RunSmart vs. Spotlight Reporting: Financial Forecasting & Advisory Compared

RunSmart by Projection Genie and Spotlight Reporting both help businesses and financial professionals understand financial performance, forecast future results, and make better decisions.

But the two platforms approach financial planning from different directions.

Spotlight Reporting has deep roots in accounting-firm advisory, management reporting, dashboards, consolidated reporting, and advisor-led forecasting.

RunSmart focuses more heavily on automated financial intelligence, including statistical forecasting, financial health analysis, emerging risk detection, scenario modeling, and portfolio-level monitoring.

For SaaS businesses, RunSmart also combines QuickBooks Online financial data with Stripe subscription intelligence so users can analyze completed historical performance, monitor current subscription activity, and forecast what may happen next.

This comparison examines the differences between RunSmart and Spotlight Reporting across:

• Financial forecasting
• Financial reporting
• Scenario planning
• SaaS analytics
• Financial health
• Emerging risk detection
• Workforce planning
• Portfolio intelligence
• AI-assisted workflows
• Pricing

The better choice depends on whether you primarily want a highly customizable reporting and advisory platform or a financial intelligence system designed to automate more of the underlying forecasting and analysis.

Note: RunSmart's MCP integration is coming soon and is not yet generally available. References to MCP capabilities in this article describe planned functionality that will be available in a future release.

RunSmart vs. Spotlight Reporting at a Glance

The biggest difference is the role each platform is designed to play.

Spotlight Reporting is particularly strong when accountants, advisors, or finance teams want to build polished reports, dashboards, consolidated financial views, budgets, forecasts, and client-facing advisory materials.

RunSmart is designed more around automatically analyzing the company's financial information, generating a starting forecast, evaluating financial health and risk, and helping users understand what may happen next.

What Is RunSmart by Projection Genie?

RunSmart is a financial intelligence and forecasting platform designed for founders, business owners, accounting firms, advisors, and investors.

RunSmart connects to QuickBooks Online and analyzes historical company financial data.

Its capabilities include:

• Historical financial analysis
• Automated statistical forecasting
• Integrated financial statement forecasts
• Scenario modeling
• Financial health analysis
• Emerging financial risk detection
• Workforce planning
• Budgeting
• Budget-versus-actual tracking
• Automated financial reporting
• Portfolio-level intelligence
• Collaboration and role-based access

For SaaS businesses, RunSmart can also connect Stripe subscription data with QuickBooks Online.

This provides subscription intelligence such as:

• MRR
• ARR
• Active Customers
• New MRR
• Reactivation MRR
• Expansion MRR
• Contraction MRR
• Churned MRR
• Customer Growth
• Customer Churn
• NRR
• GRR
• Net New MRR
• ARPA
• LTV
• SaaS Quick Ratio
• Burn Multiple
• Rule of 40

RunSmart separates subscription analysis into three views:

Historical: completed-month subscription performance

Live / MTD: current Stripe activity through the latest available data

Forecast: modeled future subscription performance

This creates a progression from:

What happened → What is happening now → What may happen next

The subscription forecast can then connect directly to the broader company financial forecast.

Does RunSmart Require 24 Months of Financial History?

Not to use the platform.

RunSmart can provide historical financial analysis, live Stripe subscription analytics, SaaS KPIs, budgeting, workforce planning, financial health analysis, and other non-forecasting capabilities without requiring 24 months of financial history.

At least 24 months of historical financial data is required for RunSmart's automated forecasting capabilities.

Once enough history is available, RunSmart analyzes historical patterns and automatically creates a starting financial forecast.

How Does RunSmart Forecast Financial Performance?

RunSmart uses custom-built statistical forecasting algorithms to analyze historical financial behavior.

Different financial accounts can behave very differently.

Revenue may show:

• Growth
• Seasonality
• Volatility

Payroll may follow a more stable upward trend.

Rent may remain relatively flat.

Marketing may fluctuate substantially.

Rather than forcing every account through the same forecasting method, RunSmart evaluates multiple forecasting approaches.

These can include:

• Holt-Winters
• Holt linear trend
• Simple exponential smoothing

RunSmart evaluates historical predictive performance and selects the model that is most appropriate for the individual financial series.

This creates a statistically supported baseline forecast before the user begins changing assumptions.

