My Concern About Anaplan’s Lack of Predefined Validations and Processes

mbal

We are currently implementing Anaplan in our company, and during the process, we have noticed a critical issue: Anaplan does not come with predefined validations or standard processes, unlike other financial planning software such as SAP BPC, Oracle PBCS, or Tagetik.

This has led us to feel that we are essentially developing a software solution from scratch, rather than implementing an enterprise-ready planning tool. While we understand that Anaplan is designed to be flexible and adaptable, we expected the tool to come with at least basic built-in controls and validation mechanisms—such as ensuring that accounts, cost centers, and currencies are valid, or that all Budget items exist in Forecast 1 and Forecast 2.

The Main Problem

No built-in validations: In other software, validation rules ensure data integrity automatically. In Anaplan, everything must be manually configured.

No standard processes: Other tools provide preconfigured workflows for budgeting, forecasting, and financial consolidation. In Anaplan, everything has to be built from scratch.

Dependence on consultants: Because of the lack of out-of-the-box features, the quality of the implementation entirely depends on the consultants, and if they do not apply best practices, the system ends up being just an expensive version of Excel.

My Questions

1. Do other companies face the same problem?

2. Is it normal for Anaplan implementations to lack predefined validations, requiring everything to be manually built?

3. How do companies ensure best practices when even experienced consultants do not seem to include standard validation processes?

4. Does Anaplan provide guidelines or best practices to its partners (consulting firms) to ensure implementations follow structured validation and control methodologies?

At this point, it feels like Anaplan is too open-ended, requiring excessive manual setup for even basic financial planning features. I would appreciate insights from others who have implemented Anaplan to understand how they tackled this issue.

Dikshant

Unlike SAP BPC or Oracle PBCS, Anaplan doesn’t come with built-in validations or standard processes. Instead, everything has to be manually built. However, this flexibility allows businesses to define and implement their own logic and validation rules as needed for financial planning. The key is ensuring that these requirements are clearly documented in user stories or requirement documents and properly implemented by Anaplan consultants.

How Others Handle It:

• Internal Governance: Companies establish best practices rather than relying entirely on consultants. Product Delivery Managers (PDMs), typically SMEs, work closely with both business teams and Anaplan consultants to define business requirements, enforce guardrails, and implement validation checks for data accuracy.
• Center of Excellence (CoE): Most companies create an internal team dedicated to overseeing Anaplan usage, enforcing standards, and ensuring consistency.
• Consultant Oversight: The quality of implementation depends on well-defined requirements. Clear documentation of all necessary validations ensures consultants build the right controls into the system.

While Anaplan provides general best practices for modeling, there is no predefined methodology for financial processes. To ensure a structured approach, it’s crucial to define a validation framework from the start.

mbal

First, I want to thank you for your response and for shedding light on how companies typically handle this situation. Your explanation about internal governance, Centers of Excellence (CoE), and the importance of well-defined requirements helped clarify some aspects of how Anaplan implementations are structured. However, I still have concerns that I would like to further explore.

We are are the client company, not a software development firm. We are implementing Anaplan to support our FP&A processes, and yet, throughout this project, it feels like we are developing a software solution from scratch rather than implementing an enterprise-ready planning tool.

I understand nowr (I didn't know this before) that Anaplan unlike other financial planning software such as SAP BPC, Oracle PBCS, or Tagetik, does not come with built-in validations, standard workflows, or predefined financial planning processes. While I understand that Anaplan's flexibility allows companies to tailor the system to their needs, this also means that fundamental system design features like controls and processes—such as data validations, master data governance, and structured workflows—must be designed from the ground up.

Your response highlighted that companies address this by establishing internal governance frameworks and Centers of Excellence (CoE) to ensure best practices are followed within the organization. However, our company is not large enough to have a CoE, a dedicated Product Delivery Manager (PDM), or internal Anaplan experts who can oversee and enforce implementation best practices. We rely on the expertise of the consulting firm, assuming they would handle this aspect professionally.

1. If companies like ours—without software development expertise—are expected to define fundamental system building and design features like controls and processes—such as data validations, master data governance, and structured workflows — what exactly is the role of the implementation partner?

If we don’t know what needs to be built, and consultants don’t proactively include best practices unless explicitly requested, how can we ensure a well-structured system!?.

Are all Anaplan implementations supposed to start from a blank slate? In other enterprise software (EPM, ERP, CRM), there are predefined frameworks that ensure consistency across implementations. Is it common for Anaplan implementations to lack such predefined structures, forcing companies to invent them from scratch?

