By Louis Balla, Chief Revenue Officer, Nuage. Updated October 2026.
Anaplan and Workday Adaptive Planning (formerly Adaptive Insights, which Workday acquired in 2018) are cloud planning platforms for budgeting, forecasting, scenario planning and consolidation. Anaplan builds plans as multidimensional models of modules and line items and extends into sales, supply chain and workforce planning. Adaptive Planning organizes plans in sheets and adds workforce and operational planning.
Before you choose, decide how far beyond finance the plan has to reach and who will maintain the model after go-live. If you run NetSuite, add NetSuite Planning and Budgeting to the shortlist. The table below includes it.
Anaplan vs Workday Adaptive Planning at a glance
| Workday Adaptive Planning | Anaplan | NetSuite Planning and Budgeting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company today | Part of Workday since August 2018 | Privately held since Thoma Bravo completed its acquisition in June 2022 | Oracle NetSuite product, built on the Oracle EPM Cloud platform |
| Planning areas the vendor lists | Budgeting, forecasting, scenario planning and reporting; workforce planning; sales, demand and supply, and project planning; close and consolidation | Finance planning, forecasting, consolidation and reporting; sales and marketing; supply chain; workforce; retail merchandise planning | Financials: revenue and gross margin, operating expenses, driver-based balance sheet planning, financial statements, reporting and analytics |
| How a plan is built | Sheets: standard sheets for accounts over time, modeled sheets for record-based calculations such as salaries or depreciation, cube sheets for data with several dimensions | Models made of modules and line items, which model builders create and maintain | Scenario planning templates that populate from the NetSuite general ledger |
| Working in Excel | Workday documents an Excel interface for planning that works with all three sheet types | Ask Anaplan which Excel options come with your subscription | Smart View connects NSPB to Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook |
| Getting NetSuite actuals in | An administrator adds a NetSuite data source in Adaptive Planning’s Design Integrations option | Data loads through Anaplan’s integration tools, such as Data Orchestrator, or through integration partners; ask Anaplan which route it recommends for NetSuite | Templates update from NetSuite’s general ledger and adjust when accounting segments and dimensions change |
Sources: Workday’s Adaptive Planning overview, sheet types, Excel interface and NetSuite integration documentation; Anaplan’s platform page, line items help and data management and integrations page; Oracle’s NetSuite Planning and Budgeting Financials overview. Features change by release and subscription, so confirm current scope with each vendor’s account team.
What is CPM software? Terms used in this comparison
- CPM or EPM (corporate or enterprise performance management): software for planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation and management reporting that works alongside the ERP. Vendors use both names for the same category.
- FP&A (financial planning and analysis): the finance team that builds the budget and forecasts and explains variances against them.
- Actuals: the recorded results from the general ledger that a plan is measured against. A planning tool outside the ERP receives them through an integration or a file load.
- Driver-based planning: a plan calculated from operating inputs such as headcount or units sold, so changing a driver updates the forecast.
- Consolidation: combining the results of several subsidiaries into one set of statements, including intercompany eliminations and currency translation.
How Anaplan and Adaptive Planning build a plan
In Anaplan, a model is made of modules, line items and dimensions. Model builders create a module for each business purpose, such as margin calculation or employee expenses, and the line items inside it hold the inputs and the formulas that calculate from them. Because everything in the model is built this way, ask early who on your team or at a partner will be the model builder after go-live.
Adaptive Planning plans are built in sheets, and Workday’s documentation describes three kinds. Standard sheets hold accounts over time, such as a P&L or an expense sheet. Modeled sheets hold records with their own business logic, such as one row per employee that calculates salary. Cube sheets hold data with several dimensions that users can pivot. Finance users can work in all three through Workday’s Excel interface for planning.
Which is easier for a finance team to use?
Ease of use depends on how the model is built and who maintains it. To test it, ask each vendor to demonstrate one of your own processes, such as the department expense budget, using your chart of accounts. Then ask them to show how a finance user changes an assumption and reruns the forecast without help from the person who built the model.
Anaplan vs Adaptive for planning across finance, sales and operations
Both vendors now describe planning well beyond finance. Anaplan presents one platform for finance, sales and marketing, supply chain, workforce and retail planning. Workday lists sales planning, demand and supply planning, project planning and strategic workforce planning next to Adaptive Planning’s budgeting and forecasting.
For a large company that wants sales capacity, supply and headcount plans to feed the financial plan, ask each vendor for a reference customer running those operational plans in production today, and ask how many people at that customer maintain the model. If your company already runs Workday HCM, ask Workday how Adaptive Planning’s workforce plans use that data.
