Home > Accounting Software > IBM Planning Analytics > IBM Planning Analytics vs Workday Financial Management

IBM Planning Analytics vs Workday Financial Management

Last Updated: November 25th, 2024

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

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Product Basics

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.

Workday Financial Management is a cloud-based accounting software designed for mid-sized and large enterprises. It automates core financial processes like record-to-report, procurement, and expense management, aiming to streamline operations and improve data visibility. Its strengths lie in its user-friendly interface, real-time reporting capabilities, and global compliance support. However, its subscription-based pricing model can be costlier than traditional on-premise solutions. Users praise its intuitive design and powerful analytics, but some note occasional integration issues and a steeper learning curve compared to simpler systems. Overall, Workday Financial Management is a robust option for companies seeking a modern, scalable accounting platform with a focus on automation and global reach, but its premium pricing might not suit smaller businesses or those with less complex financial needs.

Pros

User-friendly interface
Real-time reporting
Global compliance support
Scalable for growth
Integrates with other Workday apps

Cons

Higher subscription costs
Steeper learning curve
Occasional integration issues
Limited customization options
Reporting can be complex

$825 Monthly

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$5,000 Monthly

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Product Assistance

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24/7 Live Support

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Product Insights

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.

Enhanced Efficiency and Streamlined Operations: Automates manual tasks, eliminates data silos, and provides real-time visibility across financial processes, leading to faster close cycles, reduced errors, and improved operational agility.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Offers robust analytics and reporting tools that deliver actionable insights into financial performance, enabling informed strategic planning, cost optimization, and resource allocation.
Global Compliance and Scalability: Supports complex global operations with built-in compliance features and multi-currency capabilities, ensuring seamless expansion into new markets and adherence to local regulations.
Improved User Experience and Productivity: Provides a modern, intuitive interface that empowers finance teams with self-service capabilities, reduces training requirements, and boosts overall user satisfaction.
Enhanced Collaboration and Visibility: Fosters collaboration between finance and other business departments through integrated workflows and shared data, promoting transparency and alignment across the organization.
Reduced Risk and Improved Controls: Strengthens internal controls with advanced security features, audit trails, and automated compliance checks, mitigating financial risks and safeguarding sensitive data.
Increased Agility and Adaptability: Enables rapid configuration changes and customizations to adapt to evolving business needs and industry regulations, ensuring continuous optimization and competitive advantage.
Talent Optimization and Retention: Supports talent management initiatives by streamlining payroll and expense processes, providing employee self-service capabilities, and enhancing financial transparency, leading to increased employee satisfaction and retention.
Sustainable Growth and ROI: Delivers tangible cost savings through automation, improved efficiency, and reduced compliance risks, contributing to significant long-term return on investment.
Future-Proofed Platform: Continuously updated with new features and functionality, ensuring your accounting system stays ahead of the curve and adapts to evolving industry trends and technologies.

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.

Grant Management: Meet grantor and business requirements for budgeting, billing, reporting and compliance. Minimize the possibility of reporting errors, any loss due to absent funds or risk associated with non-compliance. Make sure that all grantor’s requirements get met in terms of timeframe, balance, terms and conditions. Control unnecessary spending by keeping a tab on the monetary status in real-time. Ensure that workers are paid for individual projects.
Analytics and Reporting: Create internal reports and external regulatory statements ensuring no patchwork database. Use reconciliations and analytical tools. Ensure robust security while deriving insights for strategic decision-making. Let executives and leaders view monetary, operational and management visualizations. Gain a complete view of the business by combining transactional and operational parameters. Know and understand what is happening, where and why by analyzing details across dimensions.
Financial Planning: Make informed, faster decisions with flexible tools and data-driven insights. Respond quickly to change by creating strategic plans for budgeting expenses to forecasting revenue. Gain a complete picture by populating models with data. Connect to cloud, on-premise and data warehouse. Ensure reliable data access with an automated data flow. Involve everyone in the planning process with role-based access to models. Create reports by automatically connecting to Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint. View numbers, charts and variance alongside each other, reflected instantly.
Audits and Internal Control: Keep the business secure, identify risk and document every translation with audit and internal controls. Adjust controls and processes, set thresholds, evaluate workflows and prevent unauthorized transactions with a flexible framework. Limit permissions to people with single access and authorization control.
Global Foundation: Operate and expand in different countries or around the world. Get built-in flexibility and support for global time zones, currencies and address formats. Leverage support for multiple charts of accounts, tax, banking and payment format. Deploy faster with built-in country-specific configurations.
Expenses: Minimize expense processing time and reimburse faster. Record the transaction by scanning the receipt. Get better travel rates and discounts by uncovering the latest trends in real-time with a delivered expense dashboard. Control cost and keep all the travel policies in one place. Prevent the possibility of fraud by tracking out of policy spends.
Accounting Centre: Gain detailed insights and reduce the time to close with comprehensive accounting information and data lineage back to source transactions. Minimize errors, boost efficiency and gain better control and visibility. Manage and modify rules with one accounting engine written in business language. Get detailed budgetary and operational reporting with a virtual subledger. Recognize revenue by modifying operational data.
Revenue Management: Gain complete visibility with flexible features and view and analyze all the system’s aspects. Minimize risk by establishing, approving and tracking customers at every step of the contract cycle. Reduce revenue leakage and gain rich insights into write-offs and billing rules. Boost accessibility, accuracy, profitability with intercompany invoices. Get end-to-end revenue management and comprehensive revenue recognition while staying compliant with GAAP and IFRS standards and protocols.
Budgetary Consolidation and Close: Keep track of the output by any factor such as spend by supplier, campaign, profitability and project activity. Reconcile accounts and embed them in the transaction system. Automate tasks, route approvals and reports with a close period checklist. Get real-time currency and earning calculations to analyze the financial results within a specific timeframe.
Accounting and Finance: Keep a tab on the monetary impact of transactions by identifying and addressing issues promptly without running a batch process. Close faster with real-time consolidation. Automate finance and accounting operations, make modifications or corrections any time and get recommendations on payment matching. Manage accounts payable, contracts, billings and payments from one place. Gain complete transparency into records from procurement to disposal. Control and optimize the cash flow.

