“Reflecting the continuation of difficult economic times, recent surveys by analyst firms confirm that a top priority of best-of-class firms is to implement processes for re-forecasting, especially incorporating “what if” scenarios and business drivers,” Heer said. “In the workshop, we will examine the critical processes involved in generating rolling forecasts, including scenario analysis and driver-based planning, and how better forecasting can improve decision making and profitability.”

True to the FP&A Summit’s theme, “Successful Planning Through Strategic Finance Initiatives: Effective Decision Making In Financial Planning & Analysis,” Heer’s workshop will examine planning application requirements to enable companies to stay ahead of the curve in the current economy. In this fast-paced workshop, Heer will employ customer case studies, along with current forecasting theory and best practices, to highlight the three critical requirements for effective rolling forecasts, including:

• Scenario analysis for establishing “what if” scenarios and exploring alternative decisions or actions in real time to understand possible outcomes.
• Driver-based planning where financial forecasts are driven by operational assumptions about the business.
• Integrated actuals where imported actuals data are modeled to provide visibility into operational and financial trends for forecasting purposes.

For a live demo of Alight Enterprise 5, or for more information about Alight’s budgeting, reporting, and forecasting solutions, visit www.alightplanning.com.

For more information about the I.E. Group’s conference series including the upcoming Financial Planning Summit in San Diego, visit www.theiegroup.com

“Alight was especially strong in individual rankings for customer related processes.” said Rand Heer, Alight’s CEO. “We scored an average of 4.79 in the categories of sales process, training, technical support and consulting, reinforcing again our focus on the customer starting from the first sales call through the final implementation.”

“Alight is a notable player in the BPM space, especially with their focus on rolling forecasts and scenario analysis which are so critical in today’s economic climate.” said Craig Schiff, CEO of BPM Partners. “From more than one hundred performance management vendors we track on a regular basis, we’ve chosen to include Alight on the US Vendor Landscape Matrix which identifies companies successfully delivering BPM Solutions in the US.” In the 2008 Vendor Landscape Matrix published a year ago, BPM Partners honored Alight as “Best New Vendor of 2008” citing Alight’s unique driver-based planning architecture and deep-seated modeling capabilities.

Underscoring Alight’s focus on customer service, Ray Wolfe, CFO of Pittsburgh Mercy, said: “The Alight services group guided us through a very complex implementation involving profitability analysis by location. They helped me put in place a totally new culture for planning and analysis.” Pittsburgh Mercy is an Alight customer with sixty community mental health locations serving Southwestern Pennsylvania. Read the full story of Pittsburgh Mercy’s implementation of Alight.

Adaptive Planning’s solution for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and “what-if” analysis represents an alternative to both manual, Excel-based processes and costly, complex enterprise software. Because the solution is offered via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, it is extremely affordable, starting at just $600 per user per year; does not require any new hardware, software, or IT support; and deploys quickly, averaging just two weeks of consulting for implementation.

Adaptive Planning 6.5 introduces numerous features that improve usability, including enhancements to data presentation, data access, and administrative roles and permissions. Additionally, the popular “Cell Explorer” feature, which allows users to thoroughly analyze any cell within their financial model by drilling down into the sequence of values and formulas used to calculate the final result, is now available within the reports module.

Adaptive Planning 6.5 also extends its best-in-class integration with NetSuite’s on-demand business management suite. Adaptive Planning customers that are integrated with NetSuite, as well as NetSuite Financial Planning Module customers, can drill through from Adaptive Planning reports directly into NetSuite, where they can see the details of the underlying transactions. These users are now also able to export plan data from Adaptive Planning into NetSuite.

Adaptive Planning 6.5 also introduces new local language support, adding Chinese and Russian to the previously supported languages, which include English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

“Adaptive Planning 6.5 not only delivers new capabilities to our customers, but also represents the next step in our company’s ongoing evolution,” said William A. Soward, CEO of Adaptive Planning. “The release demonstrates an important aspect of the SaaS model – unlike the on-premise model which requires internal IT or professional services resources for upgrades, our on-demand customers get immediate access to all of the new functionality. And from our company’s perspective, the expanded features and additional language support will help to further accelerate our rapid, worldwide growth.”

