Next-level Financial Consolidation with Metora, an Anaplan Partner

Partnering with Anaplan since 2017, we’ve been able to offer our clients unparalleled Connected Planning solutions throughout our journey. Over the course of the last 11 years, we’ve been levelling up our Connected Planning services, offering businesses and organizations everything from Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) to Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting, Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and Financial Consolidation. A lot of our success, we owe - in no small measure - to our Financial Planning Software partner, Anaplan.

Ranked as a ‘Leader’ in Financial Planning Software by Gartner in its 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Financial Planning Software Report, Anaplan’s constant innovation in the midst of digital disruptions in the business world has - time and time again - elevated our planning capabilities, allowing us to offer our clients world class software solutions built for the future. 

And now, Anaplan is set to explore further innovations in its Financial Consolidation software solution offerings. 

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One Small Step for Anaplan, One Giant Leap for Metora

On April 26, 2024, Anaplan announced its agreement to acquire Fluence Technologies - a cloud-based, no-code Financial Close and Consolidation platform. How does Anaplan’s Fluence acquisition impact its partners? 

Well, in simple terms, this means that Anaplan is expanding its offering. This expansion would allow Anaplan’s partners - like Metora - to not only leverage Anaplan’s industry leading Connected Planning solutions but also Fluence Technologies’ cloud native solutions for Financial Close, Consolidation, Disclosure Management and Reporting.

Lending insight into the headline making acquisition, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, Liz Herbert shared, ‘With so many of the competitors in the market offering a more complete suite spanning Planning, Budgeting, Consolidation, and Reporting, this move makes sense directionally to shore up a prior area of relative weakness for Anaplan.’ 

She added that, ‘Consolidation and Reporting were noted as areas of relative underperformance for Anaplan versus market par in our recent Forrester Wave™ evaluation on this topic,’ highlighting the impetus behind Anaplan’s move to acquire Fluence. 

Read on to find out how this acquisition will help us offer small, medium and large organizations unparalleled Financial Consolidation solutions.

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What is Financial Consolidation? 

Financial Consolidation involves the process of unifying the financial data of multiple subsidiary companies into a single set of financial statements for the benefit of its parent company, providing a comprehensive view of the entire group's financial health. 

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This process addresses complexities like intercompany transactions and currency conversions. It  ensures accurate and unified reporting for stakeholders, regulatory compliance and informed business decisions.

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Financial Consolidation: How the Fluence Technologies Acquisition will Help Level Up Our Capabilities

According to Anaplan Chief Revenue Officer, Bill Schuh, the Fluence acquisition is set to allow Anaplan to ‘deliver exceptional business value by unifying financial data and plans with operational processes.’ 

Schuh goes on to highlight Fluence’s primary solutions: Financial Consolidation, Disclosure Management and Excel Reporting. Here’s how these primary solutions will help us level up our Connected Planning suite and offer businesses and organizations industry leading Consolidation solutions:

• Financial Consolidation: When organizations invest in our Financial Consolidation offering, they’re investing in an agile software solution which allows businesses to remain nimble and responsive to any scenario. Our Anaplan powered Financial Consolidation solution can be deployed rapidly with little to no hassle. Its intuitive workflow automation and its Consolidation models with built-in intercompany eliminations, account reconciliation, cash flow management, and the use of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Power BI for Financial and Management Reporting will allow finance teams to navigate the solution with ease.

• Disclosure Management: With ever-changing reporting demands, finance teams need a solution that puts them firmly in control. With our Financial Consolidation solutions organizations can take charge, completely, without relying on IT. Finance teams will now be able to leverage the familiar Office authoring tools, like Word and PowerPoint, to create and publish comprehensive financial reports. This will enable organizations to set up documents in minutes, allowing them to quickly adapt to new requirements and deliver timely, accurate information.

• Excel Reporting: Organizations require reports that are not only informative but also engaging, giving them a clear view of company-wide metrics. Businesses can create insightful, interactive reports for any business audience directly within Excel, using a data-connected add-in designed for enterprise-level reporting. Organizations have the power to access real-time metrics through more than 30 built-in connectors, allowing them to deliver up-to-the-minute information and make data-driven decisions with confidence.

