Founded in 1999, LucaNet is a German vendor with a focus on corporate performance management (CPM) for finance including tax solutions and financial disclosure management solutions. The company is headquartered in Berlin with additional offices in Europe, Asia and the United States. LucaNet has over 5,000 customers in 50 countries worldwide and employs more than 650 people. In 2022, Hg strategically acquired a majority stake in the company to support its growth and ambition to become a global leader in corporate performance management software.
LucaNet’s software portfolio comprises solutions for financial consolidation and close, financial planning and budgeting, financial and legal reporting and additional financial management topics, which can be used in any combination. Its automated financial close solution includes financial consolidation, data collection and validation, intercompany reconciliation and disclosure management, supported by workflow management tools. All products are targeted at business users and are based on a proprietary, multidimensional, in-memory database known as LucaNet.Financial OLAP Server. The database provides a predefined data model with intertwined business rules for establishing an integrated financial planning model and creating consolidated financial statements. Using the same logic, it is possible to compare planned versus actual data dynamically and also at group level. LucaNet.Importer provides a variety of predefined connectors to common ERP and financial accounting systems. It is also possible to collect and validate data via a web interface, including an intercompany reconciliation.
LucaNet software is based on Java and offers both cloud (leveraging Amazon Web Services) and on-premises options. The cloud services have all the necessary ISO certifications (e.g., ISO 27001).
In addition to LucaNet’s core capabilities, an integrated development environment provides functionality to design individual forms, calculation rules and applications. Using this environment, LucaNet provides apps for financial solutions (e.g., IFRS 16) as well as several operational planning scenarios that can be used to feed the vendor’s inherent financial planning model. However, operational planning is not a focus. Apps can be adapted to customer-specific needs and requirements. For predictive planning and forecasting (e.g., within financial planning), a dedicated app is available, which delivers data-based forecasts based on actual figures and is a simple means to validate manual plans.
An Excel add-in is available as a reporting and analysis front end, but offerings from other third-party vendors such as Microsoft Power BI, Qlik and Tableau can also be used. Dashboards based on Microsoft Power BI can be implemented by LucaNet consultants. Its open architecture allows these front ends to access the LucaNet.Financial OLAP Server and/or LucaNet Financial Warehouse including hierarchies, structures and values. LucaNet also offers a fully integrated, proprietary software solution for disclosure management, ESEF reporting (European Single Electronic Format) and ESG reporting.
User & Use Cases
60 percent of LucaNet users are planning users – slightly below the survey average of 69 percent – reflecting the fact that LucaNet is essentially a financial consolidation and close product with complementary planning functionality. This is also born out in its typical use cases. Customers mainly leverage LucaNet for financial planning (95 percent). Here, planning takes place at different aggregation levels. It is also used for budgeting (75 percent), strategic planning (66 percent) and forecasting (53 percent). Besides planning, customers mainly use it for standard/enterprise reporting (92 percent), group consolidation (83 percent) and ad hoc query (63 percent). Many also plan to use it for dashboards/BI applications (43 percent), forecasting (37 percent) and operational planning (35 percent) in the future.
LucaNet targets companies of all sizes across all industries. 52 percent of our sample of LucaNet customers come from mid-sized companies (100-2,500 employees) with a median of 11 users (including 5 using planning functionality), but the mean of 39 users (21 for planning) indicates there are also some larger implementations.
Current vs. planned use (planning use cases)
N=41
Current vs. planned use (besides planning)
N=41
Total number of users per company
N=42
Planning users per company
N=42
Percentage of employees using LucaNet
N=42
Planning users (as a percentage of all users)
N=42
Company size (number of employees)
N=42
Versions used
N=33
Summary of LucaNet highlights
With 16 top ranks and 54 leading positions across five different peer groups, LucaNet once again achieves an outstanding set of results in this year’s Planning Survey. Convincing ratings in numerous important KPIs help to consolidate its position as a market-leading financial performance management platform that delivers considerable benefits to its customers. Companies can benefit from using LucaNet in terms of increased transparency of planning, more precise/detailed planning and improved software user satisfaction. Overall, these benefits have led to a better quality of planning results for many customers. 88 percent of LucaNet users say they would definitely or probably recommend their planning product to other organizations – a strong result and a great indicator of customer satisfaction with the vendor and its product.
Performance Satisfaction – Top-ranked
Peer group: Performance Management Specialists
Predefined Connectors – Top-ranked
Peer group: Financial Consolidation-Focused Products
Consistently top-ranked in Project Length
Peer group: Global Vendors
Consistently top-ranked in Financial Consolidation
Peer group: Midsize/Departmental Implementations
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