The user can then build scenarios around changes involving:

• Revenue
• Pricing
• Subscriber growth
• Churn
• Expansion
• Contraction
• Hiring
• Compensation
• Marketing
• Operating expenses
• Other financial assumptions

Those changes can flow through projected:

• Revenue
• Expenses
• Profitability
• Cash flow
• Cash balances
• Financial statements
• Financial health
• Runway

What Is Spotlight Reporting?

Spotlight Reporting is a financial reporting, forecasting, dashboard, consolidation, and advisory platform designed heavily around accountants, advisors, fractional CFOs, and finance teams.

Its products include capabilities for:

• Management reporting
• Financial forecasting
• Dashboards
• Consolidations
• KPI reporting
• Budgeting
• Cash flow planning
• Advisory workflows

Spotlight's accountant and advisor plans are specifically designed to help firms deliver financial advisory services across multiple clients.

Its finance-team plans also support businesses that want professional reporting, forecasting, and board-ready financial information.

Spotlight therefore has particularly strong roots in the advisor-client relationship.

How Does Spotlight Reporting Approach Forecasting?

Spotlight Forecasting provides integrated three-way forecasting across:

• Profit & Loss
• Balance Sheet
• Cash Flow

Users can build:

• Budgets
• Forecasts
• Cash flow projections
• Scenarios

Spotlight's forecasting workflow gives the user direct control over assumptions and forecast inputs.

It also supports monthly, quarterly, and annual forecast views across the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow, allowing users to adjust the level of detail depending on the financial conversation.

Spotlight has also strengthened the connection between its Forecasting and Reporting products.

Budget information from Spotlight Forecasting can flow into management reports for:

• Budget comparisons
• Management reporting
• Future financial projections

This makes it easier for advisors to move from planning into client-facing reporting.

What Is the Biggest Difference Between RunSmart and Spotlight Reporting?

The biggest difference is how the financial planning workflow begins.

Spotlight gives accountants, advisors, and finance teams a flexible environment for building and presenting financial forecasts.

The user plays an active role in determining how the forecast should behave.

RunSmart attempts to automate more of the starting analytical work.

Once sufficient history is available, RunSmart:

1. Analyzes historical financial behavior
2. Evaluates multiple statistical forecasting methods
3. Tests their historical predictive performance
4. Selects an appropriate model
5. Generates the baseline forecast

The user can then modify assumptions and test scenarios.

A simplified comparison is:

Spotlight: Build and manage the financial plan, then communicate it through reports and advisory workflows.

RunSmart: Automatically establish the financial outlook, identify potential risks and health issues, then use scenarios to evaluate decisions.

Neither approach is inherently better.

They serve different workflows.

Which Platform Is Better for Financial Reporting?

Spotlight Reporting has the advantage in highly customizable financial reporting and advisor presentation.

Its core product is designed around management reporting.

Spotlight users can create reports containing:

• Financial statements
• KPIs
• Charts
• Commentary
• Executive summaries
• Advisory recommendations
• Budget comparisons
• Forecast information

Spotlight is also designed to support recurring client advisory workflows.

RunSmart provides automated financial reports and financial statements, but customizable management-report design is not its primary differentiation.

RunSmart focuses more heavily on the intelligence feeding the report:

• Forecasts
• Financial health
• Emerging risks
• Scenarios
• SaaS performance
• Portfolio-level information

If highly customized client reporting is the primary requirement, Spotlight has the advantage.

How Does Spotlight Use AI?

Spotlight has continued expanding its AI-assisted reporting capabilities.

Its Enhanced AI Executive Summaries calculate the underlying financial figures first and then layer AI-generated commentary on top.

Users can:

• Create summary topics
• Use plain-English prompts to refine commentary
• Surface financial trends and comparisons
• Generate recommendations
• Turn insights into Action Plans
• Review, edit, or discard AI suggestions

This is an important distinction from simply asking a generative AI model to interpret raw financial information.

Spotlight calculates the underlying figures first, then uses AI to assist with narrative interpretation and advisory presentation.

For accounting firms, this can help reduce the amount of time required to prepare recurring financial commentary while allowing the advisor to remain in control of the final narrative.

How Does RunSmart Use AI?

RunSmart takes a different approach.

