30 Sep
2024
9 min

10 Financial Planning Tools to Consider in 2024

Explore the top financial planning tools to help you optimize cash flow, ensure financial stability, and drive sustainable growth for your business.
financial-planning-tools

Financial planning is an absolute necessity to efficiently manage your business, allocate resources, and anticipate and prepare for cash and market fluctuations.

Since it is a vast area, trying to manage all the aspects on your own is not only time-consuming and overwhelming but also error-prone.

This is where financial planning tools jump in. If you are unsure which one to choose, you’re in the right place.

Browse through our list of top 10 financial planning tools to streamline your financial operations smoothly.

Let’s dive in!

10 Financial Planning Tools To Give It a Go

financial-planning-tools-overview

*All pros and cons are based on users’ G2, Capterra, and GetApp reviews.

1. Puls Project

puls-homepage

Puls Project is a cash flow and liquidity management tool that uses real-time data to help SMBs enhance operational efficiency and financial activity planning.

A feature that sets Puls Project apart from similar tools is that it also offers loan possibilities to better allocate resources and close potential cash gaps.

Key Features:

1. Cash Flow Planner

Our Planner tool relies on accurate and up-to-date data, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and accurate forecasts.

puls-cashflow-planner

Furthermore, you can:

Track balances and spending across different accounts and companies.

Create future-dated draft payments to see the impact on your balance sheet immediately so you can take delayed payments, relocate resources, etc.

Automate expense tracking by inputting regular expenses only once. You will automatically see them the next month.

Monitor your cash flow, and we’ll let you know if we spot a cash gap that requires your attention.

2. Multi-banking Capabilities

Puls Project allows you to centralize and manage all your bank accounts in a single view, enabling better oversight without switching tabs.

Thus, you can:

Link any bank account from over 4,000 banks.

puls-multibanking

View and manage all companies and accounts on a single dashboard, which shows not only all transactions and accounts but also the Liquidity Planner, Payments, and Financing.

Our system syncs all the data that flows in multiple times a day, so you will have a real-time view you can rely on for data-driven decisions.

Group financial activities across multiple banks and companies to help you with easier expense tracking, spending optimization, compliance, and insights.

Furthermore, you can also label transactions to group financial activities based on criteria such as project, department, or purpose.

puls-assign-labels

Analyze profitability by label, category, counterparty, company, or account to see where you can improve and what works smoothly.

Have a unified view of all accounts' balances, enabling you to manage invoice payments efficiently and track their history.

puls-payments

3. Loan Possibilities

We issue loans from our credit fund registered with BaFin, meaning you can get loans very simply, without complex forms, third parties, or banks.

The whole process takes only 3 steps.

puls-loan-process

After connecting your bank account safely, you can:

✨ Get up to €100,000 for 12 months, and pay back only what you spent.

✨ Achieve the highest possible credit limit by linking all bank accounts from your companies.

Tailor your loan to your needs and choose the desired amount and period.

puls-loan-calculator

Pricing

Puls Project has a pay-as-you-go system: €1 per day per feature, allowing you to turn the features on and off unlimited times.

Moreover, you can test the tool for a few days and turn it off.

2. QuickBooks Online

quickbooks-online-homepage

QuickBooks Online is part of the Intuit group and provides various accounting services for small businesses.

Thus, it provides tools to help you with expense tracking, invoices, reports, income, etc.

Key Features:

Invoicing—Enables you to create custom invoices and track the statuses, add VAT, discounts, shipping, etc., send automatic reminders, and follow up on overdue invoices.

The Accounting Reports — Generates P&L reports, custom balance sheets, charts, and graphs to compare year-over-year income and expenses.

Inventory Management —  Auto-updates your inventory and shows what's in stock and on order, auto-calculates the cost of each product sold using FIFO, etc.

The Bank Feeds — Automatically tracks and manages bank transactions, imports revenue and expense data, and gives transaction reports.

Integrations — Allows you to connect multiple apps spanning CRM, Invoicing, Financing, Project Management, Accounting, and other categories.

Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers 4 Premium Plans, currently starting at €5.70 per month, otherwise at €19.

Each plan has a 30-day Free Trial.

quickbooks-pricing

3. Sage Intacct

sage-intact-homepage

Sage Intacct is cloud finance software with accounting functionalities to budget, analyze, and plan your finances.

It also provides project accounting services and financial reporting.

Key Features:

Core Financials — Automate AP and AR-related activities, such as the order management cycle, invoice and payment tracking, bank reconciliations, etc.

The Reporting Functionality — Offers 150+ granular, ready-made real-time financial reports on income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, etc.

AI-powered Intelligent GL™ —  Reports on transactions across multiple financial standards, such as GAAP, IFRS, tax and cash basis, etc.

Planning — Centralizes your plans, budgets, and forecasts and allows 'what if' scenario modeling.

The Marketplace provides integrations with various apps from AP Automation, AR Automation & Collections, Budgeting & Planning, and other categories.

Pricing

Sage Intacct has custom pricing based on the modules you want to include.

4. SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC)

sap-homepage

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) focuses on budgeting, planning, and financial consolidation for bigger businesses.

Thus, it helps you create financial plans, refine budgeting processes, and get financial reports.

Key Features:

Planning — Provides a centralized and unified solution for planning

Consolidation — Automates the consolidation of financial data for better reporting.

Budgeting and Forecasting — Enables what-if modeling and scenario planning to assess budget suitability in real time.

Built-In Financial Intelligence — Automates aggregations, allocations, and other manual processes to speed up planning cycles.

Pricing

Not provided, but according to reviews, it can get pricey, and there’s no Free Trial.

5. Jirav

jirav-homepage

Jirav is a reporting and planning tool for accounting firms and SMBs. 

It provides financial reporting and forecasting, as well as budgeting and scenario planning features.

Regarding integrations, you can import your general ledger data into Jirav and integrate it with various Accounting, Workforce and HRIS, and other platforms.

Key Features:

Planning Automation — Allows you to plan at the company level or bring in departmental-level planning, use operational data to determine the impact on deferred revenue, AR, etc.

The Scenario Analysis — Enables you to compare multiple “what if” scenarios across all financials.

Auto Forecast — Analyzes past performance, builds and adjusts forecasts based on the latest actuals, and predicts the future.

Financial and Management Reporting — Provides pre-designed templates with customizable 3-way financials, customizable reports, etc.

Customizable Dashboards —  Visualize data, including financial and non-financial metrics and embedded graphics.

Pricing

Jirav has 2 Premium Safari Plans, starting from $20,000.

jirav-pricing

6. Cube

cube-homepage

Cube is an FP&A platform offering solutions to help you plan, report and forecast. It has native Excel and Google Sheet integrations.

Regarding other integrations, it integrates with accounting and finance, HR, ATS, billing and operations, sales and marketing, and business intelligence tools.

Key Features:

Planning and Modeling —  Automates the processes of gathering, reconciling, and cleaning data.

Multi-currency Support — Assess your financials in both your local and reporting currencies.

Multi-scenario Analysis — Models how changes may affect overall outputs.

Centralized Formulas and KPIs — Allows you to store and manage all your calculations in a central location.

Customizable Dashboards — Build and share customizable dashboards.

Pricing

Cube has 3 Premium Plans, starting from $1500 monthly.

cube-pricing

7. Vena

vena-homepage

Vena is financial planning and analysis software with a centralized database that connects and consolidates your data.

It has native integrations with Microsoft tools but also integrates with ERP and Accounting Systems, CRM, HRIS, Storage systems, etc.

Key Features:

Modeling — Allows you to do “What-If” Analysis to test assumptions and visualize the outcome.

Central Database—Integrates and consolidates data from all your source systems. It includes both a relational/OLTP database and an in-memory OLAP database.

CapEx — Pre-built solution to calculate depreciation and amortization of existing assets.

