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Detailed Financial Planning

This section contains the following topics:

About Detailed Financial Planning

How to Set Up Detailed Financial Planning

Display Cost Plans and Budget Views

Cost Plans

Benefit Plans

Budget Plans

About Copying Financial Plans

By Example: How Financial Plan Data is Copied

About Detailed Financial Planning

Detailed financial planning allows you to estimate funding for your investments using cost plans. You can get approval for such funding using budget plans. As part of the approval process, you can associate your cost plans with benefit plans to estimate the benefit from your investments.

More information:

Summary Financial Planning

Cost Plans

Budget Plans

How to Set Up Detailed Financial Planning

To build financial plans, the following must be set up:

Display Cost Plans and Budget Views

The following views are available for a cost plan or budget plan details:

Follow these steps:

  1. Open the investment.
  2. Open the Financial Plans menu and click Cost Plans, Benefit Plans, or Budget Plans.

    The plan list page appears.

  3. Click the plan name to open the plan details.
  4. Select the view you want from the Show drop-down.

Cost Plans

Cost plans are an alternative to financial summaries if you want to create a detailed plan that spans more than one fiscal time period. You can track planned costs, actual costs, and variances over the lifetime of an investment. In addition, you can break down data by different grouping attributes or criteria. You can define a cost plan from scratch or populate it automatically and submit it as an investment budget for approval.

Use CA Clarity PPM cost planning to facilitate your organizational financial planning process and to enforce standards.

A cost plan consists of the following:

You can configure a cost plan to display the following revenue fields. These fields are not available by default. Posted transactions must exist for these fields to display values.

For more information, see the Studio Developer’s Guide.

Actual Unit

Displays the aggregated actual unit for a given fiscal period.

Actual Cost

Displays the aggregated actual cost for a given fiscal period calculated as Actual Units * Cost.

Actual Revenue

Displays the actual billing rate for a given fiscal period calculated as Actual Units * Rate.

Cost Variance

Displays the delta between Cost and Actual Cost.

Revenue Variance

Displays the delta between Revenue and Actual Revenue.

Units Variance

Displays the delta between Units and Actual Units.

More information:

By Example: Managing a Cost Plan

Summary Financial Planning

Plan of Record

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

Plan of Record

The plan of record (POR) is the cost plan that you intend to use as the budget plan for an investment. If there is an existing approved budget plan, you can use the POR to create a new budget plan. The first cost plan you create for an investment becomes the POR by default. You can reassign the POR to any plan and submit it for budget approval. You can keep the remaining cost plans for future use or reference. You cannot delete a POR.

When you add an investment to a portfolio, the cost plan POR is automatically associated with all portfolio scenarios related to that investment. This association with the POR verifies that the investment costs are included in the portfolio scenarios. Later, if you select a different POR for the investment, the new POR is used in the portfolio provided no approved budget exists for the investment. Once a budget is approved, switching the POR has no effect on the value displayed on the financial summary pages of the investment. The financial summary value is the same value that is shown in the portfolio.

More information:

Create the Plan of Record

Define Cost Plans Manually

Cost Plans

Budget Plans

By Example: Managing a Cost Plan

Cost planning starts at the investment level and goes through multiple iterations of cost projections and reviews to produce the final approved budget. Investment budgets roll up to the department level and then roll up to higher levels as desired. To streamline this planning process, financial controllers can standardize the ways to capture and break down costs for the entire organization. These standards ensure that all the costs are easily recognized and roll up to the desired levels. Financial controllers can implement standardized budget approval processes to review and approve individual and departmental budgets.

The following is one example on how to manage cost plans based on standards defined by the financial controller. When a finance manager approves a cost plan, it becomes the budget plan for an investment.

  1. Financial controller sets global default standards at the entity level to suggest the recommended cost planning structure.
  2. Project manager does the following:
  3. Finance manager or other designated authority approves or rejects the submitted cost plan as the budget plan.

More information:

Create Entities

How Cost Plans are Created

Create the Plan of Record

Associate Benefit Plans with Cost Plans

Submit Cost Plans as Budget Plans

Approve or Reject Submitted Budget Plans

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

You can group cost planning data using different attributes or criteria to view a breakdown of the data for the given time periods. The structure of the cost plan line item details is based on these grouping attributes and the selected time periods.

The financial controller can set default grouping attributes globally when defining an entity. The project manager can change the default attributes when defining the initial cost plan scope at the investment level. Only the grouping attributes that you define in the initial scope are available for selection when adding line item details. You must select at least one value for each available grouping attribute or select the option to automatically populate the line item details. Individual line item detail rows are created for each unique combination of selected values for all available grouping attributes.

