Best Budgeting and Reporting Software: Best Options to Upgrade from Excel?

Thomas
Who are the types of users who would connect to the software via a mobile device and what kind of interaction do they need to do from that device?

In one dimension, reporting/queries may be just a simple case of pushing completed reports to the device to allow the user to view and slice/dice. One technical issue relative to the mobile device may be the size of the data supporting the reports that you want to access from the mobile device.

If you are evaluating software, SaaS solutions are accessible via browsers, which are pretty standard on a tablet. If you are looking at on premise software, do they have a browser interface with easy connection to the application on your server or do you have to connect via VPN and are there any limits on what you can do?

The best way to find the best fit solution is to:
1. define your requirements in this area
2. create scripted scenarios, including use of a tablet
3. ask the vendors to actually demonstrate how their solution performs the scenarios

If they cannot SHOW use of a tablet in a live demo, then you probably have a vendor who lacks what you need.

Regards
Len

I have been at two companies that used OutlookSoft. It has an Excel interface to access the data so you have total control over designing/formatting and later modifying reports just like in Excel. You basically get new Excel formulas where the parameters make the data call (by account, department, time period, actual/budget etc). At that time their web capability was limited though. Maybe that has changed.
Hard to argue with SaaS solution which it is not.

My client just implemented Microsoft Forecaster, part of Microsoft Dynamics / GP business license - integrates with GP and FRx. It has a web component so operating groups have easy access to data input and reporting.

We are currently operating in GP 2010 and using FRx as our reporting tool (not for much longer). We are looking to upgrade from FRx and have looked at Management Reporter as a potential solution. Ideally, we would like to get to a financial reporting and budgeting combined solution and the SaaS solutions are very intriguing. Does anyone have an estimation of implementation cost? Licenses are one thing but getting the data set up and stored in a way to maximize the functionality of the tool is another. If anyone has any insight there I would love to hear!

You can implement Hyperion and make it cost effective if done correctly. Most people think it is cost prohibitive. Licensing cost does depend on the size of the customer, but there are firms out there that help SMB customers implement Hyperion for the right price.

Great question! And in fact, Rand Heer, the father of budgeting software movement, just launched a new buyer's guide for planning and reporting software featured right here on Proformative:

https://www.proformative.com/articles/fpa-buyers-guide-planning-reporting-systems

We are in the final stages of our analysis of a budgeting software solution to replace our current array of excel spreadsheets. We also researched several of the software vendors you have noted (Adaptive, Host, Prophix). Our objectives were to not only pick a cost effective solution, but also an easy to use and implement solution that would not be IT intensive to implement or support. These goals helped us quickly eliminate several of the larger options (Hyperion, SAP etc.). Our team is recommending the Host Analytics Software solution for our company. Our goal is to utilize the software for planning, forecasting and reporting/dashboard capabilities. We plan to implement early next year.

We transitioned from Forecaster to Adaptive Planning, using Great Plains and FRx for reporting as well. Looked at the same vendors, Prophix for on-premises ($$ install/no upgrades), and Host and Adaptive for SaaS. UI with Adaptive is a little simpler for end-users, in my opinion, when planning things like headcount, capital, etc. Forecaster has had some bugs in the past (esp related to payroll tax calculations that will not function properly, and no Microsoft support). Really like Adaptive, we have the ability to design reports out of FRx to import actuals without the need to connect GP to the system. Easy for end-users to input and add data, great ad hoc reporting, dashboarding, consolidating, version creation/control, what-ifs, etc. Couldn't be happier, plus 2-3 software builds/yr, great value prop for what you pay.