AppZen vs IBM Planning Analytics

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Our analysts compared AppZen vs IBM Planning Analytics based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Accounting Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

AppZen Software Tool
IBM Planning Analytics Software Tool

Product Basics

AppZen is an artificial intelligence platform that simplifies finances by automating work that requires human expertise. It automates manual processes, checks for loopholes in finances and strengthens decision-making for employees by optimizing finance for enterprises. It revolutionizes how the finance team works by automating spend approvals and providing rich insights to help the business plan with a strategy based on data.

It ensures expense reduction, compliance and streamlines financial processes for businesses across all industries.
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IBM Planning Analytics is a multidimensional in-memory database for analytics and planning. Part of the IBM Analytics Suite and powered by TM1, it provides forecasting, budgeting and reporting at an enterprise scale through data compression. With all data connected to a central hub, it enables collaborative planning with workflow approvals and review protocols in place. Enterprises perform OLAP analysis faster through in-memory technology.

Integrating with Microsoft Excel, it gives businesses the ease and familiarity of working with spreadsheets with the power of an enterprise database. With automated time-series modeling, it enables self-service predictive analysis. The vendor offers a 30-day free trial.
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$5,000 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$825 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Insights

  • Identify Errors: Businesses can use AI to identify and eliminate errors related to manual processing, duplicate entries, overpaid invoices, expense cheating, crossovers or supplier payments.  
  • Reduce T&E Spend: All employee expense reports are verified before they are paid. Identifies duplicate receipts, personal spending and over-the-limit expenses. AI-powered expense audits provide the business with reports before they receive payment.  
  • Reduce Invoice-Based Spend: Its AI-powered platform audits invoices automatically. Businesses can catch fraud, duplicate spends, crossover with T&E, missing discounts, duplicate spends and more.  
  • Ensure Compliance with Expense Policies: AI-powered expense auditing ensures that T&E spend is compliant with policies before they are reimbursed. The business can detect unauthorized expenses, anything that can land them in a legal situation and those that exceed their policy.  
  • Automate and Streamline: Automate approvals, run management approvals and provide auditors with the correct information to ensure efficiency to streamline expense reimbursement.  
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  • Maximize ROI: Save time for analysis of trends, business performance and results by creating project plans faster. Reallocate budget and resources by leveraging deep insights into business performance and market trends. Collaborate with others on a single, unified platform with total transparency and visibility into business data, available for all plans. 
  • Boost Sales: Win more business opportunities – boost annual sales quotas and deal sizes through end-to-end sales workflows. Grow revenue and reduce time to insight with robust sales analytics. Track campaigns for performance monitoring in real time and deep dive into data for buying behavior and customer churn analysis. 
  • Financial Planning and Analysis: Optimize the business’ performance through valuable financial insights. Ensure the business is on track by creating and managing plans, budgets and forecasts. Simplifies the budgeting process through real-time calculations with automatic application of business rules. 
  • Optimize Supply Chain: Create more accurate demand forecasts, get a clearer view of the resources and budget required to fulfill projected demand and update production plans accordingly. View historical data and drill down into summaries for deep-dive analysis and add visuals to spot key KPI trends. 
  • Workforce Planning: Increase the workforce’s efficiency by acquiring and retaining skilled employees at the right time. Effectively manage staff schedules, task assignment and performance tracking through workforce analytics and HR planning tools. 
  • Deploy Anywhere: Access the same data from everywhere with the flexibility to deploy on-premise, in the cloud or as a combination of both. 
  • Scalable: Build and change plans flexibly in real time to match business requirements. Scales with increasing data volumes, number of users and planning models, without impacting existing workflows and performance. 
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  • Real-Time Auditing: Audits data and spends in real time to give the business increased process transparency and control over discrepancies. 
  • Risk Detection: AI makes use of patterns and behaviors to recognize any risk associated with any expense.  
  • Identify Non-Compliance: Non-compliance on any part is immediately identified and reported for the right course of action.  
  • Autonomous AP: All invoices and non-PO spend can be classified, matched and approved without any manual intervention.  
  • Auditing: It seamlessly integrates with the existing expense automation systems to empower auditing in real time. Helps the business locate errors, waste or fraud in real time.  
  • Mastermind: Specially designed for the finance team, Mastermind ensures 100% compliance and auditing on all expenses by automating corporate spend policies.  
  • Mastermind Analytics: Get AI-powered on-demand expense insights that provide an accurate and comprehensive view of the organization’s expense. Helps users understand what is working and what is not to make well-informed decisions.  
  • Team Intelligence: It gives managers complete visibility into team spend so that compliance is ensured and approval workloads are reduced.  
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  • Architecture: Leverage a three-tier client-server architecture that includes a database, application server and front end, with data stored centrally in the OLAP server. 
    • TM1: Employs an efficient data compression algorithm to enable faster planning and analytics. Create business models by combining multiple data sources with manual input for effective decision-making. 
  • Workspace: Create and access all plans and forecasts through its web-based interface. Grant role-based access to team members down to cell-level granularity. Collaborate on plans through chats and cell comments in the workspace. 
    • Data Visualizations: Choose from a rich library of visualizations to apply that includes bullet charts, waterfall charts, treemaps, word clouds and more. Input data intuitively to specific slots through drag-and-drop actions, and customize fonts and styles for personalized branding. 
    • Books and Views: Access related data in the form of web sheets, scorecards, videos and embedded web pages from a single interface. Leverage defined selections of a data cube — views — for analysis and data exploration, and export as an Excel worksheet. 
  • Performance Tracking: Compare targets with actual results, and with actual performance over time. Quickly find the desired metrics and create visually compelling scorecards such as impact diagrams, strategy maps and custom diagrams. Add existing scorecards to books and analyze data over different periods, metrics and dimensions. 
  • Data Modeling: Autonomously build a financial model by converting business requirements into cubes, dimensions, hierarchies and calculations. Transform and load data easily into a financial model, without the need to code. 
  • Sandbox Environments: Work in a sandbox to manipulate data as needed in real time without impacting actual data. Compare different scenarios and test assumptions to see the impact of potential decisions. 
  • Microsoft Excel Integration: Go beyond what spreadsheets can do – perform multi-dimensional analysis and big data exploration within the Excel interface, retaining its full functionality and formatting. Find answers to business questions by creating reports from Cognos TM1 through interactive drag-and-drop actions. 
  • AI-Based Automation: Speed up planning cycles and get more reliable results. Create plans, forecasts and budgets through automated model creation, natural language processing and cognitive analytics. 
  • On-Demand Module: Generate dynamic dashboards from existing Excel spreadsheets through autonomous data exploration. Move from annual planning to rolling forecasts based on real-time information by identifying variances in plans caused by external data. 
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Product Ranking

