Overview of Drivetrain
Drivetrain was founded by Alok Goel in 2021. It is an FP&A software that serves not just as a planning tool but as an enabler of informed decision-making. The platform integrates seamlessly with more than 200 systems to streamline business performance.
With a bold vision to help businesses evaluate their operational health in real-time and adapt their strategies accordingly, Drivetrain raised $15 million in a Series A funding round in late 2022, highlighting the company's dedication to refining decision-making processes.
The platform aims to centralize planning and decision-making across the organization and is designed to integrate with various systems beyond typical ERP, CRM, and HR platforms, including business intelligence solutions like Tableau and tools such as AWS Cost Explorer.
This article will go over some of Drivetrain's features, pros and cons, and pricing.
Key Features
Drivetrain offers extensive flexibility for modeling and analyzing data across numerous dimensions, featuring more than 100 pre-defined metrics available right out of the box. A particularly notable element is its AI-driven what-if analysis tool, which not only detects potential impacts but also visually illustrates the effects of changes across all metrics, making a deeper understanding of their possible consequences.
Access reliable, real-time data to make faster decisions.
Quickly analyze trends and variances with intuitive interactive charts.
Drill down into transaction-level data to uncover hidden, actionable insights.
Create models using simple formulas.
Build comprehensive, multi-dimensional models ten times faster.
Leverage AI-powered forecasting and what-if analysis to enhance the decision-making process.
Sample Integrations
Netsuite
Quickbooks
Xero
Zoho Books
Sage
Hubspot
Stripe
ADP
BambooHR
Pros and Cons Based on Users’ Reviews
Crowned as Leader in the Financial Analysis category in the latest G2 Spring 2024 report, Drivetrain came in first for Reporting and Planning in the mid-market sector for the third consecutive time.
While they have a high rating of 4.8 on G2, they are a relatively new company and have a small sample size of reviewers (60).
Pros
Based on consolidated reviews from G2, Trustradius, and Trustpilot, Drivetrain has proven to be an indispensable tool for finance teams, effectively connecting to all upstream data sources to enable the real-time reporting essential for their operations.
According to users, the platform enhances capabilities far beyond what Excel offers, incorporating a similar cell-based structure and formula language that ensures a smooth transition. Users can set up "remembered" metrics, such as ARR, CAC, and Burn, which can be fed into various models, allowing them to generate comprehensive reports that communicate results and forecasts to different stakeholders within the company.
Users commend the flexible forecasting capabilities of Drivetrain which facilitated the creation of interconnected forecasts encompassing top-line revenue, expenses, balance sheets, and cash flow. According to him, the intuitive formula writing process has a short learning curve, making the transition from Excel effortless.
Furthermore, integration with key systems like Salesforce, NetSuite, and Google Sheets ensured seamless data flow, enhancing financial processes.
The collaboration features of Drivetrain—such as tagging team members in comments, user-level restrictions, and creating customizable, visually appealing graphs—made it an ideal platform for cross-functional teamwork. Its user-friendly interface stands out, enabling both finance professionals and non-finance stakeholders to navigate the platform with ease.
Drivetrain Cons
However, every product has its disadvantages. Some users complain about the time-consuming nature of cleaning data to ensure accurate reports. Although the software effectively streamlines many tasks, this initial data scrubbing often delays the reporting process, an unavoidable step in their workflow.
According to users, the data transformations are not self-service, requiring the user to rely on a dedicated support representative to create joins and other necessary transformations across datasets to generate data tables.
A platform user noted that while the documentation and training manuals were initially sparse, the personalized support compensated for it. The Drivetrain team is currently introducing additional training resources and systematic guidance within the system, facilitating clients' self-learning.
While updates occur twice daily, the users expressed a desire for more immediate visibility to changes, especially given frequent usage throughout the day. Challenges also arose with filtering, causing additional frustration.
Although the customer support team would often assert that if one could navigate Excel, they could readily use Drivetrain, the user quickly discovered that the transition could have been more straightforward. The familiarity ran thin when faced with DAX syntax and a pivot-table-like interface for crafting custom metrics, requiring a solid few days of practice to achieve comfort.
Pricing
Drivetrain doesn't share their pricing on the website. You can always get in touch with their Sales Team for a personalized quote.
Final Thoughts
Drivetrain has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses seeking to enhance their planning and decision-making processes. Despite some challenges regarding data preparation and learning curves, user feedback highlights the platform's effectiveness in improving financial operations and fostering collaboration across teams.
As the company continues to develop and refine its offerings, Drivetrain's commitment to empowering businesses with robust decision-making capabilities remains evident.
Check out The Finance Weekly's Top 10 FP&A Software Review page.