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Analyst Rating Summary

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User Sentiment Summary

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of users recommend this product

Workday Financial Management has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 324 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

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Awards

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

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.

Streamlined Processes and Efficiency: Automates manual tasks like journal entries, reconciliations, and financial reporting, saving time and reducing errors.

Real-Time Visibility and Insights: Provides instant access to financial data and customizable dashboards, enabling proactive decision-making and improved cash flow management.

Global Compliance and Scalability: Supports multi-GAAP compliance, multi-currency transactions, and international tax reporting, simplifying operations for global organizations.

User-Friendly Interface and Adoption: Offers an intuitive interface with guided workflows and role-based dashboards, making it easy to learn and use for finance professionals of varying skill levels.

Seamless Integration and Collaboration: Integrates smoothly with other Workday applications and external systems, fostering collaboration across departments and streamlining financial processes.

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.

Steep Learning Curve: Workday's interface and functionality can be complex for users unfamiliar with its specific terminology and workflows, requiring significant training and onboarding.

Limited Customization Options: While Workday offers some customization, it may not fully accommodate specific accounting needs or reporting requirements, potentially leading to workarounds or integration with additional tools.

High Implementation and Maintenance Costs: Workday's initial implementation and ongoing maintenance can be expensive, especially for smaller organizations, requiring careful budgeting and resource allocation.

Integration Challenges: Integrating Workday with existing legacy systems or third-party applications can be complex and time-consuming, potentially disrupting workflows and requiring specialized technical expertise.

Limited Offline Functionality: Workday's cloud-based nature can pose challenges in situations with limited internet connectivity, potentially impacting critical accounting tasks and data access.

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.

Workday Financial Management (WFM) user reviews paint a mixed picture. While users praise its streamlining capabilities, real-time insights, and global compliance features, they also face challenges with its initial complexity, limited customization, and high costs. Compared to competitors like Oracle NetSuite and SAP Business One, WFM shines in automating manual tasks and offering intuitive dashboards for data-driven decision-making. However, its steeper learning curve and potential integration hurdles can be daunting for smaller firms or those accustomed to simpler systems. Users particularly appreciate WFM's ability to automate journal entries, reconciliations, and financial reporting, freeing up valuable time for analysis and strategic planning. The real-time visibility into financial data with customizable dashboards also empowers users to make proactive decisions and manage cash flow effectively. For global organizations, WFM's support for multi-GAAP compliance, multi-currency transactions, and international tax reporting simplifies operations and streamlines reporting across diverse regions. However, users also highlight WFM's learning curve as a major hurdle, especially for those unfamiliar with its unique interface and terminology. The limited customization options can also be frustrating when specific accounting needs or reporting requirements don't perfectly align with the system's functionalities. Additionally, the high implementation and maintenance costs can be a barrier for smaller organizations, making WFM a better fit for larger enterprises with the resources to invest. Compared to competitors, WFM's strengths lie in its automation capabilities and data-driven insights. Users often find Oracle NetSuite more user-friendly and customizable, while SAP Business One offers better integration with existing systems for some businesses. Ultimately, the choice between WFM and its competitors boils down to individual priorities and needs. If automation, real-time data, and global compliance are top concerns, WFM stands out. However, if ease of use, customization, and cost-effectiveness are paramount, other options might be more suitable.

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