17 years helping British businesses
choose better software

What is Datarails?

Datarails is a financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. It automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.
Automating these manual processes paves the way for finance teams to spend more time analyzing data and less time collecting it.
It also empowers them to answer essential strategic questions like what their organization can do to increase revenue and reduce expenses.

Who Uses Datarails?

Finance teams of small, medium enterprises (50-2000 employees).

Where can Datarails be deployed?

Cloud-based
On-premise

About the vendor

  • Datarails
  • Located in New York, US
  • Founded in 2015

Datarails support

  • Phone Support
  • Chat

Countries available

Canada, United Kingdom, United States

Languages

English

Datarails pricing

Starting Price:

Not provided by vendor
  • No free trial
  • No free version

Datarails does not have a free version and does not offer a free trial.

Pricing plans

About the vendor

  • Datarails
  • Located in New York, US
  • Founded in 2015

Datarails support

  • Phone Support
  • Chat

Countries available

Canada, United Kingdom, United States

Languages

English

Datarails videos and images

Datarails Software - Budgeting
Datarails Software - Data Visualization
Datarails Software - Revenue Forecast
Datarails Software - Variance Analysis
Datarails Software - Monthly Reporting
View 6 more
Datarails video
Datarails Software - Budgeting
Datarails Software - Data Visualization
Datarails Software - Revenue Forecast
Datarails Software - Variance Analysis
Datarails Software - Monthly Reporting

Features of Datarails

  • Asset Lifecycle Management
  • Audit Trail
  • Budgeting/Forecasting
  • Cash Management
  • Collaboration Tools
  • Consolidation/Roll-Up
  • Customisable Dashboard
  • Dashboard
  • Data Import/Export
  • Data Visualisation
  • Drag & Drop
  • Expense Management
  • Financial Analysis
  • Forecasting
  • General Ledger
  • Goal Setting/Tracking
  • Idea Management
  • Income & Balance Sheet
  • KPI Monitoring
  • Modeling & Simulation
  • Multi-Currency
  • Multi-Department/Project
  • Performance Metrics
  • Profit/Loss Statement
  • Reporting/Analytics
  • Roadmapping
  • Sales Reports
  • Scenario Planning
  • Scorecards
  • Search/Filter
  • Strategic Planning
  • Version Control

Alternatives to Datarails

We aim to make the world better by connecting organizations and people to make better-informed plans and decisions.
Business budgeting software that provides a company with the financial and operational information it needs to make better decisions.
NetSuite Planning and Budgeting is used by companies worldwide to automate labour-intensive, cross-business planning needs. Learn more about NetSuite
Alteryx unifies analytics, data science and process automation in one, end-to-end platform to accelerate digital transformation.
Optimize your planning, budgeting, and forecasting effortlessly with the premier cloud-based planning application. Learn more about Planful
K12 financial management platform that streamlines the budgeting process from end-to-end.
Workiva is the leading cloud provider of connected data, reporting, and compliance solutions.
Reduce budgeting, forecasting & reporting times by 50% with Vena's Excel-based Complete Planning platform.
Data analysis solution that helps businesses manage spreadsheets, create graphs/charts, perform calculations, share projects, and more.

Reviews of Datarails

Average score

Overall
4.8
Ease of Use
4.5
Customer Service
4.8
Features
4.6
Value for Money
4.7

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001

Find reviews by score

5
76%
4
24%
Bobby
Bobby
Chief Financial Officer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Hospital & Health Care, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Datarails is a great time saver

5.0 11 months ago

Comments: I love datarails. The implementation team was fantastic and I haven't found anything lacking. We even asked for some functionality to be added to our implementation team, and a few months later they rolled it out as a feature for all users to enjoy.

Pros:

Datarails integrates into our accounting system and we upload our operational data via Excel so we can see our whole workspace in 1 place - the best part is the ad-hoc reporting ability in native Excel.

Cons:

The dynamic ranges we use are massive and can bog down Excel so we had to upgrade our computers......pretty sure this is an Excel issue vs a Data Rails issue though.