Its underlying forecasting calculations are deterministic and statistical rather than being generated by a large language model.

The core financial engine calculates areas such as:

• Historical financial performance
• Forecasts
• Financial statements
• Financial health
• Emerging risks
• SaaS metrics
• Scenario results

MCP is designed to allow compatible AI tools to work with the financial intelligence generated inside RunSmart.

This separates:

Financial calculations

from:

Conversational AI interaction

The model is therefore:

RunSmart produces the financial intelligence → AI helps the user query, interpret, compare, or work with that intelligence

rather than asking generative AI to create the underlying financial forecast.

Which Platform Is Better for Financial Forecasting?

Both platforms provide substantial forecasting capabilities.

The key difference is the level of automation.

RunSmart

RunSmart is designed to automatically establish the baseline forecast.

The system evaluates historical patterns and competing statistical methods before choosing the starting forecast.

This can reduce the amount of manual model setup required.

Spotlight

Spotlight provides an advisor-controlled financial forecasting environment.

Users can directly build assumptions, budgets, forecasts, cash projections, and scenarios.

Spotlight's forecasting workflow can be particularly attractive for accountants and fractional CFOs who want direct control over client financial models.

The better choice depends on whether the user prefers:

More automated model creation

or:

More direct model construction and control

Which Platform Is Better for Scenario Planning?

Both platforms support scenario analysis.

RunSmart allows users to model changes such as:

• Revenue growth
• Pricing
• Customer growth
• Churn
• Expansion
• Contraction
• Hiring
• Compensation
• Marketing
• Operating expenses

These assumptions can affect the broader projected financial statements.

That allows users to evaluate how a decision might affect:

• Revenue
• Profitability
• Cash flow
• Cash balances
• Financial health
• Runway

Spotlight also allows users to build and compare forecast scenarios.

The distinction again comes back to the starting point.

RunSmart begins with an automatically generated statistical forecast.

Spotlight provides a more advisor-driven forecasting environment.

Which Platform Is Better for SaaS Companies?

For SaaS businesses using Stripe and QuickBooks Online, RunSmart has a specialized workflow.

Stripe provides subscription intelligence.

QuickBooks provides the broader company financial picture.

RunSmart connects the two.

Subscription metrics can include:

• MRR
• ARR
• Active Customers
• New MRR
• Reactivation MRR
• Expansion MRR
• Contraction MRR
• Churned MRR
• Customer Growth
• NRR
• GRR
• ARPA
• LTV
• Burn Multiple
• Rule of 40

RunSmart then separates subscription analysis into:

Historical Actuals → Live / MTD → Forecast

Historical

Completed-month subscription performance is used for consistent trend analysis.

Live / MTD

Current Stripe activity shows what is happening during the current month.

Point-in-time measures can include:

• MRR
• ARR
• Active Customers
• ARPA

Month-to-date movements can include:

• New MRR
• Reactivation MRR
• Expansion MRR
• Contraction MRR
• Churned MRR
• Net New MRR

Forecast

RunSmart projects future subscription activity and allows users to change assumptions involving areas such as:

• Pricing
• Subscriber growth
• Churn
• Expansion
• Contraction

These changes can then flow through broader financial forecasts.

For example:

What happens to profitability if churn rises?

How does slower subscriber growth affect cash?

What happens to runway if prices increase but customer growth slows?

Spotlight is not primarily positioned as a dedicated Stripe subscription analytics platform.

For companies that simply want financial planning and reporting, Spotlight may be an excellent fit.

For SaaS companies that want subscription intelligence connected directly to broader company financial forecasting, RunSmart is more specialized around that workflow.

Which Platform Is Better for Financial Health Analysis?

This is one of RunSmart's stronger areas.

RunSmart includes a Business Health Scorecard covering:

• Profitability
• Liquidity
• Solvency
• Efficiency
• Capitalization

The system also monitors for emerging financial risks involving areas such as:

• Cash insolvency
• Debt service
• Interest coverage
• Sustained losses
• Rapid cash deterioration
• Revenue contraction
• Revenue downtrends
• Margin compression
• Liquidity weakening
• Leverage expansion

The objective is not simply to display financial ratios.

It is to determine whether financial conditions may be deteriorating.

Spotlight provides strong financial reporting, KPI analysis, forecasting, commentary, and advisory interpretation.