Budgeting — Enables you to do top-down and bottom-up budgeting, scenario analysis, and forecast predictions.

Automate Variance Analysis — Allows you to create forecasts using driver-based calculations for salaries, bonuses, benefits, taxes, and other labor expenses. 

Pricing

Vena has 2 Premium Plans with custom pricing based on your user case and company size.

8. Board

board-homepage

Board is a financial planning platform that focuses on data and figures analysis for improved decision-making.

Other major aspects that Board covers belong to the Reporting, Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting sectors.

Key Features:

Planning — Allows you to aggregate, spread, and run real-time calculations on large data sets.

The Excel® Add-in —  Enables you to work offline and synchronize data automatically when you reconnect.

ERP Database Write-back — Automatically writes back data-entry cycle outcomes directly into the ERP database.

Allocation Models — Enable you to input values and spread them to more detailed levels through customizable allocation patterns.

Scenario Comparison — Allows you to generate different scenarios or versions of operating plans and financial plans.

Pricing

Board provides a customized quote based on your unique challenges.

9. Planful

planful-homepage

Planful caters to mid-market companies and provides planning, consolidation, analysis, cash flow management, and financial reporting solutions.

The platform also offers a wide range of pre-built connections to various systems and open-access RESTful APIs.

Key Features:

AI-driven Anomaly Detection — Alerts you about flags risk, errors, and outliers, so you can take corrective actions. 

ML-driven Planning Projections —  Analyzes past data to build forecasts and budgets.

Scenario Modeling — Models multiple scenarios to determine optimal adjustments and pivots.

Accounting — Handles complex GL structures across your entities and helps with audit tracking.

Automated Reporting — Allows you to automate data load and validation.

Pricing

Planful’s pricing is available upon request.

10. Commitly

commitly-homepage

Commitly is a cash flow management and planning platform for SMBs that provides tools for cash flow planning and management, AR and AP management, etc.

Overall, it offers features to streamline financial planning and integrations with banks and ERP systems as well as with Stripe, PayPal, and similar platforms.

Key Features:

Cash Flow Planning — Helps you create liquidity plans based on various data and shows real-time updates and data synchronization from bank accounts.

Automated Planning Process — Automates planning processes with any number of plan revisions per year - including controlling and variance analyses.

Liquidity Overview —Gives you a daily updated overview of the cash position.

Forecasting — Helps you with real-time liquidity forecasting with detailed variance analysis.

AR/AP Management — Records and monitors open items and automatically recognizes and displays overdue invoices, outstanding payments, and invoice statuses.

Pricing

Commitly has 4 Premium Plans, starting from €55 per month, each with a 14-day Free Trial.

commitly-pricing

What is The Best Financial Planning Tool For Your Business?

Many factors go into choosing the best financial planning tool for your business, such as size, budget, current needs, and flexibility.

Cube and Vena can be the right choice if you are looking for flexible and customizable systems. 

Jirav and Board, on the other hand, might be your optimal choice if you focus on reporting capabilities. 

Although all financial planning tools we’ve included are here for a good reason, Puls Project is the only one that provides loaning capabilities, a crucial aspect for improved financial planning.

Why Go for Puls Project?

Puls Project is an all-encompassing financial tool that provides solutions that unify all your transactions and financial activities in a single place for comprehensive planning and management.

With Puls, you can:

💰 Plan different cash flow scenarios based on real-time data.

💰 See future cash balance with reliable forecast.

💰 Close all the liquidity gaps with our available loan possibilities.

💰 Categorize your transactions to keep them up-to-date.

💰 See all the current and future balances on a single timeline to better plan your expenses.

💰 And so much more.

Ready to see how Puls Project can help you?

Sign up for Puls Project today and transform the way you run and plan your finances.

