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Best practices for budget/forecast

  • 22 February 2023
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Userlevel 4
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Hi everyone!

I have to remodel our Budget application because a lot of our processes have changed since we built it with the Pigment team 😊

Can you please share with me your best practices for building such applications?

I am especially wondering about the use of scenarios, versions, switchover date, etc.

We usually do a budget once a year and then review it with a forecast at least once every quarter. Should I create 2 separate applications for this purpose? Can I condense all the information in one application?

Thanks for your help!

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Best answer by Nathan 23 February 2023, 21:45

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Userlevel 4
Badge +6

Hi @Elodie 

I would recommend to use versions for your application Budget Vs Forecasting and you can condense all information in one application.

Userlevel 6
Badge +11

Hi Elodie,

 

I would recommend to have Budget & Forecast (your planning cycle) in the same apps (unless exception, it is what we do). If there are slight variations, you can manage them easily. This allows you a simpler maintenance down the line.

 

The app architecture for a finance is typically:

  • HUB → contains the shared dimensions
  • Workforce planning → people costs & plan
  • Opex Planning → input & driver based costs
  • Core FP&A → plugging all the different apps together to create your P&L Reporting & BVA
  • Revenue Planning → depending how deep you go, this can be its own app or be included into another one (Core FP&A)

We have a suite a connected standard apps that you can use to start with.

 

For versions vs scenarios, this is a hot topic. We are right at the moment where I would suggest to use scenarios. Knowing there is currently a constraint: one scenario cannot reference another via a formula (we are working on it though). 
besides that, it behaves mostly the same as using a standard dimension for versions, except that you can easily compare to snapshots (thus fixing your numbers).

ps: we have not converted our standard apps to scenarios

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