Advisors can identify financial concerns through those tools.

RunSmart is more explicitly designed to automatically convert financial signals into:

• Financial health grades
• Risk alerts
• Forward-looking indicators

This can be particularly useful for businesses or advisors monitoring many financial dimensions simultaneously.

Which Platform Is Better for Workforce Planning?

Both platforms can incorporate workforce assumptions into financial planning.

RunSmart includes a Workforce Planner for modeling:

• Existing roles
• Future hires
• Compensation
• Payroll taxes
• Benefits
• Raises
• Start dates

Workforce costs can be mapped to financial statement accounts, including:

• Cost of Goods Sold
• Operating Expenses

Customized workforce forecast costs can then flow into the forecasted P&L.

This allows users to evaluate how hiring plans could affect:

• Expenses
• Profitability
• Cash
• Runway

Spotlight can also incorporate employment and payroll assumptions into forecast models.

The difference is primarily in how the workforce assumptions fit into each platform's broader planning workflow.

Which Platform Is Better for Accounting Firms?

Both RunSmart and Spotlight are relevant to accounting and advisory firms, but their strengths differ.

Spotlight Reporting

Spotlight is particularly strong for firms that want to:

• Build management reports
• Deliver client dashboards
• Prepare forecasts
• Create financial commentary
• Consolidate entities
• Standardize advisory workflows
• Produce client-ready presentations
• Use AI to accelerate Executive Summaries and Action Plans

Its advisor pricing and training structure are explicitly designed around helping accounting firms scale advisory services.

RunSmart

RunSmart is particularly strong for firms that want to:

• Automatically forecast client performance
• Evaluate financial health
• Detect emerging risks
• Model client decisions
• Monitor multiple businesses through Portfolio View
• Identify which clients may require attention
• Analyze SaaS subscription performance for Stripe-connected clients

RunSmart's portfolio approach is designed to help advisors determine where they should spend their time.

Rather than opening every client individually, advisors can review cross-client financial signals and investigate the clients showing the greatest changes or risks.

Which Platform Is Better for Portfolio-Level Monitoring?

Accounting and advisory firms managing many clients face a unique problem.

The question is no longer simply:

What is happening with this business?

It becomes:

Which businesses should I look at first?

RunSmart's Portfolio View is designed specifically around this problem.

Financial views can show measures such as:

• Revenue
• Net Income
• Net Margin
• Cash
• Health Grade
• Emerging Risks

For Stripe-connected SaaS businesses, the portfolio can also display subscription measures such as:

• MRR
• Active Subscribers
• NRR

This allows advisors to compare financial and subscription performance across businesses before opening an individual client.

Spotlight supports multiple client organizations through its advisor plans and provides strong reporting, forecasting, dashboards, and consolidation capabilities across those organizations.

RunSmart's differentiation is that the portfolio itself is intended to function as a financial intelligence and prioritization layer.

Which Platform Is Better for Consolidations?

Spotlight has the clear advantage.

Spotlight supports multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation across client organizations.

Its advisor plans include consolidation capabilities, and the platform is designed to support group reporting and advisory workflows.

RunSmart is designed around analyzing businesses individually rather than consolidating multiple legal entities into one financial model.

For organizations requiring group consolidation, Spotlight is better suited to that need.

Which Platform Is Better for Client Dashboards?

Spotlight has stronger customizable dashboard capabilities.

Spotlight Dashboards allow accountants and advisors to create visual KPI views for clients.

Advisor plans provide dashboard functionality across multiple organizations, with higher tiers offering broader dashboard use.

RunSmart includes interactive charts and Portfolio View, but dashboard customization is not its primary focus.

Its visualizations are designed more around understanding:

• Financial performance
• Forecasts
• Financial health
• Risks
• SaaS metrics

rather than creating highly customized client-facing dashboards.

How Much Does RunSmart Cost?

RunSmart currently offers three single-project plans:

• Standard — $99/month
• Premium — $299/month
• Pro — $499/month

Stripe subscription analytics are included across all three plans.

Standard

Standard focuses on historical and live analysis without automated forecasting.

Premium

Premium adds 12-month automated forecasting, including subscription forecasting for eligible SaaS businesses.

Pro

Pro extends financial forecasting to five years and includes more advanced planning, collaboration, integrations, and other capabilities.

