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SAP Analytics
Thought Leadership

Integrated Planning with SAP BPC 10.1 Standard

Posted by Richard Hynes on Tue, Apr 19, 2016 @ 08:04 AM


SAP BPC is a tool that can be customised to facilitate planning, budgeting and forecasting processes for different
 functional areas such as Revenue, Human Capital Management, Operating Expenses, and Capital Expenditure. In this blog we will talk about how to integrate these functional areas into one unified BPC reporting model, for fully integrated planning.

The different functional areas require different data structures and consequently we  will need to use a separate BPC model for each area. To give some common examples:

The Revenue model may, depending on the modelling requirements, need to have Product dimensionality in order to plan the sales volumes and calculate planned revenue according to the price by product, and a Customer dimension to plan sales and analyse the outstanding payments by customer or channel.

The Labour planning, or HCM model may need to include a role dimension, in order to plan the salary by role or grade, or an Employee dimension to enable planning by employee or job grade.

The Operating Expenses or OPEX model should enable the user to plan the expense related General Ledger accounts at the required level of detail, for example, by collecting the number of flights and hotel nights and using forecast unit costs to calculate travel expenses.

The Capital Expenditure or CAPEX model should include an asset dimension which will include the company’s asset list and allow the user to plan new asset purchases and the corresponding depreciation for the planning period.

Topics: Thought Leadership, Financial Information Management, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting, sap

Spreadsheets to BPC/EPM 10: A Quantum Leap

Posted by Keith Roberts on Tue, Jul 01, 2014 @ 07:07 AM
It’s the corporation’s latest planning/forecast/budget cycle, and you’re responsible for putting together the consolidated reports for the executive review meetings.  The analysts in Europe, Asia, North America and South America have sent you their Excel spreadsheets, which have been reviewed and revised according to their local management review meetings.  Their regional financial managers will be participating in the executive review meetings, and presenting their region’s forecast. 

The PowerPoint reporting package for the executive review meeting will consist of income statements, capital spending reports and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  Comments will be included, and there will be slides/reports at the region and total corporate level.  You have spent hours copying the Excel “reports” and pasting them into the PowerPoint slides.  Also, in order to produce the numbers for the region and total corporate reports, you had to combine the multiple Excel spreadsheets from the site analysts.  This included calculating the KPIs at the region and corporate levels.  You finally have everything ready for tomorrow’s first executive review meeting, although it’s 9:15 PM and you’re still at the office.

Topics: Center of Excellence, Excel, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Value, Implementation, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Replace a Working Spreadsheet Based Forecasting Model with SAP BPC?

Posted by Michael Sheard on Wed, Mar 05, 2014 @ 14:03 PM
SAP BPC forecasting model implementations frequently replace existing spreadsheet forecasting models.  A key question to be asked when implementing SAP BPC is to consider how it will improve a forecasting process that works and therefore justify the disruption the change may involve and the expense, both internal and external.

Topics: Excel, Analytics, Value, Implementation, Data, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Budget and Forecast – Are They The Same?

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Mon, Feb 03, 2014 @ 09:02 AM

When we report on actual data we are clear what we are looking at: the data will have been taken from our transaction systems and will have been produced in agreement with generally accepted accounting standards.  It will represent the actual performance of the organisation. But when we look at budget or forecast data are we as clear what the data represents?

Topics: Center of Excellence, Thought Leadership, Financial Close, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

EPM Hierarchical Planning, Forecasting and Reporting

Posted by Jamison Chochrek on Tue, Nov 12, 2013 @ 09:11 AM

Column5's EPM Academy sets the industry standard in quality curriculum, with course content developed by top field experts on SAP products and delivered in a variety of formats.Software knowledge and skills are only as valuable as what's retained and applied in the real world. Column5's "360 Training Experience" ensures that your staff will not only develop good habits and acquire confidence while mastering the software—they'll build organizational enthusiasm for EPM that lasts long after implementation.

Topics: Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Training, Data, Forecasting

Rolling Forecasts – Effecting EPM Techniques

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Wed, Jul 17, 2013 @ 11:07 AM

In a previous blog I examined the trend away from the traditional annual budget and periodic reforecasting regime and towards the rolling forecast. I’d now like to examine the particular factors which are driving companies towards rolling forecasts and the implications that this has on the required tools and methodologies.

Topics: Best Practices, Process Improvement, Excel, Thought Leadership, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Financial Information Management, BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

Death of the Budget – Long Live the Rolling Forecast

Posted by Martin Lloyd on Thu, Dec 27, 2012 @ 09:12 AM

I've been implementing planning solutions for many years. One of the areas that we often find on the agenda for a planning application design meeting -- or, if it's not on the agenda, something we will bring up -- is the question of whether the organisation has a separate budgeting cycle or whether the budget has been subsumed into a rolling forecast process.

Topics: Process Improvement, Excel, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Project Management, Innovation, Performance, Roadmap, Forecasting

Planning and Forecasting: Category Set-Up for SAP BPC

Posted by David Meharry on Tue, Dec 18, 2012 @ 09:12 AM

Whether you are just getting started with your Business Planning & Consolidation (BPC) implementation or looking for improvements to your existing implementation, best practices are often simple concepts that improve user satisfaction and reduce chances for errors.

Issue: Untrustworthy Data
One of the most frustrating things for users when it comes to planning and forecasting is data that they cannot trust. I recall one example where, after publishing executive reports, an analyst realized that their prior forecast had unexpectedly changed. The bad data was an accidental result of input templates, logic, and security being open for a prior forecast. Fortunately, the data was recovered, but not before a costly loss of time and resources. The error was the result of many manual steps in a process where all steps had to be done in exactly the right order. Prior to the forecast, there was a change in personnel. Even though proper knowledge transfer was done, the error still occurred.

Topics: BPC (Business Planning & Consolidation), Forecasting

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