Keep Learning:

9 Best Liquidity Planning Software To Try

Cash Burn Rate for Better Cash Control: Explanation

6 Tips on How to Make Financial Projections

30 Sep
2024
9 min

10 Financial Planning Tools to Consider in 2024

Explore the top financial planning tools to help you optimize cash flow, ensure financial stability, and drive sustainable growth for your business.
financial-planning-tools

Financial planning is an absolute necessity to efficiently manage your business, allocate resources, and anticipate and prepare for cash and market fluctuations.

Since it is a vast area, trying to manage all the aspects on your own is not only time-consuming and overwhelming but also error-prone.

This is where financial planning tools jump in. If you are unsure which one to choose, you’re in the right place.

Browse through our list of top 10 financial planning tools to streamline your financial operations smoothly.

Let’s dive in!

10 Financial Planning Tools To Give It a Go

financial-planning-tools-overview

*All pros and cons are based on users’ G2, Capterra, and GetApp reviews.

1. Puls Project

puls-homepage

Puls Project is a cash flow and liquidity management tool that uses real-time data to help SMBs enhance operational efficiency and financial activity planning.

A feature that sets Puls Project apart from similar tools is that it also offers loan possibilities to better allocate resources and close potential cash gaps.

Key Features:

1. Cash Flow Planner

Our Planner tool relies on accurate and up-to-date data, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and accurate forecasts.

puls-cashflow-planner

Furthermore, you can:

Track balances and spending across different accounts and companies.

Create future-dated draft payments to see the impact on your balance sheet immediately so you can take delayed payments, relocate resources, etc.

Automate expense tracking by inputting regular expenses only once. You will automatically see them the next month.

Monitor your cash flow, and we’ll let you know if we spot a cash gap that requires your attention.

2. Multi-banking Capabilities

Puls Project allows you to centralize and manage all your bank accounts in a single view, enabling better oversight without switching tabs.

Thus, you can:

Link any bank account from over 4,000 banks.

puls-multibanking

View and manage all companies and accounts on a single dashboard, which shows not only all transactions and accounts but also the Liquidity Planner, Payments, and Financing.

Our system syncs all the data that flows in multiple times a day, so you will have a real-time view you can rely on for data-driven decisions.

Group financial activities across multiple banks and companies to help you with easier expense tracking, spending optimization, compliance, and insights.

Furthermore, you can also label transactions to group financial activities based on criteria such as project, department, or purpose.

puls-assign-labels

Analyze profitability by label, category, counterparty, company, or account to see where you can improve and what works smoothly.

Have a unified view of all accounts' balances, enabling you to manage invoice payments efficiently and track their history.

puls-payments

3. Loan Possibilities

We issue loans from our credit fund registered with BaFin, meaning you can get loans very simply, without complex forms, third parties, or banks.

The whole process takes only 3 steps.

puls-loan-process

After connecting your bank account safely, you can:

✨ Get up to €100,000 for 12 months, and pay back only what you spent.

✨ Achieve the highest possible credit limit by linking all bank accounts from your companies.

Tailor your loan to your needs and choose the desired amount and period.

puls-loan-calculator

Pricing

Puls Project has a pay-as-you-go system: €1 per day per feature, allowing you to turn the features on and off unlimited times.

Moreover, you can test the tool for a few days and turn it off.

2. QuickBooks Online

quickbooks-online-homepage

QuickBooks Online is part of the Intuit group and provides various accounting services for small businesses.

Thus, it provides tools to help you with expense tracking, invoices, reports, income, etc.

Key Features:

Invoicing—Enables you to create custom invoices and track the statuses, add VAT, discounts, shipping, etc., send automatic reminders, and follow up on overdue invoices.

The Accounting Reports — Generates P&L reports, custom balance sheets, charts, and graphs to compare year-over-year income and expenses.

Inventory Management —  Auto-updates your inventory and shows what's in stock and on order, auto-calculates the cost of each product sold using FIFO, etc.

The Bank Feeds — Automatically tracks and manages bank transactions, imports revenue and expense data, and gives transaction reports.

Integrations — Allows you to connect multiple apps spanning CRM, Invoicing, Financing, Project Management, Accounting, and other categories.

Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers 4 Premium Plans, currently starting at €5.70 per month, otherwise at €19.

Each plan has a 30-day Free Trial.

quickbooks-pricing

3. Sage Intacct

sage-intact-homepage

Sage Intacct is cloud finance software with accounting functionalities to budget, analyze, and plan your finances.

It also provides project accounting services and financial reporting.

Key Features:

Core Financials — Automate AP and AR-related activities, such as the order management cycle, invoice and payment tracking, bank reconciliations, etc.

The Reporting Functionality — Offers 150+ granular, ready-made real-time financial reports on income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, etc.

AI-powered Intelligent GL™ —  Reports on transactions across multiple financial standards, such as GAAP, IFRS, tax and cash basis, etc.

Planning — Centralizes your plans, budgets, and forecasts and allows 'what if' scenario modeling.

The Marketplace provides integrations with various apps from AP Automation, AR Automation & Collections, Budgeting & Planning, and other categories.

Pricing

Sage Intacct has custom pricing based on the modules you want to include.

4. SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC)

sap-homepage

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) focuses on budgeting, planning, and financial consolidation for bigger businesses.

Thus, it helps you create financial plans, refine budgeting processes, and get financial reports.

Key Features:

Planning — Provides a centralized and unified solution for planning

Consolidation — Automates the consolidation of financial data for better reporting.

Budgeting and Forecasting — Enables what-if modeling and scenario planning to assess budget suitability in real time.

Built-In Financial Intelligence — Automates aggregations, allocations, and other manual processes to speed up planning cycles.

Pricing

Not provided, but according to reviews, it can get pricey, and there’s no Free Trial.

5. Jirav

jirav-homepage

Jirav is a reporting and planning tool for accounting firms and SMBs. 

It provides financial reporting and forecasting, as well as budgeting and scenario planning features.

Regarding integrations, you can import your general ledger data into Jirav and integrate it with various Accounting, Workforce and HRIS, and other platforms.

Key Features:

Planning Automation — Allows you to plan at the company level or bring in departmental-level planning, use operational data to determine the impact on deferred revenue, AR, etc.

The Scenario Analysis — Enables you to compare multiple “what if” scenarios across all financials.

Auto Forecast — Analyzes past performance, builds and adjusts forecasts based on the latest actuals, and predicts the future.

Financial and Management Reporting — Provides pre-designed templates with customizable 3-way financials, customizable reports, etc.

Customizable Dashboards —  Visualize data, including financial and non-financial metrics and embedded graphics.

Pricing

Jirav has 2 Premium Safari Plans, starting from $20,000.

jirav-pricing

6. Cube

cube-homepage

Cube is an FP&A platform offering solutions to help you plan, report and forecast. It has native Excel and Google Sheet integrations.

Regarding other integrations, it integrates with accounting and finance, HR, ATS, billing and operations, sales and marketing, and business intelligence tools.

Key Features:

Planning and Modeling —  Automates the processes of gathering, reconciling, and cleaning data.

Multi-currency Support — Assess your financials in both your local and reporting currencies.

Multi-scenario Analysis — Models how changes may affect overall outputs.

Centralized Formulas and KPIs — Allows you to store and manage all your calculations in a central location.

Customizable Dashboards — Build and share customizable dashboards.

Pricing

Cube has 3 Premium Plans, starting from $1500 monthly.

cube-pricing

7. Vena

vena-homepage

Vena is financial planning and analysis software with a centralized database that connects and consolidates your data.

It has native integrations with Microsoft tools but also integrates with ERP and Accounting Systems, CRM, HRIS, Storage systems, etc.

Key Features:

Modeling — Allows you to do “What-If” Analysis to test assumptions and visualize the outcome.

Central Database—Integrates and consolidates data from all your source systems. It includes both a relational/OLTP database and an in-memory OLAP database.

CapEx — Pre-built solution to calculate depreciation and amortization of existing assets.

Budgeting — Enables you to do top-down and bottom-up budgeting, scenario analysis, and forecast predictions.

