# Centage Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Centage the right Budgeting solution for you? Explore 52 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/830/Budget-Maestro/reviews --- Centage 4 (52) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/830/Budget-Maestro/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 5th, 2026 # Reviews of Centage Ease of use 4.0 Customer Service 4.4 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews MV Matthew V Business AnalystReal Estate, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Powerful flexibility: The payroll section was strong and the seasonal curves/ratios tools were useful.“ December 5, 2024 JH James H Financial AnalystReligious Institutions, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “A common issues I have with multiple software vendors: Enhancements and usability improvements can take a long time to roll out.“ March 13, 2022 JK Jhanvi K Team LeaderInformation Technology and Services, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “Software offers many rich features like Asset Management, Budgeting, Expense Tracking, Financial Reporting, etc.“ January 23, 2023 DT Debra T Financial ManagerHospitality, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “The final product was bugged, with drivers not working properly and accounts set up incorrectly. “ April 21, 2022 JK Jhanvi K Team LeaderInformation Technology and Services, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “Planning Maestro is a perfect software for Financial Organizations, large enterprise and companies to evaluate business performance and manage expense.“ January 23, 2023 PW Peter W Chief Financial OfficerEnvironmental Services, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Some of the drivers are a bit tricky to understand. “ March 28, 2022 LD Lesley D CFOHospital & Health Care, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “Planning Maestro has allowed our directors to take ownership of their budgets and have the tools available to tailor them to their own needs.“ March 8, 2023 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 52 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use VR Verified Reviewer President Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Excellent product that my company uses weekly." February 7, 2018 4.0 Pros I found this product very easy to learn. That said, I am a CPA. Excellent tools for budgeting and forecasting. Very user friendly Cons We had some problems importing and exporting to excel. It took a while to set this system up and train staff to use it. Review Source MV Matthew V. Business Analyst Real Estate Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Powerful Product, Too Much for Some Applications" December 5, 2024 4.0 Great in person training was available, very flexible and useful features. Pros Powerful flexibility: The payroll section was strong and the seasonal curves/ratios tools were useful. Cons It may have been a little more than we needed for our application; longer training needed and fewer stakeholders were able to contribute because of the sophisticated nature of the product. Switched from [Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) We needed a central hub with preset functions, permission levels and roll ups. Review Source KP Kathlee P. Financial Analyst II Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Budget Maestro is a solid tool, and I'm looking forward to enhanced features and functionality in 9." May 21, 2018 3.0 Pros I do like the preview of the expense and how it will look like on the P&L. It really helps me make sure that my spread method is correct. I like analytics maestro. I can use excel to build reports. Also, it is easy to use the data to create charts and graphs and make the financial data consumable to those budget owners, who may not have a fiance background. I also like the ability to refresh and update the data quickly. Cons Reporting. In analytics the idea of building is great, reminds me a salesforce. But it is sooooo slow on the virtual desktop. From what I understand this will continue to be the case in BM9. Also the reporting within the software is slow as well. It takes anywhere from 1-3 minutes to run any report. Also, the inability to create a version and it to show up in all plans. For example, if we want to create version of our 3+9 Forecast Review Source BT BJ T. Managing Partner Accounting Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Maestro" June 11, 2021 5.0 Centage has been great to work with, from implementation to today, they have been a true partner on our budgeting and forecasting journey. I've always been happy to recommend them and their software. Pros Planning Maestro brought a platform that allowed us to integrate into our existing accounting platform and create a structured environment we could use to refine our budgeting and forecasting process. Cons I don't have anything negative to say. When I have run into issues with the software I have always reached out to Centage and we have found ways to incorporate what I need into the software. Alternatives considered [NetSuite](https://www.capterra.com/p/135757/NetSuite/)[Microsoft Excel](https://www.capterra.com/p/176574/Excel/) Reason for choosing Centage Planning Maestro had all the features we needed including, integration into our accounting platform, personnel tracking, report capabilities, etc. Review Source SG Shelly G. Controller Wine and Spirits Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Excellent, Intuitive program" April 7, 2022 5.0 The implementation of the product was smooth. The reporting capabilities of the program have exceeded my expectations. In addition, every person I've been in contact with at Centage has expert level knowledge of the program and any issues have been resolved immediately. Pros The best part of this software are the drivers we use to manage our sales budget. We have several LLCs that are within this program. The ability to expand the way we create our