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enterprise performance management

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Manipulating Text in Excel

February 2, 2021 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever wanted to manipulate text within Excel? Excel has a series of functions that allow you to parse text strings based on whether you want to reference the left, the right, or the middle of the cell contents.

For example, assume cell A2 contains the text “Planning Analytics”. The functions LEFT and RIGHT will allow you to view characters at the start of the string or at the end of the string.

=LEFT(A2,3) will give a result of “Pla”

=RIGHT(A2,3) will give a result of “ics”

The function MID will allow you to look within the string by defining both a starting point and the number of characters in the result.

=MID(A2,3,3) will give a result of “ann”

But what if you didn’t know the number of characters? You can use functions to find a specific set of characters and to determine the overall length of the string.

=FIND(“A”,A2)-1 will give a result of “9”, which signifies that the string begins at the 9th character

=LEN(A2) will give a result of “18”, which signifies that the string contains 18 total characters

You can then put these pieces together to find a specific set of data, such as the second word in the string. Assuming that D6 contains the LEN function and D5 contains the FIND function:

=RIGHT(A2,D6-D5) will give a result of “Analytics”

These Excel functions will allow you to quickly parse out pieces of a text string which can then be used in your spreadsheets.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more Excel tips in our IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks series:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s NETWORKDAYS Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Keyboard Navigation

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TYPE Function

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: enterprise performance management, Excel, excel tips, Excel tips & tricks, excel tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics tips, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s NETWORKDAYS Function

January 26, 2021 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever wanted to define the number of working days between two calendar dates? Do you define “working days” simply as non-weekend days or do you also include holidays? Did you know that you can calculate this information using Excel’s NETWORKDAYS function?

The NETWORKDAYS function is used to determine the number of whole working days between start_date and end_date. Working days are defined as the exclusion of weekends, which in essence computes the number of Mondays through Fridays. The function also includes an optional parameter to exclude holidays and any other specific non-working days.

The syntax of the function is:

NETWORKDAYS (start_date, end_date, [holidays])
  • Start_date: This is required
  • End_date: This is required
  • Holidays: This is optional
    • This consists of a range of one or more dates to be excluded from the calendar. The list entails a range of cells that contains the dates.

Note: All dates are entered in date format or in serial number format

This information can be used to help calculate any/all of the following pieces of your model:

  • Benefit accruals and eligibility
  • Ratios such as “Revenue per day” or “Units per day”
  • Days remaining for end-of-service dates
  • Anything else that requires the number of days within the formula

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more Excel tips in our IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks series:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TYPE Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Keyboard Navigation

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: enterprise performance management, Excel, Excel NETWORKDAYS, excel tips, Excel tips & tricks, excel tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics tips, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, TM1

FP&A Done Right: xP&A and Modern Finance Planning

January 15, 2021 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning, written by Matt Shore. Shore, vice president and product strategist, explains xP&A and why it matters.

xP&A stands for extended planning and analysis—taking the best of modern finance planning and extending it across the enterprise. But it’s not new. For years, it has been known as company-wide planning.

Finance leaders whose organizations have been made more agile and strategic with modern planning and analysis have known for years that their approach to planning can transform other parts of the business. Now, as they work to recover from the global COVID-19 pandemic, that awareness is more valuable than ever.

Growing recognition around expanding the use of FP&A best practices beyond finance recently earned an industry imprimatur from Gartner, whose 2020 Strategic Roadmap for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions report said, “By 2024, 70% of new financial planning and analysis projects will become extended planning and analysis (xP&A) projects, extending their scope beyond the finance domain into other areas of enterprise planning and analysis.”*

We agree that bringing continuous, comprehensive, and collaborative planning to every part of an enterprise has not only arrived, it’s ascendant.

We’ve been advocating the concept since back when we began working with customers to harness the platform and processes of modern planning from financial planning to sales, workforce, and operational planning. Our solutions for enterprise planning are defined by powerful automation, enterprise-class scalability, intelligent planning assisted by machine learning, always-on cloud availability, and award-winning ease of use.

These requirements have essentially served as design standards for planning solutions from Workday, where we’ve always believed that the promise of enterprise planning can only be realized by linking finance and operations in a holistic and seamless way.

Extended planning, orchestrated by finance

Finance is the natural steward of enterprise data, so it makes sense that finance should orchestrate company-wide planning. According to Gartner, “The office of finance is uniquely positioned to drive continuous company-wide financial planning and analysis (FP&A) initiatives. Finance’s connection to all other business domains means that these initiatives will be capable of driving higher-quality decisions and outcomes.”*

In fact, Gartner says, “By 2024, 50% of new financial planning and analysis implementations, upgrades and replacements will be sourced from core financials vendors, due to superior integration and product bundling.”*

This capability has never been more critical. For operations, where plans are generally refreshed more frequently and based on greater volumes of data, understanding the financial impact of every decision can ultimately mitigate the risk of executing those decisions. And seamless access to current operational data and actuals can also improve the confidence of the C-suite in the firm’s business projections. And these days, who doesn’t need a bit more confidence?