Enhancements in PlanGuru Version 11 include:

• Link PlanGuru with work in an Excel spreadsheet – Easily link a line item in the PlanGuru framework to amounts computed in your spreadsheet software.
• New Set-up Wizard – If you are not importing data and building an analysis from scratch it can be a time consuming process. The new Set-up Wizard allows you chose from a standard chart of accounts, assign budgeting methods and enter historical data all in one step.
• Supporting schedules flexibility enhanced – Accounts can be calculated using detailed supporting schedules, this functionality has been improved. You will now also be able to use the Percent of Other Categories and Function of Non-financial items projection methods in your supporting schedules.
• Improved Notes Payable Wizard – The notes payable wizard allows the user instantly model any loan by entering the terms of a note. This feature has been upgraded to interlock with PlanGuru’s import functionality.
• Better Import Utilities – Data import from been enhanced for easier and faster set-ups.
• New reporting flexibility – PlanGuru’s professional quality reports have been enhanced with new batch printing and formatting capabilities.

For more information or to download a free trial version of PlanGuru please visit www.planguru.com.

“Today’s challenging economy requires an agile solution for more immediate and responsive planning than the annual budgeting process with spreadsheets has traditionally afforded,” said Rand Heer, CEO and founder of Alight. “Being able to quickly roll over budgets and forecasts to new forecast versions gives companies the edge they need to keep abreast of competitive challenges and changing economic conditions.”

Alight Enterprise 5 goes beyond traditional budgeting and reporting to provide a fully integrated, dynamic and event-driven continuous planning solution that enables real-time forecasting, consensus and collaboration. With easy to update forecasts and plans, companies can make more insightful and educated decisions faster to capitalize on opportunities or mitigate risks. Robust Scenario Analysis for Dynamic “What If” Forecasting Unlike traditional budgeting software that focuses on version control, Alight Enterprise 5 permits true “what if” scenario analysis. The full scenario analysis toolkit in Alight Enterprise 5 includes:

• The ability to create multiple scenarios in real time by copying any existing scenario;
• Side-by-side comparisons of scenarios with variance columns for underlying units and rates, as well as financial amounts;
• Side-by-side comparisons of scenarios that identify underlying volume and rate financial impacts;
• Maintenance of structures, such as adding line items, across scenarios in a single operation;
• Updating input assumptions across multiple scenarios in a single operation;
• Incorporating go/no go decisions and event timing into scenarios using triggers;
• Sensitivity analysis to identify the most important and actionable assumptions in a plan; and
• Goal seek operations to analyze the financial impact of achieving defined milestones.

“Virtually everyone is wanting to do rolling forecasts, whether they have systems in place or not. Underlying this demand is confirmation that last year’s budgets are useless now and businesses need dynamic forecasting to keep up with rapid changes in the economy and in their own organization,” Heer said. “If you can’t predict the future – and none of us are doing a very good job of that – then thinking through alternative scenarios becomes critical. Alight Enterprise 5 incorporates the most robust feature set of any planning package for doing such ‘what if’ scenario analysis.”

In addition, Alight Enterprise 5 allows for unprecedented collaboration, transforming the planning tool into a powerful presentation tool for real-time Q&A and scenario planning in board rooms and among senior managers during operations reviews. “With user-friendly dashboards that allow changing input assumptions on-the-fly, Alight puts all the relevant data right at your fingertips,” Heer said. “CFOs and planning managers are in a much better position to answer questions on the spot instead of saying ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’ With Alight’s scenario analysis, you’ll make better decisions faster.”

“With Alight, we are able to perform true forecasting,” said Judith Van Norman, Chief Financial Officer of Down East Enterprise, a multi-media publishing company for regional lifestyle and special interests. “We incorporate actuals trends into our projections and evaluate alternate scenarios in near real time. Most importantly, we have visibility into the numbers and analyses that let us change things before it is too late. You might say that we can see the future!”

