5 Best EPM Software Solutions of 2024

Today, all organisations require robust systems and processes across all levels to drive performance improvement, achieve operational excellence and sustain competitive advantage in the dynamic environments they operate.

EPM software forms a management layer above all transaction systems providing a level of agility and visibility now critical for any organisation that wants to successfully handle the non-forgiving complexities of growth and change. With an effective management layer in place, organisations can upgrade or replace underlying ERP/GL systems. And it can be done without disrupting critical management processes, such as planning and reporting, during the transition period.

In this blog post, we review the 5 best EPM software solutions for 2024 using our own interpretation of their relative offerings. We only included software that meets the following non-negotiable qualifications:

• Must be present in the Dresner EPM Market Study 2023.
• Earned at least 4.3/5.0 stars on Gartner Peer reviews for either Planning or Financial Close & Consolidation.
• Software offering includes full management of enterprise-wide consolidation, close, financial and operational planning & forecasting.

What is EPM software?

EPM Software solutions are designed to help organisations effectively manage and analyze their performance data to achieve the strategic objectives they have set. An EPM solution integrates and analyzes data from many sources, including, but not limited to, ERP systems, HCM, CRM, and Supply Chain applications, data warehouses, and also cloud and external data sources. The typical management processes included in EPM solutions are: Goal Setting, Modelling, Planning, Financial Close & Consolidation, Reporting, and Analysis.

EPM solutions typically include the following capabilities:

• Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting
• Close & Consolidation
• Account Reconciliations and Transaction Matching
• Compliance & Regulatory Reporting
• Predictive Modelling & Analytics
• AI Financial Forecasting

Ultimately, EPM software provides management with data analytics and insights across multiple operational systems and processes. EPM solutions provide agility in forecasting and strategic planning, reporting, and decision-making. And they help organizations create alignment across the enterprise.

This comparative analysis explores the features and functionalities of 5 leading EPM solutions: OneStream, Oracle EPM Cloud, SAP EPM, Workday Adaptive & Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik.

1. OneStream

OneStream is the only solution for EPM delivering end-to-end management of enterprise-wide consolidation, close, financial and operational planning & forecasting in a unified platform. This unified platform helps finance, and operations teams collaborate by creating a single source of truth that eliminates the complexity of multiple solutions, interfaces and integrations, cost and duplication of data and metadata, time-consuming processes, and upgrades.

With a built-in data quality engine and pre-built connectors, finance is in control, providing a strong, flexible foundation in data quality that's ERP and source system agnostic, as real-time as needed, with drill down and drill back to any source, providing auditability across all close, planning, reporting and analysis processes and actionable insights behind every number.

Pros:

• One uniquely unified EPM solution owned by finance for end-to-end management of enterprise-wide consolidation, close, financial and operational planning & forecasting, reporting & analysis.
• Built in data quality engine, providing a strong flexible foundation in integration and data quality delivering confidence, trust and finally, a real one source of truth.
• Built-in self-service reporting, dashboarding, adhoc analysis and deep integration with Microsoft Office in one platform, from balance to transactional details with seamless drill down and drill back to supporting details for transparency, auditability, and actionable details behind every number.

Cons:

• Best for enterprises looking for end-to-end management of enterprise-wide consolidation, close, financial and operational planning & forecasting, reporting and analysis in a unified platform.
• Small to medium size organizations not looking for this unification, while OneStream is user-friendly, mastering the design and advanced features may pose a slight learning curve for these organizations.
• Despite growing popularity, 100% customer success of over 1400+ customers, OneStream may have a smaller but growing market presence compared to a few other alternatives.

2. Oracle EPM

Oracle EPM is a suite of business applications designed for end-to-end management of enterprise-wide consolidation, close, financial planning & forecasting and performance reporting. Oracle is similar to SAP, with legacy solutions from their acquisition of Hyperion with end of support in 2035 for Hyperion HFM and Hyperion Planning. Their suite of applications is being redeveloped on the Cloud, consisting of individual best of breed solutions for each core management process.

Pros:

• A comprehensive suite covering budgeting, planning, forecasting, and advanced analytics, providing the breadth of capabilities for EPM and are well known based on the reputation of Hyperion Solutions
• Integration with Oracle solutions (ERP, HCM, CRM…) and databases, and a robust solution for master data management, data integration and data quality
• A large customer base and global network ensure access to a pool of skilled professionals, services, partners and domain expertise.

Cons:

• Lack of parity in Consolidation & Close solution for consolidation capabilities exists compared to Oracle's legacy Hyperion HFM solution.
• Fragmented, multiple solutions require multiple complex integrations across solutions to reconcile actuals with plans and to bring in financial and operational data to support the end-to-end consolidation, close, financial, and operational planning, and reporting processes.
• Limited live references and few peer reviews/insights are available for the cloud EPM solutions.

3. SAP EPM

With the end of support of SAP's legacy EPM solutions - BPC and BFC (BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation) set for 2030, SAP's go forward solutions for EPM are a combination of SAP Group Reporting embedded in S/4HANA for consolidations and SAP Analytics Cloud for financial and operational planning.