Company-wide planning done right: Meeting the needs of xP&A

Developing a solution for planning across the enterprise isn’t a small undertaking. It requires three fundamental capabilities.

A flexible and scalable modeling platform

Those who’ve built models with traditional planning software are accustomed to limits on dimensions, or they know too well the experience of waiting (and waiting) on results. To solve this, and to enable modeling at enterprise scale, we developed Elastic Hypercube Technology—our groundbreaking, patent-pending modeling engine that doesn’t force organizations to make compromises that slow insight or limit the number of scenarios a team can evaluate. For company-wide planning, this means creating models for virtually any kind of functional use. You can model and plan at the work-group level and then combine those plans into a comprehensive, holistic model of the business. It’s modeling for an xP&A world.

The ability to seamlessly plan-execute-analyze business processes

Planning isn’t done in a vacuum, particularly in an xP&A context. For true company-wide planning, plans must be integrated to gain a comprehensive view of the business. Our federated planning architecture enables each function or business unit to have its own planning instance while preserving the ability to bring all the pieces together into a holistic plan. With federated planning, a change to one plan automatically updates all related plans. This architecture also makes it easy to dovetail planning with the applications organizations use to execute those plans (such as financial management or human capital management solutions), and then analyze data and results to support faster, smarter decision-making. Company-wide planning also requires a single source for truth, with plans and applications sharing the same data across planning and execution, just as Workday applications do today. As Gartner notes, “Suite-based applications consume data from a single source and share the same metadata and master data. This means that overall company-wide financial reporting and governance is substantially enhanced.”*

Easy adoption and use

Traditional planning platforms are notoriously difficult to implement and use. This has kept them locked away in the office of finance, their complex environments all but dooming them to be used by just a handful of highly trained analysts. For xP&A to take root in the form of company-wide planning, it was necessary to recognize that in business, everybody plans. So planning has to be easy. Here’s just one way we’ve improved ease of use: Active dashboards, announced at Adaptive Live earlier this year, blend driver-based planning with interactive analytics to help users assess the impact of their changes in real time. And rich data access rules ensure administrators can be very specific about what data users can view or edit, making it that much easier to safely enable more stakeholders to be active participants in company-wide planning.

The journey to company-wide planning: xP&A in action

For most companies, the journey to company-wide planning begins in finance. Many companies, after seeing the success they’ve had there, expand planning to other departments like HR for workforce planning and sales for sales planning, with both plans linked back to the corporate model. This federated planning environment allows each entity and function to plan the way it needs to, but all plans are seamlessly connected to a holistic corporate plan. This helps create a more agile, competitive organization where decisions are made based on insight rather than instinct.

Customer surveys show that Workday Adaptive Planning customers are prime examples that company-wide planning is indeed the future. Demonstrating classic use cases for xP&A, they’ve extended their modern planning environment into areas as varied as inventory and shop floor space planning, sales rep ramp modeling, and product pricing planning. Many others are using our workforce planning solution to model their optimal workforce, and still more are relying on their planning environment to design a return-to-work strategy at a time of unprecedented disruption.

Take Rubrik, a rapidly growing global provider of cloud-based data management and protection solutions. Rubrik initially deployed Workday Adaptive Planning in finance to streamline budgeting and accelerate quarterly close. Building on that success and to achieve a more accurate and timely top-line plan, the company extended its use of Workday Adaptive Planning to sales finance and sales operations to automate bookings, improve seller capacity and productivity, and plan and manage territories and quotas.

Ajay Sabhlok, vice president of IT business applications at Rubrik, describes the company’s xP&A pivot to company-wide planning as a significant step forward.

“To automate planning in a comprehensive manner across the company,” says Sabhlok, “is setting the foundation for growth.”

In the end, that’s what company-wide planning is all about. In a world where the future is harder and harder to predict, agility is everything. As thousands of Workday customers already know and as many more throughout the industry are coming to realize, finance is showing the entire enterprise how to plan for what’s next. No matter what you call it—xP&A, company-wide planning, or something else—one thing is certain. This is the future of planning.

*Gartner, 2020 Strategic Roadmap for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions, Robert Anderson, John Van Decker, 21 February 2020.

This blog post was originally published on the Workday Adaptive Planning blog.

