Benchmarks - The Alight Challenge

A structured benchmark test confirms that Alight Planning is 8 times faster than spreadsheets for building financial plans.

Our spreadsheet expert, a CPA with fourteen years finance experience, built the benchmark financial plan in 16 hours. He completed the analysis challenges in 4.5 hours.

Our expert built the benchmark plan in Alight Planning in less than 2 hours. He did the analysis challenges in ten and a half minutes.

How we set up the challenge
Alight is 8 times faster for building a model
Alight is 25 times faster for analysis
Alight Planning changes everything

How we set up the challenge

The challenger We wanted a worthy opponent, so we recruited one of the best spreadsheet and financial planning experts in Sacramento — Jason Dunlap. A BS from UC Berkeley and a CPA, Jason has fourteen years finance experience including Senior Auditor with Ernst & Young and Controller for two technology firms. Over the course of his career, he has built over 100 financial models from scratch in Excel.

The software tools Jason used Microsoft Excel. Alight's expert, Rand Heer, used Alight Planning starting with a generic Alight Profile. Both built the identical financial model. Both kept records of time spent building model elements and performing the analysis challenges.

Base model requirements We clearly defined model requirements: a month by month plan for a technology company extending over 3 years. The model included: 4 financial statement types (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow and contribution analysis), 33 rollup categories, 120 line items, and 18 monthly and summary reports. Ninety line items involved activity driver relationships requiring linking between model elements and/or complex formulas.

Analysis challenges We set up a series of analysis and restructuring challenges that Jason and Rand performed on the completed models. These included: a) 10 sensitivity exercises; b) 3 alternate scenario analyses involving extensive changes to inputs; c) 3 restructuring problems incorporating timing changes — for example, pushing out a product launch date; and d) 3 specialized analysis reports and graphs.

Alight is 8 times faster for building a model

The spreadsheet expert took 16 hours to build the financial plan in Excel. The Alight expert built the model in Alight Planning in less than 2 hours starting from a generic Alight Profile.

Line items The majority of time was spent building the line items which involved setting up scores of linked relationships — 9 hours for the spreadsheet expert and 1.7 hours for Alight.

Alight won hands-down for two reasons: 1. Alight's starting point, a generic profile, includes many placeholders with links already structured — such line items as cost of sales, payroll taxes, depreciation, inventories, receivables, etc. 2. Alight's linking is faster because it uses object names — for example, "Product A units" and "Payroll Tax Rate" — instead of cell references such as "C28*'Build Up Assumptions'!C31"

Rollups The spreadsheet expert spent 4 hours structuring categories and rollups for the P&L, balance sheet, cash flow and contribution analysis. No time for Alight — rollups are automatic except for changing a few category names on the Setup sheet.

Auditing for accuracy The spreadsheet expert spent 1.3 hours setting up check totals and auditing. Just 9 minutes for Alight — check totals aren't needed, and automatic system notes helped the Alight expert quickly trace linking and input assumptions for accuracy.

Reports The spreadsheet expert spent 1.5 hours setting up reports. 1 minute for Alight — default reports were already set up plus new reports were essentially automatic because rows and columns, headers, formatting, number types, totals and variances are managed by system operators.

Alight is 25 times faster for analysis

The spreadsheet expert took 4.5 hours to complete the analysis challenges. We did them in ten and a half minutes.

Sensitivity analysis The 10 sensitivity analysis exercises required identifying the financial impact of the most sensitive input assumptions and performing break-even type analyses. The spreadsheet expert took an hour and a half — and Excel's goal seek function broke during the process! Alight's time was 1 minute. Sensitivity analysis is essentially instantaneous using Alight's own goal seek, tops-down and impact analysis features.

Scenario analysis Alight won by a factor of 9 to 1 for creating and comparing alternate scenarios. In Excel, the exercise required setting up and manipulating 4 workbooks with 20 worksheets. It took an hour. The Alight analysis was performed in one file in 7 minutes.

Restructure timing The 3 restructuring exercises required pushing out the timing of a product release, shortening the ramp-up of sales and associated spending, and then combining the two cases. In Excel, each timing restructure required half an hour in separate workbooks. In Alight, each was implemented as a separate calendar in the same file. Creating a calendar, Alight's interface for managing timing assumptions, takes about 45 seconds. Total time with Alight — two minutes.

Special reports Creating 3 custom reports and graphs took the spreadsheet expert a little more than half an hour. The Alight time was 1 minute. Some custom report features, such as % of Sales or Runrate, are automatic in Alight. Setting up graphs, including defining data ranges within pre-established reports, is also automatic.

Alight Planning changes everything

Designed by finance pros, Alight Planning is the first desktop package that streamlines financial plans and forecasts. In just a few hours, you can build a financial model that takes days with a spreadsheet, and answer virtually any investor question about the numbers.

How is this possible?

• Alight is fast Unlike spreadsheets, the infrastructure is in place for rolling up line items and categories to the P&L and balance sheet. The cash flow, always a headache, is produced automatically as you hook up the balance sheet. Benchmarking shows you can build and analyze a financial plan in Alight ten times faster than with spreadsheets.
• Alight is powerful You can easily look ahead with "what-if" scenarios, dig deeper into underlying drivers and assumptions, and quickly counter tough questions. You do this using Alight's analysis and scenario tools such as calendars, goal seek, tops-down and impact analysis.
• Alight doesn't break Unlike spreadsheets, rows and columns automatically organize themselves. You can move any data column or row. Nothing breaks. You can add operator columns for totals, variances, and run rates. Nothing breaks. You can create links, formulas, and cross time period references using object names rather than cell references. Nothing breaks.
• Alight is accurate Unlike spreadsheets, you don't have to spend time flushing out errors and putting in check totals. The numbers always add up. And input assumptions are uncovered for quick access and sensitivity analysis.