RunSmart
Spotlight Reporting
A Spotlight Reporting Alternative for QuickBooks Advisory Firms
Spotlight Reporting helps firms create visual reports, dashboards, forecasts, and consolidated financial views. RunSmart helps firms turn QuickBooks month-end close work into forward-looking advisory insights, risk alerts, and client-ready reports.
How Spotlight Reporting and RunSmart Are Fundamentally Different
The Core Question:
Do you primarily need polished reporting, dashboards, and consolidated financial presentation, or a more automated way to turn completed QuickBooks close work into forward-looking advisory insights? That distinction explains most of the differences between Spotlight Reporting and RunSmart.
Who Each Platform Is Built For
Each platform is designed for a different type of user and workflow. Understanding who it is built for is often the fastest way to determine which one fits your needs.
Key Difference: Reporting Presentation vs Advisory Workflow
Spotlight Reporting and RunSmart both help users get more value from financial data, but they support different parts of the advisory process.
Operational Planning Is Where the Tools Diverge Most
Understanding performance is important, but many client conversations quickly become forward-looking. Firms are often asked whether a client can afford to hire, increase spending, take on debt, pursue growth, or absorb margin pressure. This is where the difference between reporting-led advisory and decision-led planning becomes more apparent.
Business Health: Interpretation vs Insight
Another difference is how insight is delivered.
Summary Comparison
Decision Factor
Choose Spotlight Reporting If…
Choose RunSmart If…
Primary User
You are an accountant, advisor, CFO, or finance team focused on reports and dashboards
You are an accounting, bookkeeping, or advisory firm serving QuickBooks clients
Main Goal
Creating visual reports, dashboards, forecasts, and consolidated financial views
Turning month-end close into forecasts, insights, alerts, budgets, and advisory reports
Comfort with Finance
Your team wants flexible reporting and presentation tools
Your team wants automated insights that reduce manual review and spreadsheet work
Entity Structure
You need consolidated reporting or group-level financial views
You primarily work with single-entity QuickBooks clients
Output Style
Presentation-ready reports, dashboards, KPIs, and financial visuals
Client-ready advisory reports, forecasts, health scores, and risk alerts
Planning Focus
Forecasting and budgeting within a reporting and presentation workflow
Operational decision planning around hiring, payroll, expenses, financing, pricing, and growth
Conclusion
Spotlight Reporting and RunSmart are not substitutes in the traditional sense. They reflect two different advisory workflows.
Understanding that difference usually makes the choice clear. If your firm needs visual financial reporting, dashboards, forecasting, budgeting, and consolidated reporting, Spotlight Reporting may be the better fit. If your firm wants a more automated way to identify which QuickBooks clients need attention, refresh forecasts after close, surface financial risks, and prepare advisory reports without building spreadsheets manually, RunSmart may be the better fit.
Disclaimer
This comparison is based on publicly available information and our understanding of each platform’s intended use cases. Product features, pricing, packaging, and capabilities may change over time. Please review each provider’s website for the most current information.
Frequent Asked Questions
More asnswers to common questions about how RunSmart works and what you can expect.
Many FP&A platforms are built for dedicated finance teams and require significant setup, configuration, and ongoing financial modeling. RunSmart is designed to give business owners powerful financial intelligence and planning capabilities without the complexity of traditional FP&A software.
Simply connect your QuickBooks account and RunSmart automatically analyzes your financial performance, generates forecasts and insights, monitors your financial health, tracks budgets, and produces professional reports without requiring you to build or maintain complicated financial models.
No. RunSmart is designed to make complex financial information easier to understand, even if you don't have a background in finance or accounting.
Plain-language insights, helpful tooltips, and an extensive library of help articles explain financial concepts and results throughout the platform. RunSmart also includes an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions and explain unfamiliar financial concepts in simple terms whenever you need additional help.
No. RunSmart's financial analysis and forecasts are powered by custom-built statistical algorithms and deterministic financial logic—not generative AI.
This ensures consistent, repeatable financial calculations grounded in your actual business data rather than AI-generated interpretations or predictions.
Unlike financial planning tools that rely on fixed growth assumptions or manually maintained models, RunSmart uses advanced statistical forecasting algorithms to identify historical trends, seasonality, and patterns in your financial data.
RunSmart automatically evaluates multiple forecasting methods and selects the best-fitting model for each financial line item, delivering sophisticated, data-driven projections that automatically update as new financial information becomes available.
Standard and Premium plan users can begin using RunSmart with less than 24 consecutive months of QuickBooks history. While financial forecasting will not be available until 24 months of historical data are available, you can still analyze your historical financial performance, monitor your business's financial health, review key financial metrics, compare your performance against industry benchmarks, and generate professional reports depending on your plan.
Once your business reaches 24 consecutive months of historical QuickBooks data, financial forecasting is automatically enabled. This allows RunSmart's statistical forecasting models to better identify longer-term trends and seasonal patterns, helping produce more reliable forecasts. The more historical data you have for RunSmart to work with, the more reliable the results.
Pro plan users require at least 24 consecutive months of historical QuickBooks data before using RunSmart. The Pro plan is designed for businesses that need advanced forecasting, scenario planning, budgeting, workforce planning, automated reporting, and other forward-looking financial planning capabilities, all of which depend on sufficient historical data to produce reliable results.
No. RunSmart currently supports financial forecasting and planning for individual business entities. It does not support consolidating multiple companies into a single financial model or budgeting by QuickBooks class.
You can manage multiple businesses as separate projects, with each company's financial information analyzed and forecasted independently.
No. RunSmart requires a connection to QuickBooks Online, which is currently its only supported accounting platform. RunSmart automatically uses your QuickBooks financial data to generate forecasts, financial health insights, and reports without manual data entry.