“Alight’s well structured scenario tools and built in driver-based planning architectures make it a great tool for doing rolling forecasts,” said Steve Player, Director of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table for North America and co-founder of Beyond EPS Advisors. “Finance is transforming itself to respond to this volatile economy. It’s more important than ever for finance executives to think outside the box and make their organizations more adaptable to market conditions. Alight Enterprise 5 enables organizations to become more agile and adopt a more continuous planning process.”

Alight Enterprise 5 is sold as a perpetual license based on number of users. A fifteen-user system is priced at $25,000. Alight Desktop 5, a standalone single-user system is priced at $7,200. The Alight Support Package, which is included in the initial purchase price, includes technical support, product updates and access to the Alight KnowledgeBase. Alight Online Bootcamp Training for finance staff, planning managers and analysts is $1,000 for an unlimited number of users. Customers typically request 30 to 50 hours of modeling and implementation support from the Alight Services staff. The average implementation timeframe is two to six weeks.

For a live demo of Alight Enterprise 5, or for more information about Alight’s suite of full-spectrum planning solutions, visit www.AlightPlanning.com.

“Virtually everyone is talking about doing rolling forecasts. Underlying this trend is a realization that 2009 budgets developed last Fall are now useless. Businesses need dynamic forecasting to keep up with rapid changes in the economy and in their own organization,” Heer said. “In the workshop, we’ll examine the critical processes involved in generating rolling forecasts and how better forecasting can improve decision making and profitability.”

True to the 2009 BBRT Conference theme, “Managing for Success in Turbulent Times: Implementing Secrets for Outperforming the Competition,” Heer’s workshop will examine the functionality required for planning applications to enable companies to stay ahead of the curve in the current economy. In this fastpaced workshop, Heer will employ customer case studies, along with current forecasting theory and best practices, to highlight the three most critical requirements for effective rolling forecasts, including:
• Scenario analysis for establishing “what if” scenarios and exploring alternative decisions or actions in real time to understand possible outcomes.
• Driver-based planning where financial forecasts are driven by operational assumptions about the business.
• Integrated actuals where imported actuals data are modeled to provide visibility into operational and financial trends for forecasting purposes.

“This year the conference is devoted to managing for success in turbulent times and offers proven implementation secrets for out-performing the competition even during a recession,” said Steve Player, director, BBRT North America region. “The old ways of doing things are not working. Finance is transforming, and in the current state of the economy, it’s more important than ever for finance executives to think outside of box and make their organizations more adaptable to market conditions.”

BBRT is a network of member organizations with a common interest in improving planning, forecasting and control, and overall performance. The BBRT’s goal is to help organizations learn from world-wide best practice studies and to encourage sharing information, past successes and implementation experiences to develop dramatically improved solutions to traditional budgeting constraints.

For a live demo of Alight Enterprise 5, or for more information about Alight’s full-spectrum planning
solutions, visit www.alightplanning.com.

“Planning is an integral component of any Corporate Performance Management solution,” says Paul Barber, President and CEO of PROPHIX. “Companies that require a Planning solution that leverages their investment in Microsoft’s SQL Server technology infrastructure have turned to PROPHIX, which is built upon this technology stack – allowing planning data to be a consumable of any Business Intelligence offering. Today, PROPHIX re-affirms its commitment to deliver superior planning solutions that further complements our relationship with Microsoft and its new BI strategy.”

Cheryl Power, Director of Channel Partners for PROPHIX, adds, “PROPHIX Planning functionality is very similar to the PerformancePoint offering, but has a much smaller footprint. Partners in the Microsoft Business Intelligence and Dynamics communities who have invested in a PerformancePoint practice have the opportunity to offer very similar software and services while leveraging their SharePoint, Business Intelligence, and ERP knowledge.”

Adaptive Planning Version 5.5 further extends the solution’s leading collaboration capabilities through the addition of two features – Cell Notes and Audit Trail – that allow end users to access key information about their financial model and the underlying planning process. The release delivers increased openness, enhancing data integration with the availability of new connectors, a secure web services API, and new mapping capabilities. And it broadens accessibility by supporting local languages as well as the Firefox browser.

