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Switching from Pigment: what to export, what carries over, and how to run both

A practical guide to moving a team's questions off Pigment: what to export, how the data maps, what carries over, and running both side by side.

By CoviragePublished 24 September 20263 min read
The short answerMoving a desk's questions off Pigment starts with the exports behind them, not the dashboards. Tables and Metrics can be downloaded as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV; Dimensions and Transaction Lists as CSV only. Any member with read access to a block can download its data. Pigment also lists a custom API among its integration options. Take the source files your systems already produce, map their columns once, and run both side by side for a month so every figure can be checked against the one people know.

Teams move a desk off Pigment for ordinary reasons, and most keep it for other work. This guide is about the practical part: what to take out, what to bring, and how to check the new figures against the old ones.

Why teams move a desk's questions

  • It is a full planning platform, which can be more than a team needs to explain one variance from files it already has.
  • Standard deployments still involve discovery, model design and integration work over a couple of months, according to CFO Shortlist.
  • Professional services commonly add 20-50% of first-year subscription value, according to Vendr.
  • Teams that want specialist statutory consolidation or supply chain optimisation sometimes pair it with, or choose, a dedicated tool.

What to export from Pigment

Tables and Metrics can be downloaded as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV; Dimensions and Transaction Lists as CSV only. Any member with read access to a block can download its data. Pigment also lists a custom API among its integration options.

Exports of finished reports are useful for checking, but they are not what to move. The better source is the files underneath: the ledger, budget, sales or balance exports your systems produce before any analytics or planning tool touches them. Those are what Covirage reads.

What Covirage reads, by kind of desk

Desk Files
Cost and FP&A actuals, budget, forecast, headcount, timing and one-off items
Programme cost budget by workstream, actuals, purchase orders, forecast and change requests
Commercial sales by customer, product and month; market data, distribution and promotions if you have them
Bank income balances and interest by product and segment; fees and account openings
Markets income revenue by desk and client; market volumes and plan

Column names do not need to match. On the data map every column is matched once, by name, and the mapping is reused every month after.

What carries over, and what does not

Carries over Rebuilt
Your definitions: accounts, periods, hierarchies, thresholds Dashboard layouts and visuals
The questions people ask every month Custom calculations, as tested measures
The exports your systems produce Scheduled refreshes, as file delivery or a connection

Run both for a month

  1. Pick one recurring question, such as the monthly variance or the revenue bridge.
  2. Answer it in both tools from the same period.
  3. Reconcile every total. Our tools assert that each bridge sums to the change; differences show up as lines, not gaps.
  4. When the figures agree, move the next question.

A checklist

  • The source exports behind the reports people use
  • The hierarchy files: cost centres, regions, products, desks
  • The definitions people rely on, written down
  • One recurring question to run in both tools
  • An owner for each answer, so the list gets worked

More on Pigment alternatives, every source Covirage reads, and how to evaluate an analytics vendor.

Sources

Facts about other products were checked on 24 September 2026 from the pages below. Product names are trademarks of their owners; Covirage is not affiliated with them.

Questions people ask

Do I have to stop using Pigment?

No. Most teams move one desk's recurring questions first and keep Pigment for what it is built for. Running both for a month is the safest way to check the figures.

Do our dashboards carry over?

Not as dashboards. What carries over is the definitions: which accounts, which periods, which measures. They become the measures and the configuration we set up for you, and the answers are rebuilt from the source files.

How long does the move take?

For one desk with its exports in hand, set up is usually within a week. A custom configuration takes longer and is agreed with us first.

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