Financial forecasting is the backbone of good financial planning. It directly affects your budget planning, investments, and strategic decisions for your business. If you're not doing budgeting and forecasting for your business yet, this year is the time to start.
There's more to forecasting than spreadsheets. Many things can affect a financial forecast other than numbers and some formulas. Fortunately for business owners, technology makes forecasting easier.
Businesses can use several budgeting and forecasting software to help predict their finances. To help you choose which one is best for your business, we've listed some of the best forecasting software options in 2023.
6 Best Financial Forecasting Software Tools
Even a structured business model needs financial forecasting to prepare for the future. It's a big problem when businesses run out of cash or are not prepared for the surge of expenses to keep their business running and retain their clients.
Accurate financial forecasts are valuable to every business, may it be big or small. Most businesses start with an Excel spreadsheet to develop their financial forecasting. However, doing forecasting in spreadsheets can be complicated because of the following reasons:
- Data entry in spreadsheets is manual and highly prone to human error.
- Excel sheets make it difficult to collaborate.
- Without a central database, you always have to double-check formulas, references, and other data manually.
Forecasting in Excel is doable, but it is time-consuming and tedious. Developers are continually making software solutions for more progressive, innovative, and convenient forecasting. With that, here are the top budgeting and forecasting software products you should check out.
Cube
Cube is one of the top-rated forecasting software for businesses. Here is a quick overview of the great features of Cube.
- Cube has a spreadsheet-style interface so businesses that come from Excel won't have a hard time adapting to a new software solution.
- It significantly lessens manual work and gives real-time insights into your business's financial needs.
- The software gives you access to teams with expert experience in financial forecasting and budgeting.
Cube is the best financial software for startups that want to quickly transfer their data from manual spreadsheets to forecasting software without having to study complicated interfaces. Cube is best for faster workflows and is optimized for easier collaboration. Some of the functions of Cube include:
- Automatic data consolidation
- Bidirectional Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets integrations
- User-based controls
- A centralized database for formulas and other data
- Customizable dashboards and reports
AnaPlan
AnaPlan forecasting software is designed to plan for complex scenarios and do intelligent forecasting for faster and more accurate decision-making. Some of the key benefits of using AnaPlan are:
- Lets you overcome planning challenges using user-owned business models.
- Keeps you updated with the ever-changing marketing conditions using AnaPlan's model engine.
- Allows you to view business plans on detailed levels to see how they can affect your business in real-time.
- Increases the accuracy of your decisions and business outcomes by using predictive analysis and what-if analysis.
AnaPlan is best for bigger businesses with a dedicated IT team that can handle the complex controls of the software. But for smaller businesses, Vena is a suitable choice and almost similar to AnaPlan.
Planful
Planful is an affordable cloud-based solution for structured and dynamic planning, consolidation, and reporting. Planful offers:
- An annual operating plan to help define your company's blueprint for a year.
- Workforce planning that helps your business hone employees to work at their best performance.
- Scenario analysis to explore every possible option and steer towards it at a moment's notice.
- Financial reporting for key financial insights to make better and quicker decisions. Moreover, this reporting is fully automated and eliminates errors so you can trust the data you have on hand.
Planful has AI-enhanced operations and functions that allow businesses to lessen the number of people they need to hire in the financial department. This overall lessens expenses in hiring staff.
SAS Forecast Server
SAS Forecast Server is popular for businesses because of its ability to generate accurate forecasts in a short period. More than quick forecasts, SAS has many great features to let you be in full control of your finances.
The forecasting software has easy-to-use GUI that can:
- Generate automatic forecasts in batches or interactively.
- Build and reconcile forecasts created in varying time intervals.
- Publish forecasting results via the company's portal, the internet, or in a hard copy.
Its scalability and modeling offers:
- Freedom to choose the level of automation for the forecasting process.
- Creation of new models by combining two older business models to create more accurate forecasting results.
- Enhanced performance capabilities through the multi-threading of forecasting and diagnostic engines.
The SAS forecasting software has many great and advanced features which makes this forecasting software good for small businesses and large enterprises. It can take some time for business owners to familiarize themselves with the software, but the product has official demo videos to help new users out.
Bizview Financial Planning and Analysis Software
Bizview is another cloud-based solution that can streamline your planning, forecasting, and budgeting processes in one software. You can access this software anytime and on any device as long as you have a stable internet connection.
Here are some of the features of Insight Software's Bizview:
- Flexibility, so you can control the software to match your business's needs.
- It continuously monitors and updates forecasts for the entire year to give your business better insights.
- It develops accurate plans across your entire business from sales budgets, productions budgets, employee budgets, and more.
- It allows you to access data from your ERP system and other data sources to create reports without relying on ITs.
Bizview has an interactive Excel-like interface which is also why many business owners prefer to use this software. It is also the most affordable software you can use for small businesses.
Streamline Forecasting Software
Streamline is the leading forecasting software of the first quarter of 2023. Its revenue forecasting processes are realistic, innovative, and quick to ensure that your business is on the right track when it comes to planning budgets and making strategic decisions.
Here are some of the key features of this forecasting tool:
- The software provides seamless integration of your financial data. You can easily import operational data from your system to Streamline and automatically export financial projections back to your ERP system.
- The software has a scenario planning feature to pinpoint potential issues that could happen so you can consider them in your business planning. Predictions can involve inventory, cash flow forecasting, and other processes that may affect your finances.
- It uses AI-based forecasting to ensure 99% accurate budget forecasting every time.
- It is more than just a forecasting solution. It also comes with reporting tools that produce income statements and other necessary reports. It can also automate repetitive tasks.
Financial Management and Forecasting With Unloop
There are hundreds of financial budgeting software available for businesses to use. It is just a matter of choosing the right software for your needs. The aforementioned forecasting tools are some of the best examples you can get for your business, but don't be afraid to explore and find software to suit your liking and needs.
If you need a professional for your budgeting and forecasting needs, Unloop can do the job! Our services include revenue forecasting so we can help small businesses like yours in their growth trajectory.
We use your business's historical data to determine any pain points and fix them before they happen. We will also set your business up with reporting software for accurate forecasting. Monitor your financial performance today and book a call with our experts!