Most finance teams don’t need more tools. They need fewer tabs open.
You’ve probably felt it: planning that should take hours stretches into days. Forecasts go stale. Reviews turn into reconciliation exercises. Everyone wants to move faster, but the tools make it harder.
Modern budgeting software is supposed to solve that.
Sometimes it does, but often it doesn’t. The real difference is how your team plans, how complex your model is, and who owns it. Choosing the right tool is less about feature checklists, and more about how your team thinks, moves, and grows.
Let’s break down what to look for.
Why finance teams outgrow spreadsheets
Spreadsheets changed the game once, but now they’re starting to hold teams back.
You can’t always tell when it happens. At first, it’s just slower reviews. Then it’s version mismatches or hidden formulas no one remembers. Or perhaps scenarios buried across tabs. Maybe even data from five systems that takes hours to normalize.
Eventually, you’re spending more time managing the process than actually shaping the plan.
Most teams don't outgrow Excel because it's wrong.
They outgrow it because it's no longer a good fit for how they work. At some point, you can’t answer “what if?” without risking breaking something or spinning up yet another copy of the file.
What the right budgeting tool should actually do
A good budgeting platform is a system that:
- Keeps everyone working on the same version
- Connects directly to your ERP, CRM, and HRIS (no exports)
- Shows the full impact of every assumption change, instantly
- Tracks the story behind the numbers (who changed what, and why)
- Makes it easy to collaborate across teams without losing control
- Lets a model owner adjust structure and drivers without needing IT, scripts, or consultants
You shouldn’t need consultants to get it working.
You shouldn’t need days of training to get value.
And you definitely shouldn’t need three tools to do what one should.
How the top 5 platforms compare (and where they shine)
Runway
Runway is for teams that want to build, review, and adjust together, in real time, in one place. In practice, that usually means a scrappy finance team inside a growing company, with one or more people who “own the model” and have to explain it to everyone else.
It’s designed for modern finance:
- Structured models with human-readable formulas that feel familiar to spreadsheet users, but add dimensionality and guardrails
- Native collaboration, with no file merging or version hell
- Built-in scenario planning, live dashboards, and stakeholder-friendly reporting
- Direct integrations with your full stack: NetSuite, QuickBooks, Salesforce, Workday, and 750+ others
Runway keeps things fast and familiar for spreadsheet users, while giving them enterprise-grade power without enterprise-grade pain. Finance can keep control of the logic while still pulling sales, marketing, and ops into the same live model.
Abacum
Abacum focuses on collaboration for central FP&A teams. It offers multidimensional modeling, fast onboarding, and automatic data ingestion from key systems.
It’s a strong pick for finance leaders who want spreadsheet flexibility without the spreadsheet upkeep, and who are ready to leave manual workflows behind.
However, it comes with a steep learning curve, and some change requests may need external consultants (at high cost). It’s better suited when you’re comfortable treating the platform as a centralized FP&A hub with a smaller group of expert users, rather than something the whole business will live in.
Vena
Vena keeps Excel in the center, but wraps it in process controls, automation, and centralized data.
If your team lives and breathes spreadsheets, but needs more structure, Vena lets you modernize without abandoning your core workflows. Think of it as Excel, grown up. You still design and maintain templates; Vena adds governance and data plumbing around them.
LivePlan
LivePlan is built for simpler planning needs where a single-entity, single-product model is enough.
Templates and guided workflows make it easy to build forecasts, track goals, and generate reports. It’s a good fit for teams that don’t yet need multi-entity, multi-scenario modeling, but can be limited once things scale.
Planful
Planful is designed for finance organizations with complex planning and consolidation across multiple entities and functions.
It offers deep consolidation, advanced forecasting, and robust analytics, but comes with more implementation time and learning curve than smaller teams may want to manage. What-if scenario planning options might be limited as well. It’s a better fit when you already have a well-defined, centralized planning process and are optimizing for standardization over speed.
How to choose what’s right for you
Most tools do similar things. The real difference is how they feel to use.
Start here:
- How fast do you need to move? Some platforms optimize for scale, others for speed. Pick based on how often your plans change, and how often you want them to.
- What does your team already know? The more familiar the interface, the faster your team will adopt it.
- Who owns the model, and needs to be involved? If sales, ops, and marketing contribute to the budget, you need real collaboration without turning finance into the bottleneck or the help desk.
- Where does your data live? If it’s in 5+ tools, pick a platform with real integrations, not just CSV import.
- What happens when you grow? Look for tools that can scale with you across users, models, and scenarios, without needing a full reimplementation every time your business model changes.
What finance looks like when budgeting actually works
A real budgeting platform isn’t just about building the model.
It’s about what happens once you have one:
- Reviews become working sessions, not reconciliation marathons
- Scenario planning becomes part of the weekly rhythm, not something you do only twice a year
- Everyone sees the same numbers, and the same tradeoffs
- You van answer “what if we…?” in minutes, not days; and everyone trusts the answer
- And finance becomes a function that helps the company decide faster
The best budgeting software makes your model better. It also helps your team think better.
Ready to rethink finance?
Runway gives finance teams the speed of spreadsheets, the structure of software, and the clarity of a shared model.
- Collaborative planning that gets everyone on the same page
- Intuitive modeling that’s flexible and transparent
- Real-time reporting that answers the question, “what changed, and what does it mean?”