Causal

The Death of Excel?!

Commentaires : At first I thought they were tongue in cheek about killing the spreadsheet, however they have just about achieved this in our business! Credit to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and the whole Causal team.

Avantages :

The Causal platform is seriously intuitive, with constant product updates only serving to enhance its capability. The product team are always so gracious in receiving feedback and work genuinely to incorporate feature requests into subsequent releases. From a modelling perspective, I love how Causal encourages you to think about models in terms of inputs, calculations and outputs. I also love the way it handles dimensions and scenarios. The ability to link to other data sources is a seriously handy feature. However, the standout feature for me is the presentation mode, which enables you to update inputs live with stakeholders and see the resulting outputs in real time.

Inconvénients :

I honestly can't fault the platform. Every bug or frustration seems to be resolved in the following release.

A whole new way of modelling

Commentaires : I have really enjoyed working in Causal. I find it intuitive and easy to use. The customer support is great as well and I often get a reply within minuttes.

Avantages :

I no longer have to maintain large and complex spreadsheets and I can model new scenarios in seconds. It's very easy to change variables and see the effects right away. I've used the software to present business cases to investors and banks with great success, and I do not loose participants in complex spreadsheets no longer.

Inconvénients :

There is still plenty of features that could be added to the software and I hope in the future more templates will be availiable.

Causal is so easy to use!

Avantages :

Causal allows for easy integration with accounting software like Quickbooks Online. The customer support has quick communications and really takes user feedback. Originally, The software would only use accounting on a Cash basis and when I informed them of this, they fixed the bug within a few days and allowed for us to bring in our reports from QBO on an Accrual basis.

Inconvénients :

My only suggestion would be to have more tutorial videos!

Simple-to-use + Powerful Way To Build Models

Commentaires : Really simple-to-use for modeling and visualizing our fund model. We ended up screen-sharing Causal during pitch presentations because it looked so professional and well put together.

Avantages :

It's really easy-to-use to build a model, visualize it, edit it.

Inconvénients :

I wish I could import an Excel file and automatically have it build the model. It does take some time to build the model initially.

Smart spreadsheet modelling for your startup

Avantages :

Causal offers advanced modelling in a user friendly way. The way you can build models, connect to other models and create interactive dashboards (which you can share) is really powerful. It works a bit different but also very similar compared to spreadsheets. It gives you the power you miss in your spreadsheet with the easy to use variables. When using Causal you instantly wonder: Why can't my spreadsheet do this? Using multiple scenarios and ranges really help you get a better understanding of the direction your are moving. On top of this you can compare forecasts vs. actuals, which is useful. Causal has a lot of (hidden) gems and I'm pretty sure we only use 25% of its capabilities. Finally their support is superb. Always happy to help you, you can book consultants to help you build your model when you are stuck or need some help. Highly recommended.

Inconvénients :

Initially we didn't like the speed of Causal. Having a few large models made it quite slow to use. Along the way they did improve a lot in their speed. Seeing continuous updates on this area gives a lot of trust in the product. Also the interface can quite daunting when working with multiple models and large data sets. When you come back after a while it takes some time to remember how it worked and how everything was tied together. But that said, I think this is also inherent to the complexity of your topic / model. Sharing different versions of your model can be improved. It's quite easy to share, but it would be nice to freeze certain versions you have send out to investors for example and maybe lock them with a password. The exporting functionality wasn't really powerful, sometimes you want to share a PDF only but the layout and content wasn't satisfying to us.