OneStream
What is OneStream?
Integrated CPM platform for group consolidation and closing, planning, budgeting and forecasting with functions for reporting and analytics, including an integrated marketplace with complementary applications and solutions
About OneStream
The information in this section has been provided by the vendor of OneStream.
Self-description of the vendor
OneStream BARC Review & Rating
This section contains our independent analyst views on OneStream.
Provider and product description
OneStream is a publicly listed (NASDAQ: OS) CPM software company based in the United States. Headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan, the company has offices in North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and the Asia-Pacific region and employs over 1,400 people worldwide.
OneStream is a unified platform that supports multiple CPM processes and information streams across the enterprise. It integrates financial consolidation and close, planning, budgeting and forecasting, reporting and analysis into a single application. In addition to the platform’s standard functionality, the OneStream Solution Exchange offers more than 100 value-added OneStream, partner and community solutions that customers can download, configure and deploy on the platform to address new requirements and extend capabilities. Prebuilt OneStream solutions are segmented into financial close and reporting (e.g., account reconciliation, transaction matching, tax provision, lease accounting, etc.), planning and analysis (e.g., people planning, capital planning, sales planning, predictive analytics, etc.) and productivity tools (e.g., task manager, CPM blueprint, ESG blueprint, etc.). Most solutions developed by OneStream are fully supported and available at no charge to active customers.
OneStream is ideal for midsize to large organizations across all industries that require a unified, robust and complete CPM platform. The vendor uses a direct sales model in addition to its partner network to support customers with implementation services. According to the vendor, more than 1,600 customers are currently using OneStream and the company is experiencing strong growth. OneStream is deployed in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
OneStream is a consolidation and planning platform with built-in financial data quality capabilities focused on supporting the full range of CPM. The product provides a proprietary in-memory financial analysis engine with built-in financial intelligence (e.g., support for complex financial consolidations) using ROLAP storage in Microsoft SQL Server. Enterprise-wide consolidated financial results, statements and plans can be produced at subsidiary or group level. In addition, Extensible Dimensionality® provides the ability to extend the account and other dimensional structures to support both corporate and line-of-business financial and operational planning and reporting in a single solution.
In addition to financial planning and analysis, OneStream also supports finance-led operational planning use cases. These prebuilt operational planning solutions in the Solution Exchange – including workforce, capital, cash and sales planning – feed into the core financial model for an integrated business planning approach. In addition, embedded AI services and key platform services (e.g., analytic services, workflow, security, etc.) are important areas of continued investment for OneStream. To build, maintain and deploy predictive models across financial and operational planning processes, OneStream offers its Sensible AI portfolio, which includes a set of packaged applied AI solutions built on top of OneStream’s unified data model and proprietary financial intelligence. AI-enabled solutions, such as Sensible AI Forecast, provide scalable AI designed specifically for finance, operations and data science teams. Sensible AI Forecast provides a guided experience for building, deploying and consuming time-series ML models for auto-generated predictions and offers scenario modeling capabilities for AI-driven what-if forecasting scenarios. Moreover, Sensible AI Agents combines context and conversation into a chatbot, enabling business users to interact and query data, OneStream training and documentation in natural language.
In addition to its core capabilities, OneStream also integrates functionality for BI and analytics. For agile (ad hoc) reporting and analysis, the product includes a reporting studio, spreadsheet interface or Excel add-in. Interactive dashboards can bring together key financial and operational metrics by combining tables, charts, graphs and other visualizations. In addition, its Agile Financial Analytics includes a relational column store engine that blends detailed operational data with financial data. Financial analysis, detailed operational analysis or a “blended” view of both can be presented within the same dashboard. In 2024, the platform was enhanced with OneStream Narrative Reporting, which unifies and automates the creation of financial narrative reports, including narrative assembly, data analysis, collaboration and approval. For customers with a Microsoft analytics strategy, a connector provides direct integration with Power BI via a certified API to create reports in Microsoft’s software based on OneStream data.
Strengths and challenges of OneStream
BARC’s viewpoint on the product’s strengths and challenges.
Strengths
- Unified CPM platform for financial consolidation and close, planning, budgeting and forecasting, reporting and analysis with built-in financial intelligence and financial data quality capabilities, available in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
- Integrated BI and analytics functionality for (print-oriented) production reporting, disclosure management with self-service dashboards and visualizations, and ad hoc analysis via Microsoft Excel add-in. As an extension, OneStream data can be imported and consumed in Microsoft Power BI using REST APIs.
- The OneStream Solution Exchange offers more than 100 prebuilt OneStream, partner and community solutions that enable customers to address new requirements and extend the capabilities of the platform. All OneStream-built solutions have a dedicated development team and roadmap, are fully supported and most are available at no cost to active customers.