SAP S4/HANA Group Reporting is an enterprise solution for consolidations and since it is part of S4HANA, it leverages a combination of features of Group Reporting for consolidations and S/4HANA for core close capabilities. SAP Analytics Cloud is a cloud-based platform for planning, business intelligence (BI), and predictive analytics, enabling organizations to visualize, plan, and make data-driven decisions.

Pros:

• Both solutions run on the same S/4HANA technology to streamline integration with SAP ERP systems, making it an ideal choice for organizations deeply embedded in the SAP ecosystem.
• SAC offers flexibility in modeling and reporting, catering to diverse business needs.
• SAP customers benefit from SAP's global footprint, ensuring access to a vast pool of skilled professionals and SAP domain knowledge.

Cons:

• Customers will need to move to S4/HANA and upgrades can be challenging with known impacts on the agility Finance needs to change to Group Reporting for close and consolidation processes.
• Although both Group Reporting and SAC are on S4/HANA, they are still separate solutions, technologies and tools that need to be implemented, integrated, and maintained.
• Requires multiple complex integrations across solutions to reconcile actuals with plans and to bring in non-SAP financial and operational data to support the end-to-end consolidation, close, financial and operational planning, and reporting processes.

4. Workday Adaptive Planning and Consolidation

Workday Adaptive Insight was founded in 2003 as a planning solution with limited consolidation capabilities and acquired by Workday in 2018. It was rebranded initially as Adaptive Planning, but it is now being marketed as Adaptive Planning and Consolidation.

Workday Adaptive Planning covers planning, consolidation, analytics and reporting functions and is built on a proprietary In-memory database enabling collaboration and real time updates in a browser user interface similar to that of a spreadsheet and supports integration of data from ERP and other source systems.

Pros:

• Similar to SAP and Oracle, Workday offers a full stack ERP, Human Capital Management, Peakon Employee Voice, Strategic Source and Adaptive Planning for business process support and CPM/EPM
• End-to-end financial planning process support, covering budgeting, forecasting and strategic planning.
• Intuitive and user-friendly interface, reducing the learning curve for users and facilitating easier adoption across different departments.

Cons:

• Best known as a planning solution, built in consolidation capabilities are weak, especially for complex global consolidations, and limited close capabilities, other than what is built in Workday Financials.
• Fragmented, multiple solutions and technologies require multiple complex integrations across solutions to reconcile actuals with plans and to bring in financial and operational data to support the end-to-end consolidation, close, financial and operational planning, and reporting processes.
• While positioned as a comprehensive set of capabilities, Workday Adaptive has a limited data model for all CPM/EPM processes and has limited data integration capabilities for managing multiple ERP and other source system data integrations needed for all EPM processes.

5. Wolters Kluwer CCH Tagetik

Tagetik was originally developed in 2005 to deliver trusted, comprehensive and scalable CPM solutions globally and was acquired by Wolters Kluwer in 2017. CCH Tagetik is marketed as an end-to-end financial close and consolidation solution for group and entity controllers. It is comprised of multiple solutions for financial consolidation and close, account reconciliation and transaction matching, financial and management reporting, disclosure management (via a partnership with CoreFiling), and ESG & sustainability performance management. It is available in both on-premise and cloud.

Of all the vendors in this article, they appear on the surface as the closest vendor to OneStream's unified platform, but it's not until you get into the details of how the solutions work together, that it becomes clear it still suffers from some of the same integration and solution complexities as the multiple application approaches of other vendors in the CPM/EPM market.

Pros:

• Better platform approach then other multi-solution approaches like SAP and Oracle, in the CPM/EPM market
• Prebuilt connectors for SAP and SAP S/4HANA and a data quality engine to integrate with ERPs and other data sources, both financial and operational
• Ability to combine balance and transactional data in the platform.

Cons:

• Limited to one cube/model per application, affecting performance, scalability and in most implementations, results in the need to create multiple applications to support CPM/EPM processes – resulting in the same integration and solution complexities as the multiple application approach of other vendors in this article.
• Limitations on data quality, assurance and drill back, resulting in additional steps, time and manual processes to resolve data issues, with no transparency to drill back to source.
• The customer base is strongest in Europe but lacks the footprint in North America of other vendors in this article.

Conclusion

Choosing the right EPM Software is essential for organizations seeking to move away from unreliable, inadequate EPM applications and/or spreadsheets and to instead evolve to a modern EPM solution.

Each of the Top 5 solutions featured in this blog post offers unique features and benefits, catering to the diverse needs of organizations across industries. Ultimately, however, if you're looking to streamline your key Finance processes and significantly increase confidence in your reporting, OneStream is the best EPM software to handle all your requirements, no matter how complex.

Learn More

To learn more about how organizations are managing the complexity in their EPM processes, check out our whitepaper titled: Taking Performance Management to the Next Level with Intelligent Finance

And if you're ready to take the leap from spreadsheets or legacy EPM solutions and start your Finance Transformation with OneStream, let's chat!