6 Best Financial Forecasting Software & Tools: a Detailed Review
Three years ago, who would have predicted a global pandemic and a war that toppled the economy upside down? Not us.
Yet, Fuelfinance flourishes even in the wake of two global crises that broke many companies – like the 86% of businesses from this study, which saw a drop in revenue during the COVID-19 reign.
How? We always plan for the worst possible scenario. Our best tip is to make your baseline plan 5-10% worse than last month's average. That way, you're always prepared when things go south – and pleasantly surprised when they don't.
We picked out the top six financial forecasting software to help you keep your startup profitable and growing, no matter what life throws at you.
6 best financial forecasting software & tools
Fuelfinance
Fuelfinance is the financial management software that provides you with more than just financial forecasting tools. You also get a manager who explains nuances, makes sure our solutions work best for you and provides weekly guidance to ensure you stay on track to your financial goals. We can become your fractional CFO, streamlining the forecasting processes so you won't have to hire an in-house financial expert.
Features
Spreadsheets and graphs: They're clean, precise, cloud-based and automated
Dashboards: You get dedicated dashboards, including the KPIs you should focus on, fully customizable and tailored to your needs
Monthly updates: These are automatic and can be integrated with your existing reports and departments
Unit economics: Compare your lifetime value (LTV) with customer acquisition cost (CAC), correct marketing and sales forecasting and pick out non-obvious expenses
Plan/Actual analysis tools: They allow to achieve high-precision forecasting
Integrations: Google Spreadsheets, AWS, Stripe, Gusto, Shopify, Salesforce, QuickBooks and other popular third-party services
Pricing
Fuelfinance helps you save up to 90% of the cost of hiring an in-house specialist or even an outsourced CFO to handle your spreadsheets and financial data. We offer reasonable and transparent prices for complex financial reporting and scenario planning. These are our pricing options:
Essential Quarterly: $1,199/month, best for small businesses without accounting and finance teams
Essential Monthly: $1,399/month, if you want to test things out before you commit
Growth Quarterly: $2,199/month, best for growing businesses that need help navigating their growing budgets
Growth Monthly: $2,499/month, to test out our additional features before you commit
No time to explain: Custom pricing, best for large and complex organizations or startups that are way past their takeoff stage
To give you a better perspective, according to Investopedia specialists, a CFO charges more than $400,000 annually.
Here are a couple of case studies from our customers to give you a better view of what you can achieve with Fuelfinance financial forecasts:
Petcube: One of Petcube’s main problems was the inability to do an accurate forecast. Together, we created accurate forecasts with only a 2-5% deviation from planned results. We gave Petcube a 5x better solution, 10x cheaper than an in-house financial department, increasing their profitability and peace of mind.
O0 Design: We helped to automate the collection of all actual data from different sources. 80% of transactions were automatically categorized. Using pipeline analytics, we built accurate revenue forecasts and connected them with hiring and expense planning. All of that resulted in cutting time spent on financial management by half and doubling their YoY growth.
Hampton: Fuelfinance allows them to store all financially relevant data in one place. We helped reduce financial risks and create easily readable reports built with their business needs in mind. This reduced the time spent on preparing reports by up to 24 hours.
Anaplan is an enterprise modeling and planning service for managing finances, sales, supply chains, workforce and marketing. It provides you with real-time data for contextualizing your performance and predicting outcomes to help you make faster, confident decisions. The tools you get streamline budgeting, forecasting, modeling, pricing optimization, analysis and other financial management tasks.
HyperBlock®: This is an in-memory calculation engine that gives you access to a centralized database for efficient cross-departmental, collaborative planning
Self-serve platform: It includes proprietary AI technology that collects information in real time from businesses worldwide to give you actionable external data
Modeling capabilities: Machine learning algorithms continuously self-optimize to give you customizable, flexible and predictive modeling options with aggressive, conservative and “what-if” scenario planning
Flexible, driver-based forecasts: Your models can include nuances of goods, services, subscriptions, licenses etc., with unlimited dimension hierarchies and lists
Data linking: Connect finance, sales and operations information to create a big-picture financial strategy
Integrations: Manual data integration, Dell Boomi, DocuSign (only for Professional and Enterprise customers), HyperConnect, MuleSoft, Informatica Cloud, Power BI Desktop, Tableau, Salesforce, SnapLogic, Workiva Chains and several API options
Pricing
This budgeting and forecasting software has three tiers – Basic, Professional and Enterprise. However, the service provider doesn't offer pricing information on their website.
Keep in mind that you may be paying for more features than you need since this is a complex tool with functions that go beyond financial performance analysis.
Jirav is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis solution for financial budgeting, accounting and forecasting. It's designed to work outside of spreadsheets. This budget planning and accounting software solution is fully customizable, meaning it lets you track, predict and share the data relevant to your company.
Cube is an intuitive FP&A tool that facilitates better workday adaptive planning without changing your existing systems. It eliminates all manual work and gives you real-time insights necessary for fast and agile strategizing.