- Excellent customer feedback for many KPIs in BARC’s ‘The Planning Survey’ including customer satisfaction with the product, functionality for planning and forecasting, workflows, reporting/analysis and financial consolidation. The vast majority of customers say they would recommend the platform to other organizations.
Challenges
- While OneStream offers a browser-based user interface, its recommended client solution that provides access to all functionality is a native Windows application, a web-based thin client deployed using Microsoft ClickOnce technology. A web application with an enhanced browser/mobile UX is available to use the platform on mobile devices, tablets and desktops. Today, administration, modeling and content creation capabilities are only available in the Windows application.
- According to feedback in ‘The Planning Survey’, OneStream implementations are often large and complex, which can mean they take longer than average to complete. Implementation times will vary based on customer use cases and unique requirements. In addition, some customers recommend that care be taken when selecting an implementation partner. OneStream’s rapid growth and continued acquisition of partners worldwide seems to mean that the quality of support and implementation experience is not at a consistent level. However, OneStream is aware of this and has its own certification program to ensure the quality of partner support.
- In Europe, OneStream lacks the market presence and global visibility of its main competitors, particularly SAP. However, it is a fast-growing global vendor and is continually improving its market visibility, particularly in EMEA. When companies do decide to evaluate OneStream, the vendor has a high win rate against its competitors.
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OneStream User Reviews & Experiences
The information contained in this section is based on user feedback and actual experience with OneStream.
The information and figures are largely drawn from BARC’s The BI & Analytics Survey, The Planning Survey, The Financial Consolidation Survey and The Data Management Survey. You can find out more about these surveys by clicking on the relevant links.
Summary of user review highlights from OneStream
What users like about OneStream and where the product scores best in a user comparison.
The Planning Survey Results
With 35 top ranks and 55 leading positions, OneStream achieves an outstanding set of results in this year’s Planning Survey. Excellent ratings in KPIs such as Business Benefits, Recommendation, Product Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction and Functionality underline OneStream’s leading position in the planning software market. Companies can benefit from using OneStream in terms of improved software user satisfaction, increased planning frequency and better integration of financial planning with operational planning. 96 percent of OneStream users say they would “definitely” or “probably” recommend their planning product to other organizations – a great indicator of customer satisfaction with the vendor and its product.
The Financial Consolidation & Group Accounting Survey Results
With 9 top rankings and 25 leading positions, OneStream achieves excellent results in this year’s Financial Consolidation & Group Accounting Survey 25. Outstanding ratings in Recommendation, Product Satisfaction, and Predefined Connectors underline OneStream’s leading position in the financial consolidation software market. 100% of surveyed users are satisfied with OneStream, and 95% would recommend the solution—a strong indicator of its high acceptance. Companies benefit from OneStream through improved transparency and traceability in group consolidation, powerful workflow capabilities, and high modeling flexibility. Its outstanding user-friendliness and continuous innovation make OneStream a top choice for organizations with complex consolidation needs.
Why users buy OneStream and what problems they have using it
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Full user reviews and KPI results for OneStream
All key figures for OneStream at a glance.
- Get independent information on software solutions, market developments and trends in data, analytics, business intelligence, data science and corporate performance management.
- Make data & analytics decisions based on numbers, data, facts and expert knowledge
- Access to all premium articles and all our research, including all software comparison studies, scores and surveys.
- Unlimited access to the BARC media library
- Consume unlimited content anywhere
Individual user reviews for OneStream
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility, audit trail, details.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Performance - capacity - peak period, the performance is slow.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
The implementation partners need to understand group accounting, including how you treat subsidiaries, joint ventures, and associates. Reconciliation of intercompany transactions, including security, is essential. Our partner in the early stages of the implementation was not the right fit. We changed partners, and overall, the implementation went well. However, we still face challenges with security and intercompany reconciliation, and the reason is poor recommendations at the start of the project from the advisor.
How would you sum up your experience?
Our key contact persons are very good, and we have a great relationship. They try to sort out our problems and challenges. Thanks to them! :-)
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The workflow process.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Dashboards are extremely hard to build, even with a highly technical background.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Implement consolidations first, then once that is live, consider planning and other solutions. You will make changes along the way, and your initial designs may need to be tweaked.
How would you sum up your experience?
I think it is a solid CPM system.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
User-friendly, always innovating, with many options of marketplace modules to add.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Even though OneStream does have a lot of training courses, webinars, knowledge articles, and the community board, I still need more!
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
DO IT, especially if you're on HFM. Night and Day.
How would you sum up your experience?
–
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The user interface, the system performance, the integrations with other systems, the flexibility when performing change management, data traceability, user security setup, data management and task manager for the automation of process steps.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Out of the box task and data audit dashboards.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Make sure to select an implementation partner that develops/maintains accelerators for standard maintenance and BAU processes. This improves implementation speed and allows you to focus more on the complex business processes from the beginning.
