Planful vs QuickBooks Pro

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Our analysts compared Planful vs QuickBooks Pro based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Accounting Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Planful Software Tool
QuickBooks Pro Software Tool

Product Basics

Formerly Host Analytics, Planful is a financial planning and analysis cloud platform. It accelerates end-to-end FP&A. Suitable for midsize to large-scale businesses, it helps by centralizing data and managing financial and operational processes.

It helps users plan and manage reviews, approvals and submissions and generates workflow status reports to check the performance of every department. It helps analyze asset performance by using financial budgeting and forecasting techniques with its capital planning feature. It is a scalable solution that allows companies to check the effect of projects on the overall bottom line.
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QuickBooks Pro is a program designed to efficiently execute bookkeeping processes such as invoicing, cost tracking, receipt scanning and more while offering users a third eye on their finances by displaying the most current information in comprehensive dashboards and reports.

Inventory and sales tax tracking, accounts payable management and bill management are some of its quintessential features.
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$1,250 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$45 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Conduct Ad hoc Analysis: Simplify complex ad hoc analysis by quickly creating financial and operational models while simultaneously checking the impact of these models on the bottom line. 
  • Close Books Faster: Decrease the time it takes to close books by automating data collection, aggregation and validation. Make data secure and compliant with standards and protocols.  
  • Improve Collaboration: Collaborate in a more efficient manner with current data and real-time insights. Get the power to make quick and accurate decisions with more confidence.  
  • Get Insights: Make well-informed decisions by gaining insights from across an organization to drive long-term value and growth. Automate manual processes to gain more time for strategic planning processes, analyzing and collaborating rather than worrying about spreadsheets.  
  • Automate Manual Processes: Save time and reduce errors by automating manual financial processes. Ensure that all financial processes are done with minimum manual effort and run more efficiently.  
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  • Initiate Payment Reminders: Notify patrons of invoice payment deadlines so users can receive payments sooner with automatic payment reminders. 
  • Attach Purchase Orders: Attach purchase order numbers to invoice emails so clients can swiftly locate and pay them on time without losing them in a sea of emails, thus initiating prompt payments. 
  • Bind Several Invoices to One Email: Amalgamate several invoices into one email, saving time on sending numerous emails and preventing bottlenecks in their customer payment processing. 
  • Detailed Customer Reports: Conceal specific columns in customer reports to analyze straightforward client totals to find the appropriate information in less time. 
  • Ease of Use: Obtain a plethora of features after hitting the F1 key. Features include improved help content, a search engine and access to certified financial experts via messaging and call back options to ensure users always have a helping hand if obstacles arise. 
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  • Modern Tools: Combine the need for structured and dynamic planning to empower organizations to make well-informed decisions in a quick and strategic manner.  
  • Financial Consolidation: Accelerate month-end closing cycles with financial consolidation. Enhance financial planning and reporting by leveraging data from a single source of truth. Get pre-built consolidation functionality for currency conversion and reporting, currency translation adjustment calculations and posting. Implement functional, administrative and setup changes without the need for IT experts. Boost teams’ agility when reacting to changes in organization, strategy, regulation and accounting protocol. Ensure trusted and consistent global reporting by automatically mapping financial data. Keep tabs from start to end on balances, and analyze financial data across consolidation activities.  
  • Structured Planning: Save time and reduce errors by automating labor-intensive financial planning activities. Avoid costly and disruptive customization fees, save time and reduce risk of error with predefined planning and reporting templates. Automate integration from any ERP, CRM or HCM. Create a single source of financial truth by automatically collecting, aggregating and validating financial data. Ensure consistency and accuracy by creating and modifying structured financial reports and elevating financial conversations. 