“We are pleased with the progress that we’ve made with Adaptive Planning 5.5,” said William A. Soward, CEO of Adaptive Planning. “In particular, we’ve integrated the new features in a way that makes it incredibly easy for business users to access key information about not just actual and plan results, but also the underlying process and assumptions contributing to the numbers. With this information, users can achieve greater insights into the management of their business — which is especially important and valuable in today’s challenging economic climate.”

“With this release, Adaptive Planning is introducing features that raise the bar in terms of improved functionality versus its competitors, continuing to strengthen its position not only in the mid-market, but also in larger enterprise opportunities,” said Craig Schiff, CEO of BPM Partners, a leading authority on business performance management solutions.

“We are excited about the new capabilities in Version 5.5,” said Patrick Fleck, VP & CFO, Sitzmann Morris & Lavis, an Adaptive Planning customer. “One of the best aspects of Adaptive Planning is that the solution keeps getting better and better. And with the on-demand model, we don’t even need to upgrade. We just log in and automatically get access to the new capabilities.”

The new features introduced in Adaptive Planning 5.5 are:

* Cell Notes: A new interface allows users to add notes to individual cells on sheets, extending the solution’s existing collaboration options which include sheet-based notes and full-featured private collaboration spaces. Fully integrated throughout the application, Cell Notes can be viewed on sheets, accessed in the Cell Explorer view, and automatically included as footnotes in reports. Full search capabilities further improve the value over other solutions’ notes capabilities.
* Audit Trail: A new feature allows users to easily track, view, and search the history of user-entered changes for every cell in the plan. It provides insight into both the financial model and the overall planning process, improving accountability and control by enabling users to see what changes were made, where, when, and by whom. And by exposing Audit Trail within the Cell Explorer view, the solution places actionable information at business users’ fingertips.
* Enhanced Data Integration: Extends Adaptive Planning’s existing data import and export capabilities with several new features:
o Adaptive Planning Connectors: Enable automated imports of data into Adaptive Planning from a variety of different general ledgers, databases, and files. With a library of connections to hundreds of business systems, coupled with remote implementation, Adaptive Planning Connectors dramatically simplify data integration for end-customers.
o Mapping Enhancements: Simplifies the management of data import and export maps, supporting both manual and automated data integration.
o Web Services API: Supports automated import of actual and plan version data via a secure web service interface.
* Internationalization & Localization: Displays the Adaptive Planning application in different languages, including French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. The application is now fully internationalized, with a local language interface, local language data entry, and locale-specific number and date formats.
* Firefox Browser Support: Allows users to access Adaptive Planning using the Firefox browser on Windows and Red Hat Linux operating systems.

Availability and Pricing

Adaptive Planning Version 5.5 is available immediately. Local language support will be available in Q1 2009. With the exception of the Adaptive Planning Connectors, the features are available free of charge to customers with a current Adaptive Planning subscription. The Adaptive Planning Connectors are available for a separate fee: $50 per user per year for the first connector, and $25 per user per year for each subsequent connector.

All of the features are available in both Adaptive Planning Corporate and Enterprise Editions. Firefox support and Internationalization / Localization are available in the Adaptive Planning Express Edition.
About Adaptive Planning

Adaptive Planning is the worldwide leader in on-demand financial planning and reporting solutions that improve financial agility, strengthen collaboration, and drive better-informed, more strategic business decisions in companies of all sizes. Adaptive Planning makes it easy to move beyond spreadsheets and automate budgeting, forecasting, and reporting, without the cost and complexity associated with traditional business intelligence and BPM software. With free software, free trials, and both on-demand and on-premise deployment options, Adaptive Planning provides the fastest and easiest approach to streamline and elevate your financial management. Adaptive Planning is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. and can be reached at 650-528-7500 or www.adaptiveplanning.com.

Alight LCC, named “Best New Vendor of 2008” by BPM Partners for its Alight Planning product, has raised the bar in financial planning software with the debut of Alight Planning 4.5. Using Microsoft Excel® as an upload/mapping tool, Alight Planning 4.5 can import actuals data at any level of detail, and from any operational or financial database, into plan files for true apples-to-apples comparisons of actuals and plan information. Its advanced features deliver unparalleled insights into business forecasts and strategies.