For Pro multi-project accounts, projects are purchased in bundles of:

• 5
• 10
• 15
• 20
• and additional multiples of five

All projects within those bundles cost $249/project/month, including the first project.

Annual billing receives a 10% discount.

For example:

• 5 Pro projects = $1,245/month
• 10 Pro projects = $2,490/month
• 20 Pro projects = $4,980/month

How Much Does Spotlight Reporting Cost?

Spotlight uses different pricing for individual businesses and accounting/advisory firms.

For U.S. accounting and advisory firms, Spotlight currently lists:

• Advisor Starter — $349/month for up to 10 organizations
• Advisor Growth — $549/month for up to 25 organizations
• Advisor Scale — $995/month for up to 75 organizations
• Enterprise — custom pricing for more than 75 organizations

Advisor plans include Spotlight Reporting, Forecasting, and Dashboards, along with varying levels of training, support, consolidation, and advisory resources.

For a single CFO or finance team, Spotlight also offers business-oriented pricing.

The two pricing models reflect different product strategies.

Spotlight packages multiple client organizations into advisor plans.

RunSmart uses project-based pricing, with lower per-project pricing once a firm purchases a multi-project Pro bundle.

Which Platform Is More Affordable?

That depends heavily on the use case.

For a single business, RunSmart can start at:

$99/month

A business that wants 12-month automated forecasting can use Premium at:

$299/month

Pro costs:

$499/month

Spotlight's business pricing may be attractive for a company primarily seeking reporting, forecasting, and dashboards.

For accounting firms, Spotlight packages multiple organizations into its advisor tiers.

RunSmart Pro's multi-project pricing becomes:

$249/project/month

for bundles of five or more projects.

That means the comparison should not be made purely on price per organization.

The more relevant question is:

What type of advisory workflow is the firm trying to deliver?

Spotlight may provide stronger economics for firms primarily focused on standardized reporting, forecasting, dashboards, and consolidation across many clients.

RunSmart may provide more value where the firm wants automated forecasting, financial-health analysis, emerging-risk detection, SaaS intelligence, and portfolio-level prioritization.

RunSmart vs. Spotlight Reporting: Which Should You Choose?

The better platform depends on what you want the software to do.

Choose Spotlight Reporting if:

You primarily need:

• Highly customizable management reporting
• Client dashboards
• Three-way forecasting
• Consolidations
• Advisor-led financial models
• Executive Summaries
• AI-assisted commentary
• Action Plans
• Structured accounting-firm advisory workflows

Spotlight is particularly strong when the advisor is actively building and presenting the financial story.

Choose RunSmart if:

You primarily want:

• Automated statistical forecasting
• Financial health analysis
• Emerging risk detection
• Scenario modeling
• Workforce planning
• Live and historical Stripe subscription intelligence
• Subscription forecasting
• Portfolio-level financial intelligence
• A financial system designed to automatically surface what may require attention

RunSmart is particularly relevant when the goal is to reduce the amount of manual analysis required before the advisor or founder begins making decisions.

RunSmart vs. Spotlight Reporting: Final Comparison

RunSmart and Spotlight Reporting both help businesses move beyond historical accounting.

But they start from different places.

Spotlight begins with reporting and advisor-led financial planning.

Its strengths include:

• Management reports
• Dashboards
• Forecasting
• Consolidations
• Financial commentary
• Client presentation
• Advisory workflows

RunSmart begins with financial intelligence.

Its strengths include:

• Automated statistical forecasts
• Financial health
• Emerging risks
• Scenario modeling
• SaaS subscription intelligence
• Portfolio prioritization

For accountants and fractional CFOs who want to build highly customized financial reports and actively manage client forecasts, Spotlight may be the stronger platform.

For founders, advisors, or portfolio operators who want the software to automate more of the underlying financial analysis and identify what may happen next, RunSmart takes a different approach.

For SaaS companies using Stripe and QuickBooks Online, RunSmart adds another layer by connecting:

Historical subscription performance → Live current activity → Future subscription forecasts → Broader company financial outcomes

That makes the comparison less about which platform has more features and more about which workflow fits the user.

If the goal is:

Build, present, and communicate the financial plan

Spotlight is particularly strong.