  • Dynamic Planning: Analyze, plan and make confident decisions with dynamic planning. Build custom-tailored financial models. Leverage customization across processes, functions and use cases. Configure planning experiences and give users the flexibility to plan for anything. Connect data sources from separate systems in one unified, cloud-based platform. Boost financial decision making with a single source of truth. Get insights and make course corrections with real-time data refreshing. Inculcate companywide collaboration culture by providing the right data at the right level to the right person.  
  • Integration: Automate data integration to reduce manual intervention and easily transform data with over 200 pre-built connectors. Adjust to automatic data processing with a growing integration platform. Check status and activity of deployed integrations from a centralized place. Ensure data integration process flows are repeatable, automated and secure, and provide audit trails required by internal and external auditors. Understand changes in data with multiple validation points across integration workflows. 
  • Reporting: Leverage reporting formats and delivery options to meet financial, management and ad hoc needs. Ensure data accuracy and transparency with self-service reporting and automated report distribution. Automate collection and aggregation of financial and business data into a single cloud-based platform. Ensure everyone is working with current and accurate information derived from a single source of truth. Boost financial IQ with self-service reporting capabilities. Create a more agile environment with impactful financial decision making. 
  • Annual Operating Plan: Build collaborative financial plans that align with business objectives. Turn annual plans into quarterly or monthly rolling forecasts, and check models for different scenarios to determine how to realign and adjust strategies.  
  • Workforce Planning: Plan accordingly for workforces by connecting HR, finance and operational data together. Create a headcount plan that can be adjusted to changing marketing requirements. Gain insight to build winning strategies and utilize employees as strategic assets. Boost financial IQ to understand and influence impacts on the financial health of workforce costs.  
  • Cash Flow Forecasting: Assess the impact of decisions by gaining complete control and visibility over finances. Reallocate cash by identifying trends and understanding levers. Mitigate cash flow risk by adjusting investment opportunities.  
  • Scenario Analysis: Analyze every option by planning across multiple case scenarios and assessing key drivers. Bring agility by optimizing current period results. Gain the flexibility to discover deeper insights across a broad range of models. Align executives and business partners with data-driven decisions. Check the impact of plan changes from every level with immediate results. 
  • Rolling Forecasts: Adjust to sudden changes, keep forecasts current and business agile with continually rolling planning periods. Automatically keep tabs on the impact of actuals on forecasted trends. Improve risk analysis by quickly identifying opportunities and risks as business landscapes evolve. Align rolling forecasts by collaborating across different departments. Gain real-time insights to redirect resources and priorities and align them with business objectives.  
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  • Inventory Management: Trace products, prices of goods and receive alerts when their inventory is running low with the inventory management accessory. This tool also enables effortless inventory adjustments to chronicle loss, theft and reduction. Users can draft purchase orders to stay in the loop of ordered goods. 
  • Monitor Sales Tax:  Determine which clients and merchandise are taxable and promptly document sales tax throughout the month with the sales tax apparatus. Users may leverage this tool to produce sales tax liability sheets to have an accurate snapshot of how much they owe. 
  • Personalized Invoices: Formulate sophisticated invoices and estimates to bill services, products and billable time and expenses with the invoicing component. This accessory also enables users to approve payments directly from invoices and deliver reminders to patrons about outstanding fees. 
  • Upkeep Bills: Trace bills and purchases in one system with the bill and accounts payable management tool. Users can upkeep cash flow, swiftly respond to unpaid bills and automatically receive early pay discounts. 
  • Monitor Profits and Expenditures: Link banks and credit cards to instantly export transactions with the income and expense tracking module. Users may also arrange their expenditures and profits by a particular customer, vendor or employee center. 
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Product Ranking

#116

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Accounting Software

#15

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Accounting Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 82 reviews
Great User Sentiment 4867 reviews
86%
of users recommend this product

Planful has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 82 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