Automate Variance Analysis — Allows you to create forecasts using driver-based calculations for salaries, bonuses, benefits, taxes, and other labor expenses. 

Pricing

Vena has 2 Premium Plans with custom pricing based on your user case and company size.

8. Board

board-homepage

Board is a financial planning platform that focuses on data and figures analysis for improved decision-making.

Other major aspects that Board covers belong to the Reporting, Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting sectors.

Key Features:

Planning — Allows you to aggregate, spread, and run real-time calculations on large data sets.

The Excel® Add-in —  Enables you to work offline and synchronize data automatically when you reconnect.

ERP Database Write-back — Automatically writes back data-entry cycle outcomes directly into the ERP database.

Allocation Models — Enable you to input values and spread them to more detailed levels through customizable allocation patterns.

Scenario Comparison — Allows you to generate different scenarios or versions of operating plans and financial plans.

Pricing

Board provides a customized quote based on your unique challenges.

9. Planful

planful-homepage

Planful caters to mid-market companies and provides planning, consolidation, analysis, cash flow management, and financial reporting solutions.

The platform also offers a wide range of pre-built connections to various systems and open-access RESTful APIs.

Key Features:

AI-driven Anomaly Detection — Alerts you about flags risk, errors, and outliers, so you can take corrective actions. 

ML-driven Planning Projections —  Analyzes past data to build forecasts and budgets.

Scenario Modeling — Models multiple scenarios to determine optimal adjustments and pivots.

Accounting — Handles complex GL structures across your entities and helps with audit tracking.

Automated Reporting — Allows you to automate data load and validation.

Pricing

Planful’s pricing is available upon request.

10. Commitly

commitly-homepage

Commitly is a cash flow management and planning platform for SMBs that provides tools for cash flow planning and management, AR and AP management, etc.

Overall, it offers features to streamline financial planning and integrations with banks and ERP systems as well as with Stripe, PayPal, and similar platforms.

Key Features:

Cash Flow Planning — Helps you create liquidity plans based on various data and shows real-time updates and data synchronization from bank accounts.

Automated Planning Process — Automates planning processes with any number of plan revisions per year - including controlling and variance analyses.

Liquidity Overview —Gives you a daily updated overview of the cash position.

Forecasting — Helps you with real-time liquidity forecasting with detailed variance analysis.

AR/AP Management — Records and monitors open items and automatically recognizes and displays overdue invoices, outstanding payments, and invoice statuses.

Pricing

Commitly has 4 Premium Plans, starting from €55 per month, each with a 14-day Free Trial.

commitly-pricing

What is The Best Financial Planning Tool For Your Business?

Many factors go into choosing the best financial planning tool for your business, such as size, budget, current needs, and flexibility.

Cube and Vena can be the right choice if you are looking for flexible and customizable systems. 

Jirav and Board, on the other hand, might be your optimal choice if you focus on reporting capabilities. 

Although all financial planning tools we’ve included are here for a good reason, Puls Project is the only one that provides loaning capabilities, a crucial aspect for improved financial planning.

Why Go for Puls Project?

Puls Project is an all-encompassing financial tool that provides solutions that unify all your transactions and financial activities in a single place for comprehensive planning and management.

With Puls, you can:

💰 Plan different cash flow scenarios based on real-time data.

💰 See future cash balance with reliable forecast.

💰 Close all the liquidity gaps with our available loan possibilities.

💰 Categorize your transactions to keep them up-to-date.

💰 See all the current and future balances on a single timeline to better plan your expenses.

💰 And so much more.

Ready to see how Puls Project can help you?

Sign up for Puls Project today and transform the way you run and plan your finances.

Keep Learning:

9 Best Liquidity Planning Software To Try

Cash Burn Rate for Better Cash Control: Explanation

6 Tips on How to Make Financial Projections

Manage your finances in Puls, and always have access to instant funding up to €100,000

Simply register and connect your bank account

Try now

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