Planful vs ExpenseWire

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Our analysts compared Planful vs ExpenseWire 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
ExpenseWire 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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Expensewire is a SaaS expense management software that helps businesses of any scale and size. It manages, simplifies and organizes expenses while ensuring compliance and expediting reimbursements. The module eliminates excessive spending and helps users take control of the organization’s reporting submissions, approvals, and more. Take advantage of on-the-go access to submit, review and manage expenses with its mobile capabilities.
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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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  • Mobile: Access data, capture and upload receipts, review and approve the expense anytime and anywhere with a stable internet connection.  
  • Flexible: Work with any credit card and seamlessly integrate with the existing payroll, accounting system or CRM. Automate approval workflows and approve reports quickly and easily.  
  • Relaible: Get the business up and running in no time with its uptime of 99.9%. Save time with its automatic data tracking, editing and submissions. Boost productivity with intuitive SaaS solutions. 
  • Accurate: Get rid of manual expense reporting and OCR systems that are prone to errors. Provide rich insights into the business for better control and improved decision making.  
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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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  • Expense Submission: Pull data such as travel and expense forms, hotel itineraries, personal and credit card transactions, receipts and create expense reports. Save time by keeping common transactions in the database. Converts transactions into appropriate currencies for international travelers. 
  • Expense Approval: Give managers the freedom to review and approve expense reports without involving any paperwork. Set policy rules in the system, so expenses are pre-approved, making reviews and approvals easier and faster.
  • Expense Report Automation: Automate and streamline back office tasks to minimize the possibility of errors and make the process more efficient. Free up workers so that they can focus on more important business objectives. 
  • Quick Reimbursement: Pay accounting professionals faster with an accelerated reimbursement process with batch payment processing. Furthermore, save staff hours of data entry work and simplify expense reimbursement processing with automation. 
  • Compliance Management: Set standards and protocols to ensure compliance. Establish a spending limit and expense policies to help staff know when a certain payment is against company policy. Reduce excessive spending. 
  • Smart Categorization: Categorize transactions based on predefined rules for the transaction category. Eliminate the need to manually enter data. 
  • Digital Receipt Management: Provide an electronic copy of the receipt which can be later retrieved by the clients in case of chargebacks or reconciliation issues. 
  • Mileage Tracking: Track, manage and control mileage expenses in a simple, accurate and reliable way. 
  • Mobile Expense Management: Take a receipt of the picture and upload it to attach it to the expense report. Easily access expense report. Review, approve and deny submitted expenses on your schedule.  
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#135

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 82 reviews
Fair User Sentiment 29 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.

66%
of users recommend this product

ExpenseWire has a 'fair' User Satisfaction Rating of 66% when considering 29 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.29 (41)
3.2 (15)
4.3 (41)
3.4 (14)

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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Automated Expense Reports: Users praise ExpenseWire for automating the process of creating expense reports, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing errors.
Mobile Accessibility: The mobile app allows users to snap pictures of receipts and upload them directly to the platform, making expense tracking convenient and efficient.
Real-time Expense Tracking: Users appreciate the ability to track expenses in real-time, providing a clear view of spending patterns and budget adherence.
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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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Limited Integrations: Users express frustration over ExpenseWire's limited third-party integrations, particularly its lack of seamless integration with popular accounting software like QuickBooks Online or Xero. This forces businesses to manually export and import data, leading to increased workload and potential errors.
Clunky Mobile App: The mobile app's user interface is frequently criticized for being unintuitive and difficult to navigate. Users report experiencing glitches and slow loading times, making it cumbersome to track expenses on the go.
Reporting Limitations: ExpenseWire's reporting features are considered basic and lack the flexibility and customization options needed by many businesses. Users desire more comprehensive reporting capabilities to gain deeper insights into spending patterns and identify areas for cost optimization.
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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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ExpenseWire users are buzzing about its seamless integration with Paychex payroll, making it a breeze to reimburse employees. The software's intuitive interface and mobile app receive high praise, allowing users to snap pics of receipts and submit expense reports on the go. ExpenseWire's robust reporting tools provide valuable insights into spending patterns, empowering businesses to make data-driven decisions. However, some users find the customization options limiting, particularly for complex approval workflows or unique expense categories. ExpenseWire shines for small to medium-sized businesses already using Paychex payroll, offering a streamlined expense management solution that plays well with their existing systems.

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