budgets has given us greater insight into where we can save money. The elimination of finding "human error" input in an excel budget has alleviated so much time. Cons I have yet to find anything I don't like about this product. Alternatives considered [NetSuite](https://www.capterra.com/p/135757/NetSuite/) Reason for choosing Centage Budget focused, ability to plan over multiple years, price. Review Source PW Peter W. Chief Financial Officer Environmental Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great product for M&A focused roll-ups and disparate companies" March 28, 2022 4.0 Very pleased with how it has scaled for us as we grew from 6 locations to 55. Pros Cloud-based and scalable as we built out the company organically and through M&A Cons Some of the drivers are a bit tricky to understand. Alternatives considered [Adaptive](https://www.capterra.com/p/229428/Adaptive/) Reason for choosing Centage Felt more comfortable with the ability for users to learn and understand the product. Review Source DD David D. Controller Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Powerful, flexible, and reliable budgeting software" July 28, 2015 4.5 Pros Their support team is always available to help you through any questions or difficulties you encounter. The training provided is top notch and thorough and your trainer sets up your financial report formats for you to match your current statements. My trainer is still my primary contact person for help and all I have to do is send him an email. The software itself has enough built-in power and flexibility it can handle all kinds of retail, distribution, or manufacturing scenarios, like for my company it is the need to build up inventory before a selling season and to do this for many different products and different selling seasons. Budget Maestro is capable of generating fairly accurate balance sheets and cash flow statements, in addition to income statements, as it has sections within it devoted to the balance sheet side of forecasting. Combining Link Maestro and Analytics Maestro to Budget Maestro provides the only solution one needs to not only generate a budget or forecast but to then generate all the financial reports, statements, breakdown analysis needed by management. With Budget Maestro I can drive my revenues, expenses, and inventory levels by units, not revenue dollars, which is a lot more accurate for forecasting when dealing with a wide variation of products, product costs and retail prices. Cons Financial statements and reports utilizing proper accounting format rules can be very hard or impossible to attain by generating them within Budget Maestro. To attain the proper formatting that I am trained in and accustomed to providing to my management team I have to export the reports out to Excel and apply the spacing, headers, underlining, and so on inside Excel. However, now with their recent addition of Analytics Maestro, this issue is gone as Analytics Maestro is an Excel add-on so that you create and format all your needed standard and custom reports inside Excel and use Analytics Maestro to drop in the numbers and data you want in each report or statement. Review Source AH Alan H. Management Consultant Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A small and medium size company budgeting and forecasting solution that can be maintained in house with little or no reliance on consulting or outside services." January 29, 2018 5.0 Pros In addition to providing robust budgeting, forecasting and integration with their analytics tool, Analytics Maestro, Budget Maestro is a true extension of a company's general ledger into future periods. This is accomplished through the unique software architecture, where every budget item, such as revenue, expense or personnel record creates an entry into a "behind the scenes" budget GL in the right GL accounts, in the correct amounts and the proper accounting period. What this means is, the financial statements you get in this application are always synchronized to the underlying budget. The balance sheet and statement of cash flows will accurately represent the forecasted financial position of the company to the extent of the accuracy of the budget itself. The financial statements and all other reports can be easily generated by users without relying on IT. The software can be directly integrated to popular ERP or accounting software GLs and the Analytics module which is integrated to Budget Maestro can also be integrated to other data sources such as CRM, inventory management, warehouse management, sales reporting data and others. Another feature I like to use is creating multiple versions of the budgets or "what-if" scenarios, each automatically generating a unique set of financial statements and reports, exactly matching that particular version of the budget. You can see how your financial position changes in future periods as you change the budget version. This helps in finalizing a budget that is reasonable and also closely aligned to company goals and plans. Cons The workflow process in this application lacks in capabilities expected from larger solutions. This is probably not an issue in smaller organizations which to my understanding are the primary customer of this software. Review Source Tamau R. Office Management Cosmetics Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Pure Planning" November 24, 2019 4.0 Too business support management even when someone lacks with a bit in attention to detail allowing for easy corrections and edits Pros Gets the job done and has changed how we handle our budget and how we look at budgeting. Little to no consultation with a robust budgeting, forecasting and integration with their analytics tool, Analytics Maestro, Budget Maestro. Cons Deoendi on company size workflow process is lacking. Some forecasting issues of budget and balance but creating and actual plan minimises the issue. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Manager - Distribution Revenue Optimization & Reporting Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Budget Maesteo really keeps my finances in order" July 25, 2018 4.0 Pros I love the way this product is so easy to use and track all of my spending. I don't know what I would do without it! Cons Sometimes the report downloads are not very easy to analyze in Microsoft excel. There are times when I have to manually scrub the data to make it useable. Review Source MK Micah K. Financial Analyst Used the software for: ### "Budget Maestro Review" July 7, 2009 4.0 4.5 out of 5 stars. Cant wait to try Planning Maestro!!!! Pros Budget Maestro is extremely useful in budgeting in forecasting because it allows the user to provide inputs on so many different levels, and this information rolls out through the budget to the correct line items. Adding costs or revenues is easy, and being able to drill down into details to find answers has been priceless. Importing values for the budget also saves a TON of time! This program is AWESOME! Cons With any program that is going to provide so much detail, there is a great amount of set up time to ensure accounts and other items are set up properly. Once this is complete, its just a matter of learning the program to meet your needs. Training time will have to be considered, but I think it is worth the time and the money. Review Source TH Tom H. Controller Used the software for: ### "" July 1, 2009 4.0 I highly recommend this product to anyone who is ready to move beyond the spreadsheet way of budgeting. I find the product to be a real good investment for not just annual budgeting, but also for tracking against actuals and forecasts. Pros My budgeting task has become much easier in comparison to using spreadsheets. I also appreciate the level of detail that I can enter within Budget Maestro. Also, the Link Maestro product is a great add-on for importing from MAS90. Cons My only complaint is the amount of formatting I have to do when exporting a report to a spreadsheet. It would be great if there were more features for report formatting. Review Source RKK Ravi Karan K. Project Manager Management Consulting Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Budget Maestro: Extensive Financial Support Tool" November 10, 2016 4.0 Budget Maestro comes with built-in business and financial logic capabilities, which empowers users to quickly setup their own operating, account, and management reporting structures. It offers direct integration with the accounting systems’ actual GL. It is formula, function and link free which eliminates the risk associated with using Excel or other formula-based solutions. It has powerful what-if capabilities offering a real-time forecast of the financial health of the business. Using an add-on called Link Maestro, we can automate the exchange of financial information between their ERP systems and Budget Maestro. Pros 1\. Lesser data redundancy than excel. 2. Lesser chances of an error in data entry. 3. No requirement for validation of excel sheets. 4. Easier to audit. Cons 1\. Cost is a little high 2. Initial setup time longer than expected. Review Source RC Rudrajyoti C. Manager Management Consulting Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "A scalable and secure budgeting and planning software" November 9, 2016 5.0 Budget Maestro provides automated software solution which has the functionality of sophisticated financial tools which helps in making better business decisions. The built-in finance logic uses profit and loss activities to automatically build balance sheets and thus, cash flow statements from it. It allows the user to organize data in a centralized application across each department with only the specified people being able to view it. This maintains the exactness of information and security of the data as well. Pros Available on-premise and cloud based, can be used on demand from any location. Intuitive user interface. A synchronized system in terms of logic and automatic calculations from data that is input in the system. Free trail available Cons Little costly Review Source KK Kelly K. Sr Financial Reporting Analyst Used the software for: ### "Budget Maestro" March 13, 2014 4.0 Budget Maestro and Analytics Maestro have significantly improved our budgeting process. Prior to using maestro we created our budget using many excel workbooks that were precariously linked together and hard to refresh and update. Our budget is now more secure and robust, and due to the product's user friendliness it was fairly easy and quick to set up. We were able to upload most of our data using the templates provided with very few problems. I would definitely recommend Budget Maestro. Review Source DS Donell S. Accounting Assistant Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "I use this software to help my company with general budgeting maintenance such as uploading actuals." June 7, 2017 3.0 Pros The upload template is easy to use and doesn't require a lot of unneeded information. I like that any errors I get can be exported to excel making it easier to research the error. Cons The reporting could be a little better, in my opinion. Once added to a group, the entities can't be sorted. When drilling down into account detail the balances per entity are not in order. I think the only way to fix this would be to re-add each entity in the correct order, which would be very manual. Review Source AT Andrea T. Used the software for: ### "Budget Maestro" October 10, 2014 3.5 Pros There are endless possibilities. There are numerous ways to view financials with Budget Maestro. Cons The amount of time it takes to learn it and really get up to speed. Review Source NL Nikhil L. Programmer analyst Computer Software Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Good " October 5, 2016 5.0 Nice Product, I 'm looking forward to use this product if needed. Review Source AC April C. VP Finance Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "great planning tool" March 14, 2022 5.0 We were on Budget Maestro for a few years. When Planning Maestro came out, we had the option then to move