Top 3 Integrated Financial Planning Software: Features, Benefits & Cost

Like most nonprofits, you are probably struggling with error-prone spreadsheets, siloed data, and disconnected budget processes.

You can end the struggle if you use the right integrated financial planning software to bring budgets, forecasts, and reporting into one place to improve financial visibility and efficiency. 

If you are looking for the best software to integrate these processes, Martus is here for you. You get a single point of truth with real-time collaborative budgeting, forecasting, and reporting to help you make strategic decisions. 

Book a customized demo today to get started with Martus's integrated financial management solutions. 

What Is Integrated Financial Planning?

Integrated financial planning is a holistic or unified approach to how an organization manages its finances by combining budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and strategic planning into one platform. 

The approach links all relevant financial data from various sources, including accounting software, into a single point of truth. 

For a nonprofit, the practice aligns programs, grants, donations, and organization-wide financial goals into one central point. 

For example, you can use one platform to create program budgets, track and report on restricted and unrestricted funds, and obtain actionable insights aligned with your financial goals.

Why Organizations Need an Integrated Financial Planning Tool

An integrated financial planning tool is necessary for reducing and eliminating common nonprofit pain points, such as:

• Constant Reforecasting Due to Funding Shifts: Funding keeps changing for nonprofits as donors and grantors increase, reduce, or withdraw their assistance. To stay on top of these shifts, you need a planning tool with dynamic forecasting. You should be able to update and adjust forecasts throughout the year to ensure your projections are always accurate and aligned with change.
• Manual Consolidation for Board Reports: Creating and consolidating board reports manually is labor-intensive and time-consuming. With the right tool, you can create and compile customised reports without applying complex formulas or doing everything from scratch. A planning tool with AI-driven automated financial reporting functionality saves time, improves process agility, and enhances the accuracy of your reports.
• Difficulty Aligning Program Budgets with Overall Financial Plans: Your program budgets must align with your overall organization budget and financial plan. A flexible tool that automates budgeting can sync every budget worksheet with your overall budget. Once you link your program budgets to your strategic and financial goals, you reduce risks such as overspending, funding shortfalls, or drifting from your mission. 

Key Features of Leading Integrated Financial Planning Software

The best strategic integrated financial planning software systems have nonprofit-specific features such as:

• Role-Based Access: Modern tools have role-based access controls so you can set the owners and approvers for various processes and results. They have lock controls to ensure that end-users can’t make accidental changes to completed and approved worksheets.

• Program- and Grant-Level Budgeting: You can get a tool that allows you to create both program and grant budgets, usually with an unlimited number of line items. You may even create an unlimited number of budgets from scratch, based on historical data, or using the previous year's budget. 

• Real-Time Dashboards: Modern planning tools allow you to create, personalize, and analyze financial reports with increased visibility through real-time dashboards. You can use these up-to-date dashboards and flexible views to uncover the story behind your nonprofit finances.

• Scenario Planning and What-If Analyses: A good financial planning tool integrates with your accounting software and automatically pulls the latest actuals to improve your forecasts. You can create and analyze multiple scenarios and conduct what-if analyses for proactive strategic planning. 

• Audit-Friendly Reporting: Modern tools ensure your financial reporting is always audit-ready. They maintain consistent records, track funding sources, incorporate compliance checks, centralise data, and use standardized reporting formats. These collective solutions improve transparency, accuracy, and accountability to help you pass audits with ease. 

Top 3 Integrated Financial Planning Software

Both general and dedicated nonprofit financial planning software can help you streamline your finance-related processes and outcomes. 

Let's check out some top financial planning and analysis software to make the selection process easier. 

1. Martus

A cloud-based financial management platform, Martus brings together budgeting, forecasting, and reporting functions to streamline your processes and results. 

Here's what Martus can do:

• Integrate with Your Accounting Tool: You can connect Martus with your preferred accounting tool to import financial data automatically for accurate reporting. 
• Simplify Financial Management: Martus makes nonprofit financial management a breeze, ensuring it's mission-driven and more collaborative. You can use Martus to eliminate struggles such as complexity, manual data input, and spreadsheet errors. 
• Support Strategic Planning: Martus supports strategic planning through actionable insights that you can use to make timely and informed decisions. 

Martus is ideal for mid- to large-sized nonprofits looking for better scalability, nonprofit alignment, financial visibility, ease of use, and a surefire alternative to spreadsheets. 

With Martus, you enjoy competitive pricing packages starting from $6,000. Your organization can choose the package that best suits your needs and helps you make smarter decisions. 