How would you sum up your experience?
OneStream is the most complete consolidated reporting system currently on the market. It combines the experience from many (legacy) point solutions into one multipurpose platform.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexible platform with few limitations to what you can build. OneStream support is much better than what Oracle used to provide.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
With the flexibility comes a lot of complexity and endless opportunities to build overly complicated solutions that users will struggle to understand. The workflow setup is quite tedious to maintain and creates some cumbersome limitations to the system (e.g., can't have multiple tabs open with different parameter selections within the same client instance). Some basic functionality that was in HFM doesn't come with OneStream out of the box and has to be reinvented by customers instead (e.g., ad hoc data loads via CSV/DAT files, replace mode loads for system artifacts/metadata, etc.). Basic form templates don't work nearly as well as they did in HFM (e.g., doesn't remember parameter selections when jumping between forms), pretty much forcing the use of custom dashboards, which are powerful but a pain to maintain. The cubes, scenario types, etc., require a lot of foresight when designing applications, as changing many of these things becomes very hard once the application is in use and data has been loaded.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Try to avoid building highly complicated things just because it is possible.
How would you sum up your experience?
As an IT admin/manager, I'm generally happy so far. We are usually able to deliver business requirements without hitting any fundamental limitations of the system. Some things are cumbersome, but I guess that would apply to any system.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility and scalability.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
IC matching report.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Have a clear idea of the overall design of the processes.
How would you sum up your experience?
Great platform.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Multiple applications in one product and interface.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
The Help module is not very robust.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Acquire a good consultant to implement the solution and, hopefully, one who knows your business.
How would you sum up your experience?
Best consolidation tool on the market.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
It has many features, more than the other tools that were considered.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Support communications: providing more than just chat would be good.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
It has pre-loaded graphics and videos, which is nice. The number of features is also good.
How would you sum up your experience?
It fulfills the purpose for which the tool was purchased.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility of the platform.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
UI dashboard/visualizations handling a high volume of data at the cube.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
With one license, you can access dozens of marketplace solutions that can be further customized according to the client's requirements. The only challenge is obtaining technical resources to hire. Otherwise, for every issue, you need to depend on external consultants, which results in high costs.
How would you sum up your experience?
Good product. You can create a wow factor with the business community by achieving major milestones that were, so far, a dream for the end user.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Consistent improvement in the product, new development features.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Support knowledge needs to be maintained as they grow.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Schedule a demo, talk with other OneStream clients in a similar industry.
How would you sum up your experience?
Trustworthy. Constantly improving.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility, it is a platform so you can use it for planning, consolidation, non-financial data, etc.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
–
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Take your time for the implementation, don't be overwhelmed by it potential. Start with one topic (planning OR consolidation) and then move forward. No big bang with all at the same time.
How would you sum up your experience?
I'm a happy OneStream administrator, with OneStream experience in two different companies. My general opinion about OneStream is very positive. Use-cases are almost limitless and there are many solutions for one business challenge.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility to create custom made detailed driver-based planning.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Lack of predefined solutions.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Get ABA, finance rules and dashboarding training early in the project for 1 or 2 key users.
How would you sum up your experience?
Great tool to work with if you have the time to get familiar with it.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
OneStream is very adaptable and customizable for our needs. It's not an out-of-the-box solution and it is tailored to our needs. We had some complexities we were unsure if they could be automated, but OneStream was able to do them and even improve the process.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
–
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Fully understand both your current processes and what your long-term needs will be. The better prepared you are ahead of the requirements sessions, the better the implementation will go.
How would you sum up your experience?
I love OneStream!
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
OneStream offers good pre-defined marketplace solutions with pretty complete flexibility from a development perspective. It really makes the options endless.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
I wish OneStream would improve some of their existing marketplace solutions that most companies use (e.g., account reconciliations) to be more flexible and easier to configure.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Do multiple customer referrals with similar customers to understand use cases and potential ideas. Have people in house who have administered OneStream. Find a consulting partner who you can rely on to help the system grow as your company's use of OneStream grows.
How would you sum up your experience?
I love OneStream not only as a software, but as a company. It's a great group to interact with and I would absolutely recommend OneStream to other companies.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility to automate any object.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
UI and thick based client.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Analyze your resources as it is resource intensive.
How would you sum up your experience?
Good software with brilliant marketing.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Une seule application unifiée prenant en charge plusieurs processus, intégration et maintenance ainsi facilitées.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Rien en particulier.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Comme pour tout ERP majeur, la partie intégration et interface et la conduite du changement (formation des utilisateurs et modification des processus) représentent un enjeu important de la mise en œuvre.
How would you sum up your experience?
