Setting Up Financial Management › Financial Matrices

Financial Matrices

A matrix is composed of the following:

• General properties to describe the matrix.
• Assigned columns that identify the criteria used to match the rates and costs to transactions.

You can define a Cost/Rate matrix used during financial transaction processing to determine costs and billing or charge rates. You can create cost and rate matrices for labor, materials, equipment, and expense resource types.

You can establish default matrices at the system level, entity level, and investment level. CA Clarity PPM looks for and applies matrices first at the investment level, then at the entity level, and finally at the system level. You can set default rate locations at either the entity level or system level. If a matrix cannot be matched, you can enter costs and rates manually when you create transactions.

Set up currency before creating a cost/rate matrix.

More information:

Entities

How to Set Up a Cost/Rate Matrix

As the financial manager, you can ensure that standard costs and rates apply to all detailed financial plans and transactions for investments. Create a standard cost/rate matrix that provides default values from a centralized cost/rate matrix in the financial system. The standardized default information eliminates the need for defining costs and rates for different financial plans and transactions individually.

Populate the cost/rate matrix with the following types of financial values:

• Planned costs for investments for use in detailed financial plans.
• Billing rates for financial transactions that are processed against the investments.

Example: Set up a Cost/Rate Matrix that is Based on Resource Class

The Document Management Company captures costs in the financial system using the resource class and the input type code of the resources that are assigned to their investments. The company has four different resource classes that are assigned to two different input type codes. The resource classes and input type codes have different costs that are associated with them. For example, a billable labor has an actual cost of $100 whereas a non-billable labor has no cost that is associated with it. Also, cost for non-labor resource classes is calculated as $1 x quantity.

To meet the corporate requirements, Sam the financial manager at Document Management Company sets up a cost/rate matrix with five different rows. Sam creates one row for each resource class (labor and non-labor) and input type code combination and populates the row with the appropriate cost. The matrix rows define the criteria for applying costs to resources for transaction processing. The following table shows the matrix rows:

The following diagram describes how the financial manager sets up a cost/rate matrix:

Follow these steps:

1. Verify the prerequisites.
2. Create the cost/rate matrix.
3. Assign columns to the matrix.
4. Add rows to the matrix.

Verify the Prerequisites

Before you set up a cost/rate matrix, complete these prerequisites:

Understand

Verify that you understand the following financial management concepts:

• Cost planning versus actuals, fiscal calendar cycles, fiscal time periods and how they are defined in your organization.
• The desired outcomes for any type of configuration. After you start using the configured data to create instance data, you cannot change the configuration. For example, you cannot delete fiscal time periods, department or location OBS units, or financial classifications that the application is using.
• How you want to set up your organizational structure using entity, and the location and department organizational breakdown structure (OBS) units. Organization is important because when you use the application or you generate reports, information groups by the outcome desired.
• How your configurations, classifications, and definitions affect the data flow to your third-party integrations and chargebacks processing.

Note: For more information about CA Clarity PPM financial management concepts, see the Financial Management User Guide.

Set up an entity

Verify that you have created and set up a financial entity.

Note: For more information about setting up an entity, see the How to Set Up a Financial Entity scenario.

Plan the matrix

Verify that you have the gathered the following information that is required to plan for your matrix:

• Determine whether the matrix is based on the resource role, resource, input type code, or charge code, and so on. If it is based on investments or resources, verify that they are financially enabled.
• Establish a naming convention for the matrix.
• Verify and activate the currency that is required for the matrix.
• Determine if the matrix must be marked private. If so, determine who must have access to it.
• Verify that any data to be used in the matrix is created before the matrix is established. For example, you cannot add the resource manager role to the matrix until it is added in Resource Management.
• Optionally set up cost plus codes to use them for marking up actual or standard costs in the cost/rate matrix.

  Note: For more information about cost plus codes, see the Financial Management User Guide.