What happens when consultants do not proactively enforce best practices?

You mentioned that requirement documentation is key, but in many cases, companies like ours don’t know what to ask for. How can businesses that are new to Anaplan ensure that their implementation follows industry best practices if the consulting team does not automatically apply structured validation frameworks?

Does Anaplan provide any official guidelines or frameworks to ensure that consulting firms follow best practices in financial planning implementations?

Since Anaplan doesn’t offer built-in processes, are there at least structured methodologies that partners are required to follow?

At this point, it feels like we are not just configuring Anaplan but designing the entire logic of a financial planning system ourselves—a task that seems beyond what a client should be responsible for in an enterprise software implementation.

I would greatly appreciate insights on how this challenge is managed , specially in not large companies, and whether our expectations about the implementation process are incorrect. Should clients really be defining everything themselves, or should Anaplan and its implementation partners be ensuring that foundational best practices are included?

Thank you very much.

devrathahuja

Hello @mbal ,
Those are some very valid points that you mentioned, especially for someone starting up with Anaplan.

To clarify a few,

1. How can businesses that are new to Anaplan ensure that their implementation follows industry best practices if the consulting team does not automatically apply structured validation frameworks?
-Ideally, you can ask for credentials to the consulting team around the kind of work they have done for other companies as well as credentials for the implementation team. This ensures that you're working with someone experienced not only in Anaplan but also in the industry & use case that you're implementing. The team credentials also help you understand the level of expertise that you'll be getting, as Anaplan Solution Architects are also evaluated on use of best practices & their past experience before being issued the certificate for the same.

2. Does Anaplan provide any official guidelines or frameworks to ensure that consulting firms follow best practices in financial planning implementations?
-Anaplan does provide "The Anaplan Way" as a framework / project methodology to ensure success of the project. You can find more details here - https://community.anaplan.com/kb/articles/23242-discover-the-anaplan-way-project-methodology

Some additional things that also help is to identify 1 or 2 users within the organization who are willing to take up the role of a super user & get them started with basic Anaplan trainings as that often plays a pivotal role in acting as a bridge between the consulting team & business partners.

You can also get a "model review" conducted by Anaplan where they identify things that are not as per the best practices to flag such instances.

Model Open Analysis / MAPS are few other resources that are provided to every customer & are focused on best practices / performance of the model. Your customer success business partner would be able to guide you further on this.

You can expect the implementation / consulting partner to build the rules or validations as long as its covered as part of a user story. You could also ask them for suggestions on how that step was done for other clients & then decide which one suits your needs & timelines the best.

Hope this helps! :)

Good luck with your journey on Anaplan & feel free to reach out to the community in case of more questions!

alexpavel

@mbal There are also pre-built Apps (models) that Anaplan offers that could address your doubt that Anaplan is only a tool to build from scratch.

https://www.anaplan.com/applications/

In my opinion, building a budget and planning process from scratch was easier.

Every company has its unique business processes, and while there are general similarities, the details always make a difference.

If someone is proficient in advanced Excel, acquiring Anaplan skills should be relatively straightforward.

Good luck!

Dikshant

As an organization, you need to define your financial processes and key metrics. If you use Excel for financial planning, share those files with the implementation partner, as they serve as a blueprint for the Anaplan build.

The implementation partner has Anaplan experts who will analyze your existing workflows and take care of the technical implementation, following best practices from a modeling perspective. However, defining business processes, required metrics, and calculation logic is the organization's responsibility. A finance representative from your team should collaborate with the implementation partner to ensure alignment.

While having an in-house Anaplan team is beneficial for governance and long-term enhancements, it is not mandatory at the start—your implementation partner should handle the initial setup and can maintain it.

If you work with an Anaplan Business Partner, they can provide access to reference financial models for guidance that are free / paid, though building from scratch is often more efficient. Additionally, you can ask your implementation partner to share the financial modeling techniques they have built for other organizations, along with their schemas, to help you make informed decisions.

mbal

Thank you all very much for your responses. I will have to see how the project we are working on will end. Only during the training (an 8-hour session for Sales, Cost, Opex, Capex and dashboards) did they show us the software for the first time, and it ended up being a meeting to request corrections and changes. I estimate that during the testing phase (which will last two weeks), we will identify additional points to modify. After that, we will see how we maintain the tool, as we will hire the same company that is implementing it to provide support.

Once again, thank you very much.

Best regards.