice data for variance analysis
• Data visualizations and custom formatting
• Scenario planning

Integrations:

• ERP, HRIS, BI and CRM systems
• Spreadsheets
• Snowflake and BigQuery

Pricing: Abacum lists their Reporting and Planning products as two separate plans, but specific pricing isn’t listed on their website.

Abacum vs Prophix

14. Datarails 

Datarails is an Excel-based FP&A solution that automates consolidation, reporting, and planning using existing spreadsheets and data models.

Best for: Finance teams looking to automate their FP&A processes within Excel.

Features:

• FinanceOS ingests and consolidates data into one central source of truth
• Financial Statements module for P&L reports, balance sheets, cashflows, and dashboards
• Budgeting, Forecasting, and Reporting are additional models not included in FinanceOS
• Excel add-in to access Datarails in your workbook

Integrations:

• ERP, HRIS, BI and CRM systems
• Spreadsheets
• Databases and file management systems

Pricing: Datarails doesn’t list their pricing plans on their website, but they do offer a quote calculator so you can see a rough estimate.

Datarails vs Prophix

15. Acterys 

Acterys is planning and analytics software for Power BI and Excel.

Best for: Acterys is best for business users who do FP&A using Power BI and Excel.

Features:

• Accessible from Power BI, Excel, or front-end applications
• Use Modeller to build AI-enhanced analysis models
• Excel add-in for planning, reporting, and consolidation
• 8 custom Power BI visuals

Integrations:

• Standard ERP, CRM and accounting software
• Integrations available by request

Pricing: Acterys has three pricing plans (Starter, Professional, and Enterprise) but specific pricing isn’t listed on the website. More information is available with a quote.

Acterys vs Prophix

16. OneStream

OneStream is CPM software that brings together finance and operations processes and data in one place.

Best for: Enterprise companies with 500+ employees.

Features:

• Built-in AI services
• Guided workflows for simplified processes and task management
• Solution Exchange offers 75 pre-built business and productivity solutions to add to the platform

Integrations:

• ERP, CRM and HRIS systems
• Databases
• SAP R/3, ECC, BW and S/4 HANA

Pricing: OneStream doesn’t offer any pricing information online. You can request a demo to find out more.

OneStream vs Prophix

17. Jedox

Jedox is a European-based planning and performance management platform for integrated business planning, FP&A, and sales performance management in an Excel-friendly interface.

Best for: Finance and revenue operations teams across organizations of all sizes and industries.

Features:

• Integrated business planning
• Financial planning and analysis and extended FP&A
• Sales performance management
• AI insights

Integrations:

• ERP and CRM systems
• BI and analytics tools
• Databases
• File-based connections and web services

Pricing: Jedox offers four pricing tiers, Essential, Business, Professional (most popular), and Performance. Additional information on pricing requires speaking to a Jedox specialist.

Jedox vs Prophix

How to choose the best FP&A software platform for your business

When it comes to choosing the best FP&A software platform for your business, there is a lot to consider. When you’re exploring vendors, keep these three considerations in mind to help choose the best FP&A software for you and your business.

1. Integrations

Integrations are a key part of choosing FP&A software. After all, FP&A software should seamlessly bring together data from all your important systems. When looking at FP&A software, consider the data sources you want to connect to.

Does the FP&A software integrate with your ERP, CRM, or HRIS systems? Can you build custom connectors with an API key, or integrate with flat files or data lakes? Understand the integration options available so you can be set up for success from day one.

Seamless data integration gives you a comprehensive view of all your data in one location to make data-driven decisions.

2. Key functionalities

What is the intended outcome of your investment in FP&A software? FP&A software helps to reduce manual, time-consuming budgeting and forecasting processes, improve accuracy and foster collaboration.

FP&A software offers a number of features and functionality depending on the vendor you choose. It’s important to consider the functionality that will automate your forecasts, help with scenario planning, and improve your workflows.

Additionally, some software vendors only offer FP&A – which limits your ability to scale your use case for all finance processes, like consolidations or disclosure management. Consider your FP&A software needs today but also how a platform can grow with you in the future.

3. Collaboration

Can you easily collaborate with your FP&A software? Finance teams and other cross-functional contributors need to work together – from managing workflows to approving tasks. Additionally, how does FP&A software support occasional contributors? For example, Prophix’s Microsoft 365 Add-In lets contributors add data into templates using Excel that then gets pushed into the Prophix platform.

It’s important to consider FP&A software that not only supports the finance team, but lets collaborators across the company contribute to planning, budgeting, and forecasting.

FAQs about FP&A software

Let’s look at a few frequently asked questions about FP&A software that you should consider when evaluating solutions.

What does FP&A do in SaaS?

FP&A in SaaS keeps a finger on the pulse of long-term growth and profitability. SaaS companies need to forecast and plan outcomes, identify areas of opportunity for growth and resource allocation, and provide the entire organization with a view of financial health. As SaaS companies scale, whether through organic growth or mergers and acquisitions, FP&A is a critical function to support that.

Do you need accounting knowledge to do FP&A?

While most FP&A teams have a background in finance or accounting, it’s not mandatory. In fact, there’s a demographic shift happening in the way FP&A leaders are getting started in finance. With the help of technology and skills with data, finance teams are equipped to do sophisticated FP&A even without formal accounting knowledge. In fact, roles like data scientists and system analysts are now coming into FP&A because of their backgrounds in data and technology.

What's the difference between FP&A vs. financial analysis vs. treasury vs. controller?

FP&A is an umbrella term for key finance processes including planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.

Financial analysis is the process of analyzing the performance, stability, and profitability of your business, projects, budgets, and finance-related transactions. Financial analysis is a key component of FP&A.

Treasury is the management of a business’s cash flow and financial risks. Treasury manages day-to-day money, like cash, investments, and other assets, as well as providing input on strategy.

Controllers prepare financial reports, like balance sheets and income statements. Additionally, controllers provide strategic input and direction on company strategy and decision-making.

Ultimately, financial analysis and treasury management are finance functions. Controllers are key contributors on the finance team who do FP&A.

What is financial maturity in FP&A?

Financial maturity measures how sophisticated your financial processes are. If you are using FP&A software to manage your planning, budgeting, and forecasting, this signals a higher level of financial maturity than finance teams who rely solely on spreadsheets.

Financial maturity in FP&A is also dictated by the amount of time it takes to budget, plan, and report on your finance processes. Finance teams with high financial maturity have the tools and insights to be able to understand the ‘why’ behind their data and act on the insights with greater speed, accuracy, and agility. Want to measure your financial maturity? Take our Financial Performance Assessment.

Choose the best FP&A software

FP&A software helps you and your business streamline your budgeting and planning processes while improving collaboration. When you’re considering FP&A vendors, choose a software provider that will help you meet your business goals. FP&A software should reduce your manual processes that lead to delays, errors, and data loss; improve your budgeting and planning accuracy; and increase the flexibility of your financial processes, so you and your team can support strategic decision-making that drives growth.