You can also get customized pricing tailored to your unique needs and situations. 

Upgrade your financial management with Martus's integrated solutions. 

2. Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct is a cloud-based financial planning and accounting tool suitable for small and medium-sized organizations.

The tool helps organizations make informed decisions based on modern planning, data visualization, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. 

As a general tool, Sage Intacct allows you to automate work across multiple spreadsheets to reduce the effort and time you spend on budgeting and forecasting.

The software also supports various integrations and offers collaborative features that make it user-friendly and easy to learn for both financial and nonfinancial staff members. 

The pricing isn't public. You can always contact the Sage Intacct team for a pricing quote. 

3. NetSuite 

NetSuite's Planning and Budgeting solution helps automate labor-intensive planning and budgeting activities so you can focus more on strategic work. 

The platform is ideal for medium- and large-sized organizations, which can use it to centralize all data to ensure accuracy and make it easy to collaborate across stakeholders. 

You also get features such as scenario modeling, predictive planning, fully integrated financial statements, and workforce planning. 

NetSuite doesn't post its pricing publicly. Instead, they recommend contacting the team for a quote. 

How to Choose the Right Integrated Financial Planning Software

When choosing integrated financial planning software, you'll want to involve the finance team, top leaders, and program leads to ensure the one you select suits everyone across the organization. 

You can consider evaluation criteria such as:

• Ability to Handle Restricted Funds: Does the software have dimensional tagging to track and report on restricted donations and grants?

• Collaborative Budgeting: Does the tool support collaborative budgeting across finance and program teams? Can it integrate each department's budget to create a comprehensive organization-wide budget?

• Integrations with Accounting Tools: Does the software connect with your favorite nonprofit accounting tool to automatically import actuals for accurate reporting and budget variance analysis? 

• Ease-of-Use: Is the software easy to learn and use even for nonfinancial staff members?

Martus matches all these criteria, making it ideal for all your nonprofit financial management needs. 

Reach out to us today to learn more about Martus's transformative solutions. 

Common Challenges and How to Avoid Them

Integrated financial planning is a game-changer when it comes to saving time and effort and streamlining processes. But it's not without its challenges. 

You'll want to avoid the issues below, which are common in most nonprofits. 

• Overly Complex Tools That Go Unused: If your preferred financial planning tool is too difficult to implement, your team will be unable to use it. You'll end up losing time and money. Ensure the tool is easy to integrate into your systems with or without external help. A nonprofit-specific platform will be easier to implement and use than a general tool that doesn't fit your specific needs. 

• Lack of Training for Internal Teams: You may struggle to train your financial and nonfinancial staff on using your preferred software. Ensure the vendor offers comprehensive user training. At Martus Solutions, we train some of your staff to help you build an internal team of Martus experts who can train the rest of the team. 

• Misalignment Between Finance and Programs: If your financial and program departments are not aligned, you may struggle with poor resource allocation, inaccurate reporting, and a lack of touch with the reality on the ground. Ensure the two teams start collaborating early to combine the finance team's financial management expertise and the program team's understanding of specific needs. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are answers to common questions about integrated financial planning software. 

How Much Does Integrated Financial Planning Software Typically Cost?

Most financial planning software systems charge on an upfront subscription basis with annual contracts that can cost several thousand dollars. 

The total cost (implementation, training, and subscription costs) can vary widely from vendor to vendor, depending on whether the tool is general or nonprofit-focused and its capabilities. 

How Secure Is Financial Planning Software?

Most financial planning software systems are secure, meaning your financial and general information is safe from unauthorized access and breaches. 

Modern tools use role-based access controls, audit trails, and SOC 2 compliance to protect your data. 

What Industries Benefit Most From Integrated Planning Tools?

Some of the industries that benefit most from integrated planning tools include nonprofit organizations, healthcare, entertainment, travel, hospitality, and government groups. 

Martus serves all these and more, including maritime ports and finance authorities. 

Conclusion

Streamlining your nonprofit financial management practices doesn't have to be hard. 

With the right integrated financial planning software, you can reduce errors, align cross-functional teams, and make budgeting more strategic and mission-based. 

You'll want to use a nonprofit-oriented tool that's specifically built with your unique planning needs in mind. 

For example, Martus helps you with all your nonprofit finance needs across budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. 

You can create unlimited budgets, model different scenarios, and automatically generate accurate reports. 

Check out Martus today to experience all these solutions in one powerful platform.