#139

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Accounting Software

#335

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Accounting Software

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Cloud-Based Accessibility: Access AppZen from any device with an internet connection, allowing for remote work and collaboration.
Automated Expense Management: Digitize and automate expense reports, reducing manual data entry and streamlining the approval process.
Receipt Capture and OCR: Capture and store receipts digitally using the mobile app or email integration, with OCR technology extracting key data for easy expense tracking.
Policy Compliance Enforcement: Set up customizable expense policies and receive alerts for violations, ensuring adherence to company guidelines.
Robust Reporting and Analytics: Generate comprehensive reports and dashboards to analyze spending patterns, identify cost-saving opportunities, and improve budgeting.
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Flexible Modeling: Users praise the software's ability to handle complex planning scenarios with ease, such as building detailed driver-based models for budgeting and forecasting.
Improved Collaboration: The platform facilitates better communication and data sharing among teams, streamlining the budgeting and forecasting process.
Powerful Reporting and Analytics: Users appreciate the robust reporting features, allowing them to generate insightful reports and dashboards for data visualization and analysis.
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Costly: AppZen's pricing can be prohibitive for small businesses and startups.
Complex Interface: Users have reported finding the software's interface challenging to navigate and use efficiently.
Limited Customization: AppZen may not offer the level of customization that some businesses require for their specific accounting needs.
Accuracy Concerns: Some users have expressed concerns about the accuracy of the software's expense reporting and analysis.
Limited Integration: AppZen's integration with other business software, such as CRM systems, can be limited.
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Steep Learning Curve: Users have reported that IBM Planning Analytics can be difficult to learn, especially for those without prior experience with similar tools. Its interface and terminology can feel overwhelming initially.
Limited Reporting Capabilities: Some users have expressed frustration with the reporting functionality within Planning Analytics, finding it less intuitive and flexible compared to dedicated reporting tools. They desire more advanced formatting and customization options for presenting financial data.
Performance Issues: Users have occasionally encountered performance issues, particularly when dealing with large datasets or complex calculations. This can slow down budgeting and forecasting processes, impacting overall productivity.
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AppZen is an accounting software solution that has received mixed reviews from users in the past year. Many users praise its user-friendly interface, customizable dashboards, and robust reporting capabilities. However, some users have expressed concerns about its accuracy, limited integration options, and lack of support for certain accounting practices. Compared to similar products, AppZen is often praised for its ease of use and ability to automate complex accounting tasks. However, it falls short in areas such as accuracy and support, which can be crucial for businesses that rely heavily on their accounting software. AppZen's customizable dashboards and reporting capabilities set it apart from other solutions, allowing users to tailor the software to their specific needs. Overall, AppZen is best suited for small to mid-sized businesses that prioritize ease of use and customization. However, businesses with complex accounting needs or a reliance on specific accounting practices may need to consider alternative solutions.

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User reviews from the past year suggest IBM Planning Analytics is a powerful tool for businesses seeking to streamline their financial planning and analysis processes. Users praise its robust features, particularly its budgeting, forecasting, and reporting capabilities. One standout feature is its ability to handle complex "what-if" scenarios, allowing businesses to model different outcomes based on various factors, which is crucial for making informed decisions in a volatile market. However, users also point out some drawbacks. The learning curve can be steep, especially for those unfamiliar with similar software. Some users find the interface less intuitive than competitors like Anaplan or Cube, and the pricing can be a significant investment for smaller businesses. Despite these weaknesses, users generally agree that IBM Planning Analytics offers a comprehensive solution for businesses needing advanced planning and analysis capabilities. Its ability to integrate with other IBM products and handle large datasets makes it particularly well-suited for larger enterprises with complex financial operations.

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