Michael
Manger of Financial Planning and Analysis in US
Environmental Services, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Experience with DataRails

4.0 10 months ago

Comments: The overall experience with DataRails has been positive, but the company seems more interested with automating as much as possible rather than in teaching and empowering customers to become super users of the software.

Pros:

Once set up, DataRails is an effective tool to manage our regular as well as ad hoc financial reporting. It has saved time in constructing standard reports, thus freeing up time for deeper analysis.

Cons:

The process of setting up the environment can be tedious and confusing. Troubleshooting errors can be time consuming, particularly if your inputs are larger files (Any change to the Data Mapper needs to process to all files within a File Box) or if you have multiple inputs with different mappers (When input files are not uniform in structure, attempting to construct uniform mappers across inputs can be maddening). There is no readily available resource that can thoroughly or effectively explain the flow of data or how to construct a Data Mapper to specific needs.

Elvamae
Corporate Controller in US
Veterinary, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

VIN Product Assessment

4.0 3 years ago

Comments: The customer support and response is excellent

Pros:

Easy to navigate and set-up the dashboards

Cons:

It doesn't work well with Quickbook Desktop. It requires a lot of manual processes. It does not automatically integrate with the QB desktop version. It's too cumbersome.

Alternatives Considered: Microsoft Power BI

Reasons for Switching to Datarails: It was recommended by some of the accounting professionals at the AICPA conference

Daniel
FP and A Manager in UK
Financial Services, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

New FP&A user at a public company

5.0 3 months ago

Comments: I really like it, I would recommend it to a friend in and instance if they work in FP&A.

Pros:

The ability to immediately see real time KPis update automatically from integrations from CRM and Sage Intacct is incredibly valuable and saves a lot of time.

Cons:

The set up and learning process is lengthy and quite complicated. I don't know how to solve it but just know it takes time.

Alternatives Considered: Cube, Prophix and Vena

Reasons for Switching to Datarails: We ultimately chose data rails due to the customization aspect and ability to use excel as a key part of the data.

Nicholas
Financial Systems Manager in US
Automotive, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Fantastic and Flexible Reporting Software

5.0 10 months ago

Comments: Our setup and integration was extremely easy and fast. I was the dedicated builder and PM for the implementation for a 200+ store retails company and we were able to sync, validate and build out of data in just under 7 weeks. We've only had a few system hiccups along the way that Datarails has fixed or addressed with reasonably speed. We've been very happy with the decision to work with Datarails and foresee that that feeling will remain for a long time to come.

Pros:

Datarails' direct integration with Excel has allowed our team to pick up using the system very quickly. It gives us the flexibility of Excel without having to worry about massive data tables or SQL pulls to get the data to represent in a proper manner. Datarails is constantly improving and they continue to work with their customers to advance their software and address needs. The sky is the limit for cuts of data that Datarails can provide, and with nearly constant improvement over our now two years of use, our satisfaction with the software grows with each passing month.

Cons:

It's strength with Excel is also it's weakness. Reports are only as good as the logic that is layered into Excel, so it necessitates numerous data checks to ensure that our numbers are accurate. Fortunately, Datarails makes those overall checks simple. I really want to love the Dashboards and Storybook functions, but the overall functionality of their graphing does need some improvement. Their dashboard have a really amazing variance analysis tool, but it needs updating and resources to be fully fleshed out and used as intended.

Alternatives Considered: Workday Adaptive Planning and Anaplan

Reasons for Choosing Datarails: Management Reporter (not listed) simply did not have the tools to produce the reports that we needed. Datarails has actually filled a number of holes within our accounting software, as the lookup tables have allowed to create dimensions that would be VERY difficult to manage within the ERP itself. It has taken our financial reporting from the Dark Ages and very much been a proven resource for both internal and external reporting.

Switched From: Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Datarails: Datarails is far more flexible and its ability to seamlessly integrate with a very old ERP system is unmatched. We also felt that the bells and whistles of the other systems were very expensive and more flashy than practically useful.