Très bon outil qui répond à nos besoins dans notre context.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
We like the stability and ease of implementation and customization for our IT Administrators. Also, the system is more user-friendly, allowing power users to do many functions quickly and easily themselves, rather than having to wait for It to build it out.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Cube Views / Reports are not intuitive at first. You can't just log in to the system and teach yourself how to create reports. You need a training guide to get you started. Once you understand the concepts of how the systems works, then it is very self-service.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Make sure your implementation company is a diamond partner with plenty of implementations. They don't always need direct experience of your business since you are the partner to help them understand that. You really need them to be the expert on OneStream, and be a Diamond partner with OneStream, so you know they will implement the best practices and best solution for you.
How would you sum up your experience?
Excellent software. Best on the market for financial consolidation, planning, and reporting.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Dashboard, extensible functionality.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Limitations of data usage.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Get all the details before implement and possible to way to achieve it.
How would you sum up your experience?
It's a new tool, showcases lots of features but they are implemented only on request with fees.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Their Platform approach - all functionality included in one Platform without additional license fees.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Embedded AI/ML capabilities. Enhanced drag and drop BI capabilities.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Well trained implementation/admin group. Focus on the very different approach to reporting flow centered around the organization (who is doing what).
How would you sum up your experience?
Very satisfied
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility, performance, integration of all EPM processes, innovation pace.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
–
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Define properly the concept and scope, as OneStream will impact the full EPM landscape over time.
How would you sum up your experience?
Best EPM tool on the market.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The completeness and flexibility. The background of the company (related to HFM/FDM).
What do you like least/what could be improved?
More available courses.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
To do it as soon as possible.
How would you sum up your experience?
Good opinion.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility of solution. Ability to expand functionality with MarketPlace solutions, specific to business needs. Access to SQL tables in back end allows for querying and customization as needed.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Application is a little click intensive, especially compared to competitors. Support used to be amazing but has slipped in the past year. Most tickets seem to be kicked to OneStream consulting vs resolving via support.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Since UDs can be used across various solutions, plan out long term, so that they can be shared and leveraged across apps.
How would you sum up your experience?
Solid product. Maybe growing a little too quickly and you can see it in support being not as great as in the past. Used to be great, now is very good. Would still recommend over competitors based on flexibility and all-inclusiveness.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Customer focus.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Documentation of system functionality, lots of areas are not discussed in reference docs and has to dig around to find the facts.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Great long term platform investment, expect it to be a champion over next 10-20 years for EPM, Accounting, FP&A, Planning use cases.
How would you sum up your experience?
Worth of investing money, time in the development of company specific use cases.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
I like the OneStream is an all-in-one platform. From consolidations, to forecast and budgeting, to management reporting, and external filings; OneStream is a one stop shop that allows us to complete all finance/accounting activities in one centralized location.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
–
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Implement with an external partner with guidance from the business. To really get OneStream clicking on all cylinders the external implementer knows the systems and best practices.
How would you sum up your experience?
I'm a big fan of OneStream, I expect it to dominate the industry going forward. Looking forward to an IPO.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
OneStream is a platform solution. It allows us to customize the tool to different usages. This way we keep a single source of truth instead of using a large variety of tools.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
It would be good to provide more default features or easy to implement pre-built solutions. Now many things need to be coded and build by the user. I am pretty sure that many customers have the same need, and they build the same functionalities.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
The design and implementation phase are critical. It is a pitfall that the solution becomes a patched solution without a clear design. Also, there are a lot of possibilities in OneStream, keep focus on consistency in the implementation and design this will help maintenance in the future.
How would you sum up your experience?
OneStream is great solution that keeps on evolving.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The capabilities of the platform. Combined data from various departments come together and form one version of the truth.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
The dashboard functionality is basic.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Start with the full landscape you want to capture in OneStream and build a design from there. Possibilities are endless and focus is needed when setting up the foundation.
How would you sum up your experience?
It’s a great product that can support the business in many ways due to its capabilities.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
The flexibility and ease of use.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
The Excel add in should be backwards compatible.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Plan your implementation and allow for a reasonable timeline with detailed testing.
How would you sum up your experience?
It's the best CPM software on the market.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Simple, easy and self-explanatory.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Speed and more training videos for users.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Check prerequisites and get the data ready for testing.
How would you sum up your experience?
Great tool which offers more convenient scenarios-based output for top management.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Customer support is excellent.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
Limited user community compared to other products
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Find an excellent implementation partner like Finit.
How would you sum up your experience?
It is a better product than all other similar tools I've experienced. The flexibility and features are excellent.
Number of employees
Industry
Source
What do you like best?
Flexibility of the platform. Tailormade based on client's requirement. Bundled products with SSO.
What do you like least/what could be improved?
UI Reporting environment. API. We have close to 2000 customers and more than 7000 hierarchies. System unable to extract data at top level.
What key advice would you give to other companies looking to introduce/use the product?
Best tool, go for it.
How would you sum up your experience?
Best tool, go for it.
