Planful vs Workiva Wdesk comparison

Planful and Workiva are both solutions in the Business Performance Management category. Planful is ranked #16, while Workiva is ranked #12 with an average rating of 6.8. Planful holds a 2.6% mindshare in BPM, compared to Workiva’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Planful users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of Workiva users who would recommend it.

Planful

Read 2 Planful reviews

771 Views
424 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Workiva Wdesk

Read 7 Workiva Wdesk reviews

531 Views
317 Comparison Views

71% willing to recommend

Planful

Workiva Wdesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Planful and Workiva Wdesk compete in corporate performance management and financial reporting. Workiva generally has the upper hand due to advanced features and justified pricing, while Planful is favored for pricing and support.

Features: Planful offers budgeting, forecasting, and financial close tools for performance management. Workiva provides compliance management, enhanced collaboration, and data integration for seamless reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Planful offers streamlined deployment and strong customer service for smooth implementation. Workiva has a more complex deployment but provides exceptional customer service and training resources.

Pricing and ROI: Planful has lower setup costs and provides strong ROI in financial planning and budgeting. Workiva has higher costs but justifies this with extensive compliance and collaboration features.

To learn more, read our detailed Planful vs. Workiva Wdesk Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Planful vs. Workiva Wdesk

April 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

Planful

Ranking in Business Performance Management

16th

Ranking in Financial Close Software

19th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Workiva Wdesk

Ranking in Business Performance Management

12th

Ranking in Financial Close Software

2nd

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

GRC (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Planful is 2.6%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workiva Wdesk is 3.3%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Business Performance Management

Featured Reviews

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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Phillip Gough

Partner, Financial Services at Deloitte TT

The solution is easy to deploy and enables collaboration, but it must improve its speed and enable users to create pivot tables

I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The initial setup was straightforward. The solution is cloud-based. We deployed the product along with Wdata in six months. It was for a lot of use cases. To deploy the tool, we designed the use cases and developed them. Then, we went through unit tests, integration tests, and user acceptance tests. It was an Agile delivery cycle.

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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

"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."

"The cross-functionality between connectivity, whether through API connections between different software platforms or the connection of data collection to the actual written ESG report, is highly valuable. The connectivity of all these aspects significantly aids in data assurance, which I consider a bonus."

"The collaboration within the platform is valuable."

"It helps you to maintain a backup of your data, including the connectivity with the tables, which provides a user-friendly way to handle and access your files."

"It makes the compliance process more efficient and more effective."

"Workiva Wdesk has a flow diagram that is standardized, making it easy for people to file documents on ECDAs, which are in HTML format."

"Workiva Wdesk is pretty good in terms of getting the data from the system, automating the reporting schedules...It has a very good integration with ERP tools."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to easily upload and update financial results, creating a dynamic data sheet."

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."

"The tool's script encoding needs to be updated to make it more user-friendly and less of a manual process when changes are made to a company's program. Those changes happen frequently due to mandatory or voluntary reporting requirements, leading to lost linkage connections that must be manually reset each time a change is made. This aspect is not functional now, and I see it as an opportunity for improvement."

"At this point, I don't see a compelling reason to invest in Workiva. It may be necessary for compliance and controlling the version of SCC, but not everyone needs its high-end capabilities."

"With this product, it's more about the integrated data model where you can have a one-to-many/many-to-one relationship between your policies and processes, risks, and controls. They need to showcase how you can put those pieces together."

"One area where Workiva Wdesk could improve is by ensuring that its cloud-based system is fully compatible with the most current versions of PowerPoint and Excel."

"The speed must be improved."

"The most critical issue is the need to shift between uppercase and lowercase."

"Regarding the solution, reporting has certain areas that can be considered for improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Our clients in Asia think that the solution is too expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Educational Organization

12%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Workiva Wdesk?

The most valuable feature is its ability to easily upload and update financial results, creating a dynamic data sheet.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workiva Wdesk?

Wdesk is affordable and as far as I'm aware, there were no additional costs beyond the standard license increase. We didn't have to make any other changes; it primarily involved accessing the platf...

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What needs improvement with Workiva Wdesk?

The tool's script encoding needs to be updated to make it more user-friendly and less of a manual process when changes are made to a company's program. Those changes happen frequently due to mandat...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Business Performance Management

April 2025

Download Planful product report

Buyer's Guide

Workiva Wdesk

March 2025

Download Workiva Wdesk product report

Also Known As

Host Analytics

Wdesk

Overview

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

Wdesk is used across the enterprise to support hundreds of data collaboration, reporting, and compliance processes. Use Wdesk to:

Optimize your structured and composite reports
Improve trust in your data, reports, and presentations
Transform processes to enable insight

Workiva

Sample Customers

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

Noodles Company, eBay, Winnebago, American Assets Trust, AmericanEnterprise, Calpian, Capstone Infrastructure, Cascades, Circor International, Coeur Mining, Davey, Dr Pepper Snapple

Buyer's Guide

Planful vs. Workiva Wdesk

April 2025

Free Report: Planful vs. Workiva Wdesk

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We monitor all Business Performance Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.