Note: When defining a cost plan, if you do not select a particular grouping attribute, it is hidden from the cost planning pages but is still available from the configuration pages. You do not need to configure the page to manually hide the attribute.

More information:

By Example: Defining Line Item Details with Grouping Attribute Values

Create Entities

How Cost Plans are Created

You can create a cost plan in one of the following ways:

More information:

Edit Cost Plans

Processes for Financial Management

How to Set up Cost Plans for Manual Definition

Before you can define cost plans, you must set them up. Use the following process to populate cost plans manually:

By Example: Defining Line Item Details with Grouping Attribute Values

This example shows you how line item detail rows are created in a cost plan based on the values selected from the available grouping attributes.

  1. Jim, the project manager for the ARP project at Forward, Inc. creates a cost plan and selects the following grouping attributes:
  2. In the cost plan details, Jim selects the following values for each of the grouping attributes:

    The system creates line item detail rows based on each unique combination of selected location and department value.

    Jim can now define the unit and cost values for each time period and view a breakdown of the cost plan for each unique combination of department and location.

More information:

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

Define Cost Plans Manually

The following procedure describes how to define a cost plan from scratch. Select at least one grouping attribute before saving a cost plan. Grouping attributes not selected in the cost plan properties are not displayed in the line item details.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Home, and from Portfolio Management, click an investment (for example, Projects).

    The list page appears.

  2. Open the investment.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Open the Financial Plans menu and click Cost Plans.

    The cost plans list appears.

  4. Click New Manual Plan.

    The create page appears.

  5. Complete the following fields:
    Plan Name

    Defines the name for the cost plan.

    Plan ID

    Defines the unique ID for the cost plan.

    Description

    Describes the cost plan.

    Period Type

    Defines the type of time period for the plan.

    Default: The period type as defined in the entity plan defaults. If no period type is specified in the plan defaults, the period type from the entity properties is populated.

    Values: 13 Periods, Weekly, Semi Monthly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Annually

    Plan Start Period

    Defines the fiscal start period of the cost plan.

    Default: The start period is defined in the entity plan defaults. If no start period is specified in the plan defaults, the start period is based on the entity period type and start date of the project. If no active period is found for the project start and end date, no default start period displays.

    Plan End Period

    Defines the fiscal end period of the cost plan.

    Default: The end period is defined in the entity plan defaults. If no end period is specified in the plan defaults, the end period is based on the entity period type and the end date of the project. If no active period is found for the project end date, no default end period displays.

    Benefit Plan

    Defines the benefit plan associated with the cost plan.

    Currency

    Displays the entity home currency.

    Plan of Record

    Indicates if this cost plan is the plan of record.

    Grouping Attributes

    Defines the categories to use to define the cost plan line item detail structure.

    Default: The grouping attributes are defined in the entity plan defaults.

  6. Save the changes, and click Detail.

    The cost plan details page appears.

  7. Click Add.

    The page to select grouping attribute values appears.

  8. Select one or more values for each grouping attribute and save.

    A line item detail row is created for each unique combination of selected grouping attribute values.

  9. Review or complete the following fields as desired. You cannot edit the total fields:
    Total Cost

    Displays the total cost based on the costs specified for each time period.

    Total Units

    Displays the total units based on the units specified for each time period.

    Total Revenue

    Displays the total cost based on the unit and cost specified for each time period.

    % Total

    Displays the percentage for that line item detail based on the total cost.

    Unit, Cost and Revenue Details

    Defines the work effort units, cost, and revenue for each cost plan time period. The work effort units are based on the role or resource availability for the associated investment.

  10. Save the changes.

More information:

By Example: Managing a Cost Plan

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

Processes for Financial Management

Edit Cost Plans

Submit Cost Plans as Budget Plans

Approve or Reject Submitted Budget Plans

How Cost Plans are Automatically Populated

When creating a cost plan, you can automatically populate the plan using values from the investment team (that is, resources or roles) or task assignments. You can also repopulate an existing cost plan.

Use the following information to set up and populate cost plans automatically from the investment team or task assignments:

More information:

Create Entities

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

By Example: Populating Line Item Details from Investment Team

Populate Cost Plans Automatically

Populate Cost Plans Automatically

You can automatically populate a new cost plan using values from the investment team or task assignments.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Home, and from Portfolio Management, click an investment.

    The list page appears.

  2. Open the investment.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Open the Financial Plans menu and click Cost Plans.

    The cost plans list appears.

  4. Open the Actions menu, and from General, click one of the following:

    The properties page appears showing the default values from the associated entity and investment. You can accept these default values or change them.