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Benefits of Investing in Our Anaplan Powered Financial Consolidation Solutions

In a PwC article titled ‘The benefits of investing in consolidation software in times of change’, PwC states that, ‘While there is no replacement for a robust, integrated ERP system to house transactional data and support day-to-day operations, consolidation systems can sit above multiple ERP instances and can provide a single source of truth to support management reporting, analysis, and financial reporting needed by internal managers and stakeholders/regulators.’ 

However, with Anaplan’s fresh expansion into the Financial Consolidation foray, Anaplan is set to offer its partners, the best of both worlds: Connected Planning and Financial Consolidation solutions. It is now primed to offer not only robust ERP systems but also peerless Financial Consolidation solutions. 

Here’s a list of the benefits that organizations can expect to derive from investing in Anaplan’s Financial Consolidation software solutions: 

• Simplification and reduced complexity via a unified platform: By integrating Consolidation and Connected Planning onto a unified platform with a consistent, user-friendly interface, finance organizations can streamline operations, drastically reducing system and process complexity. This consolidation will lead to significant cost reductions and enhanced compliance, enabling seamless navigation through statutory audits, adherence to GAAP standards, and detailed financial analysis down to the local entity level.

• Efficiency, speed, and quality – The days of static, traditional planning are over. In today's fast-paced business environment, real-time operational decision-making is paramount. To effectively navigate the rapid decision cycles of modern planning and scenario analysis, organizations need agility. This agility is achieved through the unification of Financial Consolidation and Connected Planning on a shared platform, allowing for seamless data flow and immediate insights, enabling companies to adapt swiftly to changing conditions.

• Time to value and cost savings: Anaplan and Fluence, as modern, cloud-native solutions, deliver rapid time-to-value, continuous feature and enhancement deployment, exceptional scalability and resilience, and increasingly sophisticated automation, empowering organizations to adapt quickly and efficiently to evolving business needs.

• Enabling key finance workstreams in real time: By connecting consolidated actuals, at local entity level, to forecasts on a unified Connected Planning platform, critical financial workstreams (e.g., local country/region accountability, transfer pricing studies, tax planning, local cash balance management, and FX sensitivities/hedging) are not only enabled but they are accelerated.

• Displacement of legacy on-prem offers: Anaplan's strategic integration of Fluence, coupled with our commitment to a streamlined and intuitive user experience, directly supports and accelerates the growing enterprise trend of platform consolidation. This convergence empowers organizations to achieve substantial cost savings, optimize human capital allocation, and ultimately drive superior, data-informed decision-making across the entire enterprise.

• Acceleration of digital transformation through automation: Fluence's embrace of automation, including workflows, financial templates, and models, will significantly amplify Anaplan's AI and automation roadmap across a broader spectrum of finance functions, spanning Integrated Planning to Consolidation, ultimately empowering our customers to achieve substantial cost reductions and make superior, real-time, data-driven decisions.

We - as an Anaplan partner - are set to level up the Financial Consolidation systems of our clients and guide them through their Connected Planning journeys in a bid to help transform their financial futures in the midst of ever-evolving technology. 

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Key Takeaways 

Anaplan's acquisition of Fluence Technologies marks a significant expansion of its offerings, integrating cloud-based Financial Close and Consolidation capabilities into its existing Connected Planning platform. By incorporating Fluence's no-code solutions, Anaplan aims to provide its partners, like Metora, with a more comprehensive financial management toolset, enabling them to unify planning with actual financial data.

Fluence Technologies' primary solutions, Financial Consolidation, Disclosure Management, and Excel Reporting, are designed to streamline and enhance financial processes. Financial Consolidation unifies financial data from multiple subsidiaries, ensuring accurate and unified reporting through a step-by-step process. Disclosure Management enables users to create and publish reports using familiar tools like Word and PowerPoint. Excel Reporting facilitates interactive report creation with real-time data connectivity. These tools aim to improve efficiency and accuracy in financial reporting, allowing organizations to adapt quickly to changing requirements.

The benefits of Anaplan's expanded Financial Consolidation capabilities include simplification and reduced complexity through a unified platform, increased efficiency and speed in decision-making, and significant time and cost savings. 

We - as an Anaplan partner - are poised to offer our clients Anaplan’s new Financial Consolidation solutions. Get in touch to learn more.