86%
of users recommend this product

QuickBooks Pro has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 4867 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

n/a
4.6 (11)
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4.3 (1495)
4.29 (41)
4.34 (1503)
4.3 (41)
4.3 (1217)
n/a
4.2 (641)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Streamlined Financial Close: Planful helps automate routine tasks like data consolidation and report generation, which can significantly reduce the time it takes to close the books each month. This efficiency is often praised by users in fast-paced environments.
Improved Forecasting Accuracy: The platform's forecasting tools leverage historical data and predictive analytics to generate more accurate forecasts. Users appreciate this feature as it allows for better-informed decision-making and resource allocation.
Enhanced Collaboration: Planful provides a centralized platform for finance teams to collaborate on budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. This feature improves communication and transparency within the department, leading to more cohesive financial strategies.
Customizable Reporting: Users frequently highlight the ability to create custom reports tailored to their specific needs. This flexibility allows finance teams to analyze data from multiple angles and gain deeper insights into their financial performance.
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Interface: Approximately 58% of users who addressed this platform's interface said it's user friendly and easy to learn.
Performance: Of the users who discussed this solution's performance, 63% said it's easy to navigate, reliable, keeps everything organized and is useful for various industries.
Modules: Roughly 72% of users who mentioned this program's features said it has a simple payroll module, its invoices make businesses look more professional and seamlessly reconciles bank accounts.
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Steep Learning Curve: Many users find Planful's interface to be complex and unintuitive, requiring significant time investment to learn the system's intricacies. The abundance of features can be overwhelming for new users, leading to frustration and a slow adoption rate within organizations.
Customization Challenges: While Planful offers customization options, implementing them often requires advanced technical skills or reliance on the vendor's professional services, which can be costly. This limitation can hinder organizations with unique workflows or reporting needs from fully tailoring the software to their specific requirements.
Reporting Limitations: Some users report that generating specific or ad-hoc reports can be cumbersome in Planful. The system's pre-built reports may not always cater to every organization's needs, and creating custom reports may require technical expertise or additional support.
Performance Issues: A segment of users has mentioned experiencing slow loading times and occasional system lags, particularly when working with large datasets or complex reports. This can impact productivity and user satisfaction, especially for organizations with high data volumes or demanding reporting requirements.
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Implementation: Of the users who addressed this software's implementation process, 41% said it was difficult and lengthy.
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Planful has garnered a reputation for its robust financial reporting and analysis capabilities, particularly excelling in budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. Users appreciate the software's ability to handle complex financial models and its flexibility in generating custom reports. The platform's intuitive interface and user-friendly design have also been praised, making it accessible to both finance professionals and non-financial users. However, some users have noted that the initial setup and implementation process can be time-consuming and may require significant support from Planful's team. Additionally, while Planful offers a wide range of features, some users have expressed a desire for more advanced functionality in areas such as workforce planning and project accounting. Compared to competitors like Adaptive Insights and Vena Solutions, Planful stands out for its comprehensive financial consolidation capabilities and its ability to handle large volumes of data. Its reporting and analytics tools are also considered to be more user-friendly and customizable. However, Adaptive Insights may be a better choice for organizations seeking a more cloud-based solution with stronger integrations with other business applications. Vena Solutions, on the other hand, may be more suitable for companies with complex financial modeling needs due to its Excel-based interface. Overall, Planful is best suited for mid-sized to large enterprises with complex financial reporting and analysis requirements. Its strengths lie in its budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and reporting capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations looking to streamline their financial processes and gain deeper insights into their financial performance. However, companies with limited IT resources or those seeking a more cloud-based solution may want to consider alternative options.

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QuickBooks Pro is an effective bookkeeping ERP with a user-friendly interface and is simple to learn. Users swoon over this product's features - such as inventory management, sales tax, invoicing, bill management and more — that provide balance and income sheets, execute double-sided accounting, reconcile bank accounts and are qualified for small businesses. The performance is exceptional because it's reliable, easy to navigate, arranges everything in an orderly fashion and is suitable for numerous industries. Negatively, some users find that the implementation process is challenging and lengthy. Overall, the majority see this program as a handy asset.

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