Board vs Planful comparison

Board International and Planful are both solutions in the Business Performance Management category. Board International is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3, while Planful is ranked #15. Board International holds a 5.5% mindshare in BPM, compared to Planful’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Board International users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Planful users who would recommend it.

Board

Read 37 Board reviews

1,812 Views
1,015 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Planful

Read 2 Planful reviews

665 Views
605 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Board

Planful

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Board and Planful are competing solutions in the financial planning and analytics space. Board seems to have the upper hand due to its robust data analytics and forecasting capabilities.

Features: Board provides integrated business intelligence, advanced forecasting abilities, and comprehensive data analytics features. Planful focuses on streamlined budgeting cycles, efficient financial consolidations, and user-friendly budgeting management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Board presents a flexible deployment model supported by a robust system, requiring technical expertise. Planful offers a simpler user setup but could benefit from improvements in customer service responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Board's higher initial setup cost matches its advanced analysis capabilities, while Planful's pricing aligns with a quicker return on investment, appealing to budget-focused users. No specific pricing details available.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. Planful Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. Planful

September 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Board

Ranking in Business Performance Management

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (21st), Reporting (17th)

Planful

Ranking in Business Performance Management

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Financial Close Software (20th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Board is 5.5%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planful is 2.9%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Board	5.5%
Planful	2.9%
Other	91.6%

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan

Senior Consultant at IMD Company Limited

Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features

I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

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reviewer1110591

Financial Planning & Analysis - Finance Manager at a engineering company with 501-1,000 employees

It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation, and we haven't had anything come up that the program has not been able to solve

The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools. The application that we use today for our BI tools is Tableau. That's how people absorb information. We don't really use the functionality or dashboards within Planful because of the robustness of Tableau. That's our single source of data. If Planful was better or more comparable in terms of features and functionality, we could probably leverage that in Planful.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The flexibility and the user-experience are the most valuable features of the solution."

"It has definitely saved us time, especially in our budget and planning processes."

"It has a good set of visual elements that you can use and can explain quite well."

"We can build reports super fast."

"It is useful for self-analysis regarding company data and helps to find areas where we can improve."

"I think it's flexible. I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value."

"All the reports are prepared automatically."

"The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts."

More Board pros

"It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation. We don't have to do reporting in Excel anymore, which has cut down on the errors and the efficiency of our close time."

Cons

"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."

"The engine of the Board should be made powerful like the engine of IBM planning which is more powerful in terms of performance. The consolidated finance area also needs improvement."

"It would be huge in the future if BOARD offered a lot more graphs and presentations, and it was a lot easier to use."

"We are looking for ways to distinguish zeros versus nulls in BOARD."

"What could be better is the manual... nowadays, most people use a web client, but on the Board manual website, a lot of the information is only about the Windows client. If they could update that, it would be helpful."

"It's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive."

"I would like to see better relationships with the partners."

"The setup was a bit complex."

More Board cons

"The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"Right now, everything is on a three-year term contract, and that is our main cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	8

No data available

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

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What do you like most about Board?

All the reports are prepared automatically.

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What needs improvement with Board?

Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance.

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Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 25% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 11% of the time

Jedox vs Board

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Board

Compared 8% of the time

More Board Competitors

Adaptive Insights vs Planful

Compared 26% of the time

Pigment vs Planful

Compared 20% of the time

Anaplan vs Planful

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud vs Planful

Compared 14% of the time

Jedox vs Planful

Compared 12% of the time

More Planful Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Board

October 2025

Download Board product report

Buyer's Guide

Business Performance Management

September 2025

Download Planful product report

Also Known As

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Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

You need a financial planning solution that meets the structured demands of standardized financial planning and reporting requirements and regulations. Structured Planning with Planful automates labor-intensive planning activities in a complete cloud-based platform – giving your finance team control, consistency, and confidence in corporate financial plans.

Planful

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

Tandem Diabetes Care, Reed Exhibitions, SkyGolf, Zep Inc., Thule, Stylesight, Schumacher Group, Parsons Electric, Nextag, Groupon

Buyer's Guide

Board vs. Planful

September 2025

Free Report: Board vs. Planful

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