to something else but we stayed with Centage as PM is a solid budgeting and planning tool. It has good functionality and good support. Pros ease of use is super important. reporting is good and I love the dump into Excel for more slicing and to import. Cons copy paste was removed from previous version - bring it back! Review Source JH James H. Financial Analyst Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Maestro's analytics capabilities are a key differentiator" March 13, 2022 4.0 Pros We needed a budgeting package that would be (1) easy to learn and use for our end-users, (2) able to automatically integrate with 3rd party general ledgers and (3) provide a powerful set of customizable analytics and reporting tools. Planning Maestro has successfully met all three requirements, and allowed us to provide more accurate budgets/forecasts/reporting with faster turn around. Cons A common issues I have with multiple software vendors: Enhancements and usability improvements can take a long time to roll out. Reason for choosing Centage Met our key functional requirements and reasonable pricing Review Source LD Lesley D. CFO Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Planning Maestro is an effective Tool" March 8, 2023 4.0 Our implementation went very smoothly and our implementation specialist made sure to go above and beyond making sure I understood how to use every tool. Planning Maestro has allowed our directors to take ownership of their budgets and have the tools available to tailor them to their own needs. Pros Planning Maestro has many effective tools that allows our department directors to effectively budget their own areas and pull everything together in one cohesive plan. For the most part, it's user friendly and support is always very responsive. Cons Reporting functionality of Planning Maestro can sometimes be challenging, as well as knowing which filters to select within revenue and driver applications. Review Source JB Jenny B. Sr. Budget Manager Government Administration Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Planning Maestro provides critical budgeting analysis" March 3, 2023 5.0 Good training, sophisticated calculations, "what-if" projections. Personnel expense calculation can be made as precise as needed. Can create drivers for calculations, and updating the driver updates the related revenue/expense, rather than updating multiple different accounts or line items; i.e. the units are a fixed commodity, but the unit price changes.Unmatched support that helps with any questions or problems. Pros Can break down budget lines into as sophisticated detail as desired.Support staff are responsive, professional and helpful. Cons Some features are site-wide rather than attached to a particular budget cycle. Updating these features can inadvertently affect other calculations. Review Source JK Jhanvi K. Team Leader Information Technology and Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Effective Software to Measure Business Performance" January 23, 2023 5.0 Planning Maestro is a perfect software for Financial Organizations, large enterprise and companies to evaluate business performance and manage expense. It's a less expensive software related to other competitors. Must Try Once! Pros It's a very easy to use product that helps you to manage your expense. Software offers many rich features like Asset Management, Budgeting, Expense Tracking, Financial Reporting, etc. Cons We did not have any problem with the software to manage our expense and measure our performance. Review Source MA Michael A. Financial Analyst Insurance Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good for small companies and simple budgeting" July 6, 2018 3.0 Pros Simple to use, not very complicated. Has all the features needed for small companies and their budget needs. Cons Although simple to use, features are limited. They have a new web based version that should alleviate many of our limitations but we still have not had that rolled out. We were supposed to have the web based version last year but are still waiting for the roll out. They also are used to smaller companies and over the last few years we have grown dramatically so we have basically out grown the product. Review Source BD Brent D. CFO Used the software for: ### "Overall solid business performance management software" July 1, 2009 4.0 Solid business performance management software package. Pros 1\. Very powerful forecasting tool that can handle both simple and complex aspects of forecasting. Handles multiple departments, entities, and the consolidation of them with ease. 2. Very easy to import actual data in order to perform variance analysis. 3. Easy to import almost all information necessary to set up a "plan" the first time. 4. What-if analysis allows you to look at the financial impact of making changes in your business without having to change your primary "plan" 5. All reports can be exported to Excel 6. Report layouts can be customized. 7. Very easy to create a 5 year forecast that allows increase/decrease assumptions to be customized in numerous ways, and using as many timeframes as desired. 8. Handles lines of credit and term loans, both fixed and variable rate, very easily. Cons 1\. Can't run a statement of cash flows based on "actual" data, only on "plan" data. 2. Not very easy to run a "plan" balance sheet for a future year as a stand-alone report, must either start the report on a month just after you have "actual" data or create an "actual/plan" version that houses a combination of data so it can be used for beginning balances. 3. If using Desktop version, additional modules need to be purchased to handle pre-paid insurance automatically and forecast inventory. Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Related categories [Budgeting](https://www.capterra.com/budgeting-software/)[Financial Reporting](https://www.capterra.com/financial-reporting-software/)[Accounting](https://www.capterra.com/accounting-software/) ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.