“Typically, integrating actuals and comparing to plan is a zoo,” said Rand Heer, president of Alight LLC. “Financial and operating results are spread across multiple databases and are difficult to normalize. Drivers are rarely visible, and if available, they’re not accessible for both actuals and plan on an apples-to-apples basis. Moreover, actuals data usually have levels of detail that don’t match up with the planning side. Alight Planning automatically resolves these issues, strengthening the planning process and generating results that stand up in the real world of board meetings and operating reviews.”

Variance Analysis

With Alight Planning 4.5, analysts can leverage the unit/rate/amount structure to instantly gain valuable insights into both financial and operational performance. By identifying the variance in units and rates between actual and plan data, for example, Alight Planning allows finance to understand unexpected changes in underlying headcount and operational factors such as production volumes that drive variable costs.

Alight Planning’s integrated actuals capabilities can also help mid-market companies perform causal analysis, one of the most powerful of variance analysis functions and a discipline common in Fortune 500 companies. With causal analysis, sometime called volume/rate analysis, finance can identify at the line item level how much of a dollar variance amount is due to a variance in the underlying unit volumes versus the underlying cost or price rate. Such analysis is invaluable for understanding the true operational drivers of a business that affect profitability and cash flow. No other planning product provides this capability out-of-box.

Rolling Forecasts

Alight Planning 4.5’s integrated actuals capability also facilitates rolling forecasts, which combine actuals and forecasts data for an updated view of the business. For example, planners can use any of seven different algorithms for “spreading” actuals data into plan time periods. As well, finance staff can create forecast line items that “look back” on actuals as an activity driver—for example, referencing actual open orders as a driver for forecast future sales, or referencing actual booked sales commissions to forecast future quarterly commission payments.

Performance Improved

In addition to its actuals integration capability, Alight Planning 4.5 also features a number of upgrades that make daily use faster and more convenient, from better calculation performance to an improved user interface. For a live demo of Alight Planning 4.5 that explains the features and strategic approach of the product, or for more information about Alight LLC, visit www.alightplanning.com.

An Excel replacement, Alight Planning has already gained a solid user base for its driver-based planning approach which employs a unit-rate-amount architecture and object-based linking for line items which are the building blocks for financial plans. The result is better insight into the underlying activity drivers of a business, giving planners a better handle on forward-looking plans and backward-looking analysis of actuals.

“Alight Planning is very focused on what its name implies—budgeting and planning,” said Craig Schiff, CEO of BPM Partners, as part of the company’s annual Beyond the Hype 2008: Unbiased Vendor Review presentation. Schiff also noted that Alight Planning has “a very deep set of functionality that enables collaborative budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting, targeted at midsized and larger companies. In addition, Alight Planning automates sensitivity analysis and goal seek—both essential operations for analyzing complex financial data.”

BPM Partners’ annual “Beyond the Hype” report is the product of a yearly survey of BPM customers, vendors and trends conducted by the firm. Results were presented via a Webcast cosponsored by Business Finance magazine on January 15, 2008.

“BPM Partners is well-known by Business Performance Software users as well as throughout the BPM software industry. Its opinions carry tremendous weight, which makes this honor hugely gratifying,” said Rand Heer, president of Alight LLC. “The strong reception we’ve received to Alight Planning from customers, as well as from industry experts like BPM Partners, gives us terrific momentum as we move into 2008.”

In addition to its positive view of Alight Planning’s strategic approach, as well as the extensive experience of individuals behind the product’s creation, BPM Partners lauded the software’s sophisticated approach to budgeting.

“….it isn’t often you see someone new jump into the budgeting software category, which requires extensive domain expertise,” Schiff said. “Usually we see new vendors focusing on dashboards, databases, visualization and the like, but to focus on something as deep as budgeting and forecasting is fairly rare. It is interesting to note that modeling is built throughout the entire product. It’s not an afterthought; it’s the whole structure of the product.”