If the goal is:

Automatically analyze, forecast, identify risks, and evaluate what may happen next

RunSmart is designed around that process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main difference between RunSmart and Spotlight Reporting?

Spotlight Reporting is primarily designed around financial reporting, dashboards, consolidations, advisor-led forecasting, and client advisory workflows.

RunSmart focuses more heavily on automated statistical forecasting, financial-health analysis, emerging-risk detection, scenario modeling, SaaS subscription intelligence, and portfolio-level financial intelligence.

Does RunSmart require 24 months of financial history?

RunSmart requires at least 24 months of historical financial data for automated forecasting.

Businesses with less history can still use available non-forecasting capabilities such as historical financial analysis, live Stripe subscription analytics, SaaS KPIs, budgeting, workforce planning, and financial-health analysis depending on their plan.

Does RunSmart provide live Stripe subscription analytics?

Yes.

RunSmart's Live Subscription Performance view shows current measures such as MRR, ARR, Active Customers, and ARPA along with month-to-date subscription movements.

Current-month activity is kept separate from completed historical periods and future forecast periods.

Does Spotlight Reporting provide three-way forecasting?

Yes.

Spotlight Forecasting provides integrated Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow forecasts.

It supports budgeting, cash flow forecasting, scenarios, and monthly, quarterly, or annual forecast views.

Does Spotlight Reporting use AI?

Yes.

Spotlight's Enhanced AI Executive Summaries use calculated financial figures as the foundation for AI-assisted commentary.

Users can refine commentary with prompts, surface trends and comparisons, generate recommendations, and turn insights into Action Plans.

Does RunSmart use generative AI for forecasting?

No.

RunSmart's underlying financial forecasts are generated using statistical and deterministic forecasting methods.

Generative AI is intended to sit on top of RunSmart's financial intelligence rather than generate the underlying forecast calculations.

Which platform is better for SaaS businesses?

For SaaS companies using Stripe and QuickBooks Online, RunSmart provides a specialized workflow connecting subscription analytics directly to broader financial forecasting.

Spotlight is better suited when the company's priority is highly customizable reporting, dashboards, consolidations, and advisor-led planning.

Which platform is better for accounting firms?

Both can be useful.

Spotlight is particularly strong for firms focused on management reporting, dashboards, consolidations, forecasting, and standardized advisory workflows.

RunSmart is particularly strong for firms focused on automated forecasting, financial health, emerging risks, portfolio prioritization, scenario analysis, and SaaS subscription intelligence.

Which platform is better for consolidations?

Spotlight Reporting.

Spotlight supports multi-entity and multi-currency consolidation.

RunSmart focuses on analyzing businesses independently rather than consolidating multiple legal entities into one financial model.

Which platform is better for customizable reports?

Spotlight Reporting.

Customizable financial reporting and advisor presentation are among Spotlight's strongest capabilities.

RunSmart provides automated reporting but focuses more heavily on the underlying financial intelligence than on highly customizable report design.

How much does RunSmart cost?

RunSmart Standard costs $99 per month for one project.

Premium costs $299 per month.

Pro costs $499 per month.

For Pro multi-project purchases, firms can purchase bundles of 5, 10, 15, 20, or additional multiples of five projects at $249 per project per month.

Annual billing receives a 10% discount.

How much does Spotlight Reporting cost for accounting firms?

Spotlight's current U.S. advisor pricing lists:

• Advisor Starter at $349 per month for up to 10 organizations
• Advisor Growth at $549 per month for up to 25 organizations
• Advisor Scale at $995 per month for up to 75 organizations
• Enterprise at custom pricing for more than 75 organizations

Pricing can change, so firms should confirm current pricing directly with Spotlight.

Which platform is better for proactive advisory?

RunSmart is designed specifically around forward-looking financial intelligence.

Its automated forecasts, financial-health analysis, emerging-risk detection, scenario modeling, SaaS intelligence, and Portfolio View can help advisors identify issues before they become obvious in historical reports.

Spotlight provides strong advisor-led forecasting and AI-assisted financial commentary, making it particularly useful when the advisor's workflow is centered around building, interpreting, and presenting the financial plan.

If you’re evaluating several accounting advisory platforms, see our full comparison of RunSmart, Fathom, Reach Reporting, Syft Analytics, and Spotlight Reporting.