Real customer reviews on FP&A tools: what they love and must-have capabilities

Have you ever considered investing in FP&A tools for your finance organization—but found it daunting to understand what to features to look for and benefits to prioritize? Today, we’ll look at what actual users of FP&A tools, such as financial performance management and FP&A software, have to say about the solutions they have in place, and some of the aspects that they’ve determined to be critical to the success of their organization.

Financial analysts and CFOs that are continuing to invest in FP&A tools and technology can use these insights to inform their own digital transformations.

The challenge with buying FP&A tools

If you’ve ever looked into buying software or FP&A tools for your organizations, you know that it’s not easy to pick and choose from the many options at hand. It can be difficult to know at a glance which FP&A tool has the right features for your team, or even what features to look for and prioritize.

One solution is to turn to industry analysts and their data, as the validation of a credible third-party, such as an analyst, can help make a very strong case for a particular technology or vendor. FP&A software industry analysts engage closely with vendors and customers to test different products, track trends, and report on priorities for finance departments to inform investment decisions.

However, for many software buyers and end users, the main resource they’ll look into—and one that will truly sway their decision-making, in either direction, is the feedback of their peers. Oftentimes the endorsement (or lack thereof) of another organization, particularly one that has shared similar pain points, is just as insightful as the most thorough product demo.

But before we go into what customer reviews say in regards to why they invested in finance technologies, let’s dive into how these FP&A tools are key to financial performance management.

The role of FP&A tools in financial performance management (FPM)

If you’re already in the research process for FP&A tools to support your finance function, chances are you’ve heard of financial performance management (FPM).

Financial performance management is the way a company manages financial processes across the entire organization, and includes budgeting and planning, reporting and analytics, financial consolidation, and intercompany management. As organizations expand, these processes become more complex and may require an investment—such as FP&A tools—to support growing needs.

Analysts, vendors, and customers refer these finance technologies in a variety of ways, including: FP&A software, budgeting and planning software, Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), and of course, Financial Performance Management (FPM). This software can be web-based, cloud-based, or on-premise.

FP&A tools and software play a huge role in financial performance management, as these tools help automate and improve finance processes. This enables organizations to scale as their company and needs grow, showing high financial maturity The goal is for FP&A tools to reduce or eliminate the use of static platforms, including spreadsheets, as those environments hinder an organization’s ability to make decisions, adjust plans, collaborate effectively, and drive performance overall.

Now that we have a good understanding of how financial performance management can take your organization to the next level, let’s hear directly from customers about why their organizations implemented FP&A tools.

Why organizations are implementing financial performance management

Depending on the size, scope, and complexity of their business, organizations will seek out and deploy FP&A tools and software for a number of reasons. 

One of the most cited: to make manual business processes—which are generally outdated, tough to track, and time consuming—easier.

Here’s what real customer reviews had to say:

Customer reviews revealed that implementing FP&A tools, like FPM or FP&A software, led to superior processes and efficiencies in comparison to their old methods using Excel.

The top capabilities of FP&A tools for financial performance management

From real customer reviews, what do users like best about their FP&A software tools or platforms? Most cite the following:

• Reduces manual processes to accelerate reporting and analysis
• Maintains an intuitive data integration web interface
• Provides accurate, real-time insight within an accessible, user-friendly dashboard

Let's dive deeper into these priorities.

Reason to love FP&A tools: “Great for Budget Setting and Reporting”

Most users prioritize financial budgeting and planning above other functionalities.

Why? For one thing, a FP&A tool like budgeting and planning software can consolidate relevant metrics into one application, reducing duplication, and minimizing errors. With automatic updates, organizations always have the most up-to-date information on hand.

Check out what one real customer review said about budgeting software:

“We use [FP&A software] extensively for budgeting and variance analysis; it allows us to quickly execute both processes in a timely and efficient manner, while being effective. We are able to perform variance analysis on a monthly basis, fast enough to enable leaders to make important decisions based on recent performances of the company.” - Trust Radius Review – Employee in Finance and Accounting

An example of AI-powered variance analysis using Prophix, a financial performance platform.

Reason to love FP&A tools: “Friendly tool and easy to learn”

Additional core FPM processes include financial consolidation and reporting, modeling, analysis, and monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs).

Organizations should seek to take control of financial data with an intuitive data integration web interface that enables them to quickly add and manage data integrations without being forced to call on IT. And those integrations should be easy to set up with no complex coding or third-party solutions.

Here’s what a real customer had to say about how easy it is to take control of their financial data:

“Once the integration reports are set up [in FPM] then it is really easy and you can add the processes to schedules which allows all of the integration to be automated. Receiving feedback on the success of the processes is also really helpful so you can see at a glance if everything has worked overnight.” - Trust Radius Review – Employee in Finance and Accounting

An example of streamlined, easy data gathering using Prophix.

Learn more about set it and forget it data integration.

Reason to love FP&A tools: "Automation with Ease”

It’s no surprise that automation is a point of emphasis for businesses well beyond the finance department. And within the Office of the CFO, investing in automation will be a priority for the near future. In fact, a recent global survey of over 700 finance leaders reported that:

• 27 percent of respondents said half or more of their processes are automated 
• 65 percent of respondents said they plan to automate half or more of their processes by the end of 2023.  
• 11 percent say they plan to be fully automated by the end of 2023.

The push towards automation is reflected in how customers review their use of FP&A tools for financial performance management:

“Using [FPM]...we have automated and integrated financial processes and reporting. We have also automated previous manual processes related to our monthly financial statements, WIP reporting, weekly project performance reports, and monthly financial forecasting. The models we have created allow us to integrate information between our financial and operational processes. Our executive team now has a dashboard to report company revenue by month, year-to-date, and job-to date as well as by project, VP, and Project Manager performance for such related periods. In addition, the dashboard provides actual weekly labor costs and hours in various visual formats.” - Customer Story – Powering Wilson Construction with Finance Insight

A sneak peek at the Prophix financial performance platform dashboard.

FP&A software tools: a smart investment

No matter what criteria was used to evaluate their eventual choice of vendor, customers who have implemented FP&A tools, like software or financial performance management, can almost universally agree: the right technology significantly simplifies the process of collecting and consolidating data from various business units and enables organizations to connect planning activities that were previously siloed.