25+ pre-built Anaplan formulas ready to copy and use
💡 Pro Tip: All formulas follow Anaplan best practices and PLANS methodology. Copy, paste, and adjust line item/list names to fit your model.
Anaplan uses its own formula language — not Excel, not SQL. If you're coming from a spreadsheet background, most concepts will feel familiar, but the syntax and available functions are specific to the Anaplan platform. This reference guide covers the most commonly used formula categories.
Time intelligence is one of Anaplan's greatest strengths. The platform natively understands time periods — weeks, months, quarters, years — and provides purpose-built functions to work across them without complex workarounds.
PREVIOUS: Returns the value of a line item from the prior time period. Essential for period-over-period comparisons and running calculations like inventory carryforward.
CUMULATE: Returns the cumulative sum from the beginning of the year (or any defined start) through the current period. Used for year-to-date totals.
MOVINGSUM: Calculates a rolling sum across a specified number of periods. Perfect for trailing 12-month calculations and seasonal smoothing.
OFFSET: References a value N periods forward or backward from the current period. More flexible than PREVIOUS when you need to look ahead (forecasting) or further back in time.
SUM: Aggregates values across a list dimension. The most used aggregation function. Always specify the list you're summing across explicitly: SUM(Revenue[LIST: Product]).
LOOKUP: Retrieves a value from another module using a list item as a key. The Anaplan equivalent of VLOOKUP, but more powerful because it respects multidimensionality.
SELECT: Returns the value of a specific list member. Useful for pulling a single row or column from a module — for example, getting the budget value for a specific account or entity.
COLLECT: Aggregates values upward through a list hierarchy. Used when you want to roll up child-level data to parent-level line items in the same module.
CONCATENATE: Joins text values together. In Anaplan, you can also use the & operator as a shorthand.
LEFT / RIGHT / MID: Extract substrings from text, identical in logic to their Excel equivalents. Useful for parsing codes and identifiers.
FINDITEM: Finds a list item by its name (text value). Essential for converting text labels into actual list references that can drive lookups and aggregations.
IF / THEN / ELSE: Conditional logic. While functional, best practice is to minimize nesting and use boolean math for multi-condition scenarios. See our Formula Optimizer for guidance on converting complex IF chains.
No — Anaplan has its own formula language. Many functions have the same name as Excel (IF, SUM, LEFT, RIGHT) but the syntax differs, and many Excel functions don't exist in Anaplan. Functions like VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and array formulas are replaced by Anaplan's LOOKUP, SUM with dimensionality, and module-based references.
SUM aggregates values across a list dimension that the current module also has — it works across siblings. COLLECT aggregates from child items to parent items in the same list hierarchy within the same module. Use COLLECT when rolling up a list's own hierarchy, and SUM when aggregating across a separate list dimension.
Wrap your denominator in an IF check: IF Denominator <> 0 THEN Numerator / Denominator ELSE 0. Alternatively, use the boolean math approach: Numerator / MAX(Denominator, 0.00001) if a tiny non-zero value is acceptable.