Vena is a complete planning platform with pre-built solutions that help you automate time-consuming tasks related to planning your financial processes. It focuses primarily on structured, template-driven FP&A standardization in an Excel-type interface powered with additional functionalities and automations.
Financial planning: Includes rolling forecasts, what-if scenarios, complex modeling capabilities
Financial analysis: Allows you to compare departments, create ad-hoc reports and get all kinds of strategic insights
Budgeting: Plan budgets usingtop-down, bottom-up, zero-based or driver-based requirements
Financial close: Helps you handle all of the end-of-the-month processes, like financial consolidations, account reconciliations and tax provisioning
Pre-configured FP&A solutions: You can customize this system to fit your needs, but it's also great if you want a prescriptive solution that doesn't require you to change anything
Financial statements: P&L, balance sheet and cash flow
Dashboards: Operating expense view, predictive analysis, trend analysis, headcount and payroll etc. – all in a familiar Excel interface
Integrations: NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dropbox, OneDrive, SFTP, SharePoint
Pricing
Vena has two pricing models – Professional and Complete. However, you won't find their costs on the website.
Datarails is a great tool for organizing and sifting through your Excel data, making it more visual and clear. This financial forecasting software enables professionals to collect, report and analyze information without changing how they work. It serves as a unified database of all your financial, organizational and forecasting data.
Data visualization: Easily readable graphs and charts that sum up your financial metrics (e.g., YTD revenue, monthly revenue, revenue by region)
Budgeting: Estimate costs and revenues with collection management, approvals, deadlines and a budget completion bar
Financial reporting: Your P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statements are automated, readable and sharable
Variance analysis: Examine key variance drivers, headcount, sales performance, COGS and more for each month, comparing the actual data to your projections
Integrations: Microsoft Excel, Salesforce, Oracle Cloud ERP, Xero
Pricing
Each Datarails budgeting and forecasting package is tailored individually, with custom pricing for every case.
Best financial forecasting software & tools: Selection criteria
Features
The budgeting and forecasting software features you choose have to fit your startup's financial model and strategy needs, e.g., you might need a cloud-based accounting solution if you want an all-in-one finance tool or a multi-currency option if you're handling business overseas.
On top of that, these are some of the basic forecasting tools you need for efficient projections:
Forecasting models: The tools above support many methods, like trend analysis, regression analysis, scenario modeling and predictive analytics
Scenario analysis: Complete with adaptability to changing variables, they'll help you understand the impact of different market conditions or business decisions
Automation and AI: These modern tools streamline data processing, trend identification and accurate, timely forecast generations
Customization: Things like adjusting parameters, adding custom formulas and tailoring reports are necessary so you get insights that impact your company
Dashboard clarity: You can judge for yourself based on the screenshots we provided
Integrations
Integrations are necessary to ensure a free flow of information between your apps. They minimize or eliminate the need for time-consuming manual data entry. Consequently, they reduce the risk of errors, improve accuracy and prevent redundancy. Valuable integrations include:
Payroll systems
Banks
CRMs
Ecommerce platforms
Industry-specific applications
Pricing
Look for budgeting and forecasting software that balances features with cost well. The forecasting software cost should be clear, with a pricing model that allows you to see what you're signing up for.
With these solutions, you can save thousands annually compared to hiring a whole team of financial experts.
Customer feedback
Customer opinions give you an idea about how satisfied other users are with the financial forecasting tool. They provide insights about its reliability and aspects that the provider might not mention on their product page.
Best financial forecasting software & tools: Comparison table
Ready to up your financial forecasting game?
You can't ignore your finances if you want to build a successful business. But writing financial projections doesn't have to mean more headaches or sleepless nights. With the right financial forecasting software, it can become more than easy – it can be fun. Yes, you read that right.
Forget wasting time on spreadsheets and manual data input. Fuelfinance does all that for you, complete with automations that will speed things up like you won't believe and expert support whenever you need it.
Financial planning is all about making projections for the near and far future budgets, expenses and revenue of a company.
A dedicated software solution for financial forecasts helps FP&A teams streamline these operations. It can pull, organize and analyze financial data automatically to give you a clear understanding of your situation with minimal manual work.
What are the tools used in financial forecasting?
Some popular budgeting and forecasting software include Fuelfinance, Anaplan, Jirav, Cube, Vena and Datarails, but also other tools not mentioned in this list, like IBM Planning Analytics, Centage’s Planning Maestro or Oracle Hyperion Planning.
What is the best tool for forecasting?
The best forecasting software for your financial and operational planning could be our Fuelfinance. It's a smart, automated and intuitive program that also gives you access to a team of financial professionals.
How do you create a financial forecast?
Start with historical data collection (balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, operational metrics). If you don't have any, use industry trends and market trends research. Next, categorize the gathered information.
Based on the organized data, you can create realistic projections – it's easiest when you use forecasting software products that allow you to plan for various scenarios. Remember that this is an ongoing process, and you must update information regularly.
