Comparison
A separate FP&A tool, or planning inside your ledger?
Many finance teams add a planning or consolidation tool on top of their accounting system, then spend every month moving numbers into it. Light puts budget, forecast, variance and consolidation on the ledger itself. Here is when that is enough, and when a dedicated tool is still the right answer.
The world's most demanding finance teams run on Light.
Why the separate tool exists
Planning, consolidation and reporting tools sit above the ledger because the ledger could not do the job. Many accounting systems were built to run one entity at a time, close monthly and export a trial balance. So the group numbers, the budget and the variance analysis were built somewhere else, on a copy of the books.
That architecture has a cost that shows up every month: export, import, map, reconcile, and explain the difference between the model and the books. When the ledger and the model disagree, the argument is about whose export is right.
What changes when the ledger does it
In Light, every entity posts to one ledger. Intercompany entries eliminate as they post and the consolidated P&L and balance sheet are live views of the ledger. The free FP&A app, included with your Light plan, builds budget and forecast on the ledger's own structure, splits variance into operational and currency effects, and drills every number back to the documents behind it. The report and the books always match, because they are the same data.
Three ways to plan on Light
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The FP&A and Management Reporting apps are built and run by Light, and free with your Light plan. Budget and forecast on the ledger's own structure, see variance split into operational and currency effects, and read the group P&L and balance sheet in a presentation currency. Every figure drills back to the documents behind it.
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02
Build your own with AI on the ledger
Light’s MCP server connects Claude directly to your books, on desktop, in Cowork and anywhere else MCP runs. Ask about balances, run reports and search transactions in plain language, with answers from the live ledger rather than an export, and every action governed by Light’s permissions and audit trail. Start from the free Light CFO agent pack, with a human gate on every write: its FP&A agent does variance analysis, narrative first; Cash & runway covers 13-week cash; Board reporting builds the board pack with every figure traced. The packs are MIT-licensed, so you can adapt the agents, and the skills you teach Claude live in Light, so every conversation follows your policies and your naming.
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If your planning runs on driver-based models, scenario trees, headcount and workforce plans, or a multi-department plan-approval process, a dedicated planning platform is the right tool, and Light is built to feed it. Light connects directly to Abacum and Drivetrain, so actuals arrive from the ledger as they post instead of from a monthly export.
| Tool type | Examples | Where it sits | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning platforms | Pigment, Anaplan, Planful | Above the ERP, on imported actuals | Planning is a large, model-driven, cross-department process |
| Spreadsheet-native FP&A | Datarails, Cube, Vena | Between the ERP and Excel | The team wants to keep working in spreadsheets |
| Consolidation and CPM suites | Lucanet, OneStream, CCH Tagetik, Jedox, Konsolidator | Above several ERPs, on imported balances | The group keeps many different ERPs it will not replace, or needs enterprise planning and statutory reporting on top |
| Reporting on small-business ledgers | Joiin, Fathom, Syft, Spotlight Reporting | On top of Xero, QuickBooks and similar | A single company or a small group on Xero or QuickBooks, or an accountant reporting for clients |
| Light | One agentic ledger | Is the ledger: consolidation, budget, forecast and variance on posted data | A growing group that wants the books, the group numbers and the budget in one system |
Based on each vendor’s publicly documented capabilities. Each name links to a detailed comparison.
The question that decides it
Are you buying the tool to plan, or to get clean actuals, a group view and budget against actual?
If it is the second, Light does that on the ledger itself and removes the monthly data move.
If it is the first, keep the planning tool and let Light be the ledger it reads from.
Light is the strongest fit for multi-entity, multi-currency companies moving their entities onto one ledger. It is less differentiated for a group that will keep many different ERPs in place, where a consolidation layer is the correct architecture. The detailed comparisons above go tool by tool.
