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.