FAQ’s
Law firms often struggle with complex matter coding, managing diverse fee arrangements and pricing models, and generating multi-dimensional reports. They also face difficulties in accurate revenue forecasting, integrating data sources, and consolidating financials across matter, practice area, or geography.
You’ve already invested in Adaptive. If it isn’t delivering the value it should, the answer usually isn’t a new tool, it’s understanding what’s holding this one back. The Health Check gives you that clarity, and a clear view of whether it’s worth investing further.
Spreadsheets were never designed to run enterprise-wide planning. As organisations grow, Excel-based models become fragile, slow and difficult to control: dozens of linked workbooks, manual consolidation, and no reliable way to know which version is current. Finance teams are replacing them with dedicated FP&A software platforms such as Adaptive from Workday and IBM Planning Analytics because these deliver a single source of truth, automated consolidation, built-in audit trails, and real-time scenario modelling. The result is a shift in how finance spends its time, away from chasing data and fixing formulas and towards analysis that supports strategic decisions. Having delivered 1000+ implementations, ICit sees the same pattern repeatedly: once the spreadsheet bottleneck is removed, budget cycles shrink from months to weeks and finance becomes a genuine business partner rather than a reporting function.
Adaptive from Workday is designed to be owned by finance, so teams can update models, reports and workflows without specialist developers. Anaplan and Pigment are flexible platforms that often need more dedicated modelling resource. Excel add-ins keep the familiar interface but don’t remove version control, audit trail and consolidation risks. The right choice depends on your complexity, internal resource and budget, and we’re happy to talk it through. Book a Call with us
Workday Adaptive Planning (via ICit) allows law firms to configure custom dimensions (e.g. matter codes), model multiple fee structures, produce dynamic reporting, and perform driver-based forecasting. It accelerates planning cycles, improves accuracy, and gives leaders real-time insights.
CFOs often underestimate the hidden costs of Excel-based planning. Beyond the obvious time drain (finance teams spending 60-80% of their time on data consolidation instead of analysis), spreadsheet planning carries significant risks: version control errors that affect board reports, broken formula links that corrupt forecasts, limited audit trails that concern auditors, inability to perform real-time scenario analysis during strategic discussions, and manual processes that don’t scale with business growth or M&A activity. The opportunity cost of delayed strategic decisions often exceeds the implementation investment within months.
If performance is slow and there’s a lot of manual effort involved, that’s often a sign. Good methodology matters. It keeps models supportable, quick, and easy to build on, which makes any future work more cost-effective. We’ll tell you honestly where you stand.
Yes, it suits mid-sized businesses as well as large enterprises. Adaptive from Workday scales from a single finance team planning one entity to global groups with hundreds of users. Because finance teams can maintain it without heavy IT support, it is often a strong fit for growing organisations moving off spreadsheets.
Yes. The solution is designed to integrate with ERPs (e.g. Aderant, Elite 3E), billing systems, case management software, HR systems, and CRM tools. That helps ensure data consistency, reduce manual effort, and maintain a unified view of financials and operations.
Enterprise planning platforms eliminate the inherent risks of spreadsheet-based processes through five key controls: complete audit trails tracking every data change, user action, and assumption update with timestamps and user IDs; automated validation rules that prevent data entry errors and enforce business logic; controlled workflow processes with approval hierarchies and sign-offs; single-source-of-truth architecture eliminating version control issues; and comprehensive data lineage showing exactly how every number was calculated. These capabilities satisfy SOX compliance requirements, internal audit standards, and external auditor expectations – providing the documentation and controls that spreadsheets simply cannot deliver.
We’ll want a short walkthrough from someone who uses Adaptive day to day, so we understand how it’s really working. That’s usually all it takes for a useful first view. We can arrange an NDA beforehand if that helps.
No. Adaptive from Workday is a standalone planning platform and works with any ERP, HR or CRM system. Many of our clients run it alongside Sage, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics or SAP. If you do use Workday HCM or Financials, Adaptive integrates natively with them.
ICit’s implementations typically complete in 12-16 weeks from kickoff to go-live, with most clients running parallel processes for just one planning cycle before fully transitioning. This includes requirements analysis, data integration, model building, workflow configuration, comprehensive user training, testing, and go-live support. Unlike vendors who quote “8 weeks to implementation” but leave you configuring for months afterward, our timeline includes everything needed for successful deployment – you’ll be planning independently at week 16, not just starting to figure out the software. Learn more about our Consultancy Services & Implementation Support
Absolutely. It scales to accommodate firms of all sizes. Whether a boutique firm or a multi-office global practice, it supports growth and evolving financial complexity without losing performance or flexibility.
The session runs online and takes around two hours in total, split across the review and the demo. Your written report follows shortly after. All we need from you is a window that suits your team.
Most Adaptive from Workday implementations take 12–16 weeks from kickoff to go-live. The timeline depends on how many models, entities, data integrations and users you need. A focused budgeting and forecasting project for a single finance team can be quicker, while multi-entity programmes with workforce planning take longer.
A typical ICit project runs through five stages:
- Requirements and design
- Data integration with your ERP and other systems
- Model building and reporting
- Testing, including one parallel planning cycle
- Training and go-live support
We plan the timeline around your month-end and budget calendar, so the new platform is ready when your next planning cycle begins.
Learn more about our Consultancy Services & Implementation Support
Most organisations reduce budget cycles from 4-6 months to 2-3 months within the first year of implementation. ICit’s proven methodology delivers immediate impact – our clients typically see 40-50% cycle time reduction within the first planning cycle, growing to 75% reduction as teams fully adopt the platform. For example, monthly forecasting that took 10 days can be completed in 2-3 days, and annual budgeting shrinks from 12 weeks to 3-4 weeks.
While timelines vary depending on data complexity and integrations, many firms begin seeing efficiency improvements, better forecasting accuracy, and visibility into matter-level profitability within weeks – not months. ICit’s expertise in legal FP&A helps smooth the adoption.
There is no charge for the 2 hour Health Check, it is designed to be a low-effort, high-value way to see what’s possible before committing to anything bigger. Get in touch and we’ll talk you through it.
Adaptive from Workday connects to most finance and operational systems, including Sage (Intacct, 200 and X3), Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP, Xero, Workday, Salesforce and SQL databases. Integrations use native connectors, Adaptive’s integration framework or scheduled file loads, depending on the system. ICit has built integrations across all of these, so actuals flow into your plans automatically.
Workday Adaptive Planning is hosted on a secure cloud platform with enterprise-grade encryption, role-based access controls, audit logs, and compliance capabilities. It supports data governance policies to ensure confidentiality and integrity of sensitive legal and financial data.
AI turns forecasting from a backward-looking exercise into a forward-looking one. Instead of finance teams manually extrapolating last year’s numbers, machine learning models analyse historical trends, seasonality and business drivers to generate a statistical baseline forecast in minutes. AI also flags anomalies and outliers before they reach board reports, highlights where plans deviate from expected patterns, and lets teams test multiple scenarios quickly during strategic discussions.
That’s where ICit’s implementation expertise makes the difference: we build the data foundations and driver-based models that allow AI to produce forecasts your finance team can trust, explain and act on, rather than a black box nobody uses.