Connecting Anaplan or Adaptive Planning to NetSuite
A planning tool outside NetSuite needs actuals from the general ledger on a regular schedule. In Adaptive Planning, an administrator adds a NetSuite data source through the Design Integrations option, which Workday recommends over its general import option for NetSuite data. In Anaplan, data arrives through Anaplan’s integration tools or an integration partner, so ask Anaplan which route it recommends for NetSuite.
Whichever planning tool you pick, the connection that feeds it actuals needs an owner and a regular check, so a failed load is caught before the next forecast runs on stale numbers.
Questions to settle before you sign:
- Which NetSuite data feeds the plan: general ledger balances only, or transaction detail as well?
- How often does the load run, and who is notified when it fails?
- Which NetSuite role and credentials does the integration use, and who maintains them?
- When you add a subsidiary, department or account in NetSuite, who updates the mapping in the planning tool?
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting vs Adaptive and Anaplan
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB) is Oracle NetSuite’s planning product, built on the Oracle EPM Cloud platform. Its Financials module covers revenue and gross margin, operating expenses, driver-based balance sheet planning and financial statements. Oracle’s documentation says its scenario planning templates are populated and updated from NetSuite’s general ledger and adjust when accounting segments and dimensions change. Users can work in Excel through Smart View.
For a NetSuite customer whose planning centers on the financial statements, that general ledger connection is the main reason to evaluate NSPB alongside Adaptive Planning and Anaplan. Confirm with your NetSuite account team which NSPB modules your subscription includes and what adding others would involve. Our NetSuite Planning and Budgeting review covers the product in more depth, and our guide to NetSuite budgeting and planning covers budgets set up inside NetSuite itself.
Each of these tools plans against your NetSuite chart of accounts and segments, so decide early which statements the plan has to produce. A finance leader at a media company described setting up a planning model only for FP&A: “We didn’t actually even consider setting up categories for the balance sheet or anything like that. And we had to scrap what we had done and rebuild it.”
How Nuage approaches planning-tool projects
When a client is choosing or rolling out a planning tool, our team works through these steps:
- Review the chart of accounts and segments first. The planning tool inherits that structure, so we settle it before any budget or forecast build.
- Agree which statements the plan must produce. A model set up for FP&A alone may need rebuilding once balance sheet planning or reporting is added, as the media company above found.
- Write down who owns what when another team leads the rollout. Where NetSuite’s own team or another partner leads the planning rollout, the data underneath the plan still needs a named owner.
- Check that the integrations feeding the planning tool are running. Each load needs an owner who hears about a failure the day it happens.
Our team does this work as part of ongoing NetSuite optimization and managed services.
Anaplan vs Adaptive Insights FAQ
What are the main Anaplan alternatives?
Workday Adaptive Planning is the alternative this article compares in detail. Companies on NetSuite can also evaluate NetSuite Planning and Budgeting, which Oracle builds on its EPM Cloud platform and connects to the NetSuite general ledger. Many other FP&A tools are on the market, and our budgeting and planning software comparison covers more of them. Compare each option on the planning areas you need and on how it gets actuals from your ERP.
Is Adaptive Insights the same as Workday Adaptive Planning?
Yes. Workday completed its acquisition of Adaptive Insights on August 1, 2018, for about $1.55 billion, and the product is now sold as Workday Adaptive Planning. Older integrations and documentation may still use the Adaptive Insights name, so check both names when you audit what is connected to your ERP.
Do Anaplan and Adaptive Planning both handle consolidation?
Yes. Workday lists close and consolidation as part of Adaptive Planning, and Anaplan lists consolidation among its finance use cases. Test each one against your own structure: how many subsidiaries you consolidate, which currencies you translate, the intercompany eliminations you post each month, and whether consolidation will run in the planning tool or stay in NetSuite. Our NetSuite month-end close guide covers the close steps that come before it.
What is NetSuite PBCS, and how does it compare with Adaptive?
NetSuite PBCS is a name people use for NetSuite Planning and Budgeting. PBCS stands for Oracle’s Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, and Oracle’s documentation describes NSPB as built on the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Services platform. One practical difference from Adaptive Planning is how actuals arrive. NSPB’s templates update from the NetSuite general ledger, while Adaptive Planning imports NetSuite data through a NetSuite data source that an administrator sets up and maintains.
Which planning tool is best for a NetSuite customer?
It depends on scope. If the plan centers on the financial statements, NetSuite Planning and Budgeting’s connection to the general ledger makes it worth evaluating first. If operational plans such as sales or headcount need to feed the financial plan, compare Adaptive Planning and Anaplan on those operational plans as well. In each case, review your chart of accounts before you build, and give the integration that feeds actuals a named owner.
About the author
Louis Balla is Chief Revenue Officer at Nuage, a NetSuite optimization partner that has served 250+ clients since 2011 and holds a 4.9 out of 5 rating on Clutch.