  5. Enter a name, ID, and description for the cost plan.
  6. Save the changes.

    The cost plan details page appears. The line item detail rows are also populated from the investment team or task assignments.

  7. (Optional) Open the Actions menu, and from General, click one of the following to populate the cost plan details:
  8. Save the changes.

More information:

How Cost Plans are Automatically Populated

By Example: Populating Line Item Details from Investment Team

By Example: Populating Line Item Details from Investment Team

This example shows you how a cost plan line item detail row is automatically populated with cost and revenue values from the investment team.

Resource

Role

Transaction Class

Location

Department

Sam Ricci

Developer-1

Billable

Los Angeles

Development

Role

Location

Cost

Developer-1

San Francisco

85

Developer-1

Los Angeles

83

Developer-2

San Francisco

75

Developer-2

Los Angeles

72

Resource

Role

Transaction Class

Jan 1 - Jan 31

Feb 1 - Feb 29

Mar 1 - Mar 31

Sam Ricci

Developer-1

Billable

83

83

83

More information:

Grouping of Cost Planning Data

How Cost Plans are Automatically Populated

Rules for Automatically Populating a Cost Plan

The following rules describe how cost plans are automatically populated:

The following rules describe how the line item detail rows are automatically populated:

Investment Team Values Used to Automatically Populate Cost Plans

When you auto-populate a cost plan from the investment team, the system uses the following values from the investment team members to populate the cost plan fields. If a value is not defined for a team member, either the corresponding value on the investment is used or the field is left blank.

Value

Team Member

Primary Source

Secondary Source

Charge Code

Resource or Role

Investment

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the investment.

Cost Type

Resource or Role

Investment

None

Input Type Code

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the resource, or if the team member is a role.

Input Type Code

Role

N/A

The field is blank if the team member is a role.

Department

Resource

Resource

Investment

Department

Role

Staff OBS Unit

Investment

Location

Resource

Resource

Investment

Location

Role

Staff OBS Unit

Investment

Transaction Class

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the resource, if the resource or the resource financial properties are inactive.

Transaction Class

Role

Role*

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the role, or if the role or the role financial properties are inactive.

Resource

Resource

Team Member

None

Resource

Role

NA

The field is blank if the team member is a role.

Resource Class

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the resource, if the value is inactive, or if the resource or resource financial properties are inactive.

Resource Class

Role

Role*

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the role, if the value is inactive, or if the role or role financial properties are inactive.

Role

Resource

Team role

If there is no team role, the resource primary role is used. The field is blank if the resource has no primary role, or if the selected role is inactive.

Role

Role

Team role

If there is no team role, the team member (role) is used. The field is blank if the selected role is inactive.

* The role that is obtained for the Role attribute.

More information:

How Cost Plans are Automatically Populated

By Example: Populating Line Item Details from Investment Team

Populate Cost Plans Automatically

Task Assignment Values Used to Automatically Populate Cost Plans

When you automatically populate a cost plan from the task assignment, the product uses the following values from the task assignments to populate the cost plan fields. If a value is not defined for an assignment, either the corresponding value on the investment is used or the field is left blank.

Value

Task Assignment

Primary Source

Secondary Source

Charge Code

Resource or Role

Task

Investment. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the investment.

Cost Type

Resource or Role

Task

Investment

Input Type Code

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is inactive or undefined on the resource, or if the resource is a role.

Input Type Code

Role

N/A

None. The field is blank if the task assignee is a role.

Department

Resource

Resource

Investment

Department

Role

Staff OBS Unit

Investment

Location

Resource

Resource

Investment

Location

Role

Staff OBS Unit

Investment

Transaction Class

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the resource, or if the task assignment is a role.

Transaction Class

Role

Role*

 

Resource

Resource

Task Assignee

None. The field is blank if the resource is inactive.

Resource

Role

N/A

If the task assignee is a role, then the field is blank.

Resource Class

Resource

Resource

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the resource, if the value is inactive, or if the resource or resource financial properties are inactive.

Resource Class

Role

Role*

None. The field is blank if the value is undefined on the role, if the value is inactive, or if the role or role financial properties are inactive.

Role

Resource

Task role

Team role. If the team role is undefined, the resource primary role is used. The field is blank if the resource primary role is undefined, if the resource is inactive, or if the selected role is inactive.

Role

 

Task role

Team role. If the team role is undefined, the team member (role) is used. The field is blank if the selected role is inactive.

* The role that is obtained for the Role attribute.

More information:

How Cost Plans are Automatically Populated

Populate Cost Plans Automatically

By Example: Populating Line Item Details from Investment Team