Excellent, Intuitive program

The implementation of the product was smooth. The reporting capabilities of the program have exceeded my expectations. In addition, every person I've been in contact with at Centage has expert level knowledge of the program and any issues have been resolved immediately.

Pros

The best part of this software are the drivers we use to manage our sales budget. We have several LLCs that are within this program. The ability to expand the way we create our budgets has given us greater insight into where we can save money. The elimination of finding "human error" input in an excel budget has alleviated so much time.

Cons

I have yet to find anything I don't like about this product.

Planning Maestro

Centage has been great to work with, from implementation to today, they have been a true partner on our budgeting and forecasting journey. I've always been happy to recommend them and their software.

Pros

Planning Maestro brought a platform that allowed us to integrate into our existing accounting platform and create a structured environment we could use to refine our budgeting and forecasting process.

Cons

I don't have anything negative to say. When I have run into issues with the software I have always reached out to Centage and we have found ways to incorporate what I need into the software.

Budget Maestro is a solid tool, and I'm looking forward to enhanced features and functionality in 9.

Pros

I do like the preview of the expense and how it will look like on the P&L. It really helps me make sure that my spread method is correct. I like analytics maestro. I can use excel to build reports. Also, it is easy to use the data to create charts and graphs and make the financial data consumable to those budget owners, who may not have a fiance background. I also like the ability to refresh and update the data quickly.

Cons

Reporting. In analytics the idea of building is great, reminds me a salesforce. But it is sooooo slow on the virtual desktop. From what I understand this will continue to be the case in BM9. Also the reporting within the software is slow as well. It takes anywhere from 1-3 minutes to run any report. Also, the inability to create a version and it to show up in all plans. For example, if we want to create version of our 3+9 Forecast

Great product for M&A focused roll-ups and disparate companies

Very pleased with how it has scaled for us as we grew from 6 locations to 55.

Pros

Cloud-based and scalable as we built out the company organically and through M&A

Cons

Some of the drivers are a bit tricky to understand.

Planning Maestro's analytics capabilities are a key differentiator

Pros

We needed a budgeting package that would be (1) easy to learn and use for our end-users, (2) able to automatically integrate with 3rd party general ledgers and (3) provide a powerful set of customizable analytics and reporting tools. Planning Maestro has successfully met all three requirements, and allowed us to provide more accurate budgets/forecasts/reporting with faster turn around.

Cons

A common issues I have with multiple software vendors: Enhancements and usability improvements can take a long time to roll out.