Read more guest posts from Workday Adaptive Planning:

FP&A Done Right: Three Steps to Help you Plan for What’s Coming

FP&A Done Right: Can you Recover from Static Planning?

FP&A Done Right: Planning for What’s Next in Uncertain Times

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, company-wide planning, enterprise performance management, Financial Performance Management, Workday Adaptive Planning, xP&A

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TYPE Function

January 12, 2021 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever referenced a list in Excel and needed to know whether each value was a number or a string? This may be required when another function depends on the type of value in each cell.

Excel has a function called TYPE that will give you this information. The function contains a single parameter, which is simply the cell you want to check. The formula will output a number that defines the type of value such as number, text, logical value or an error.

Here are results from four iterations of the TYPE formula:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Type

You can then use the type result within an IF statement to perform various functions.

The TYPE function will not determine whether a cell contains a formula. TYPE only determines the type of the resulting, or displayed, value. If value is a cell reference to a cell that contains a formula, TYPE returns the type of the formula’s resulting value.

This approach will help you when determining the use of IBM Planning Analytics formulas such as DBS vs. DBSS.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more Excel tips & tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Keyboard Navigation

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s FILTER Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s CONCAT and TEXTJOIN Functions

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: enterprise performance management, Excel, Excel tips & tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning Analytics tips, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Keyboard Navigation

January 5, 2021 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever wanted to quickly go to the last used cell within a spreadsheet but did not know how? Have you ever wanted to determine where the next available row or column resides? Have you ever wondered why a spreadsheet with only a few cells of data may appear as a large file? All these answers can be provided with a single keystroke combination.

Pressing Ctrl and End at the same time will bring you to the last cell within a spreadsheet that Excel is referencing. The definition of “last” entails the rightmost column and the lowest used row on the worksheet. The last cell may not always contain data, but it will always be registered by Excel as something that is utilizing memory.

Here are some other keystroke combinations that will help you quickly navigate around your spreadsheet:

  • Ctrl and Home at the same time: this will bring you to the first cell (A1) in the worksheet.
  • End then an arrow key: this will bring you to the next empty value in any direction. For example, pressing End and then the down arrow will bring you to next empty cell in the column where your cursor currently resides.
  • Ctrl and PageUp : this will bring you to the previous sheet in the workbook.
  • Ctrl and PageDn: this will bring you to the next sheet in the workbook.

Keyboard shortcuts can easily help you navigate your Excel files and help you determine the “ending” cell within a spreadsheet.  This will be useful in situations such as dynamic reports where rows and columns are automatically generated via automation.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more Excel Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s IFS Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel LET Function

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: enterprise performance management, Excel, Excel tips & tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning Analytics tips, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

FP&A Done Right: Rolling Forecasts for More Strategic FP&A

December 4, 2020 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning, written by Bob Hansen. Hansen makes the case for dynamic planning, which is better suited for complexity.

When it comes to FP&A forecasting, most companies base their long-range forecasts on static planning processes, rather than more relevant, dynamic plans that reflect the complexities of the business.

Relying on a forecast that doesn’t enable continuous monitoring of company performance, instead of implementing a modern, rolling forecast approach, is like using an old-school road map to guide you on a cross-country trip: Why use a paper map when you can get to your destination worry-free with a car GPS system?

Rolling forecasts—forecasts that are updated typically on a quarterly or monthly basis—can be a game changer. Especially today, amid a global pandemic. They allow organizations to better align with their strategy, perform more-effective business analysis, and derive greater ongoing value from their budgeting and planning processes. Rolling forecasts make organizations nimbler, able to seize potential opportunities, or better prepared for upcoming roadblocks.

Rolling toward a more strategic focus for FP&A

There is an increasing expectation that strategic guidance—which can be generated through rolling forecasts—emanates from the FP&A team. A CFO Indicator report affirmed that need. The survey found that CFOs expect that time spent by the FP&A team on strategic tasks will double by 2020—growing from 11-25% today to 25-50%.

Furthermore, CFOs are looking for their teams to develop the technical and strategic capabilities that support executing approaches such as rolling forecasts. According to the CFO Indicator survey, if the FP&A team could improve only one skill, 29% of CFOs want that skill to be dashboard design and report building, 25% want it to be predictive analytics capabilities, and 19% want strategic modeling of what-if scenarios.

Fortunately, with the increasingly user-friendly experience of dashboard technology, the skills gap is narrowing, which allows more FP&A teams to start instituting rolling forecasts.

FP&A … so little time

So rolling forecasts are a no-brainer? In theory, yes. Yet the near-universal challenge lies in freeing up finance teams to move toward this new approach. There is a significant gap between what CFOs want their teams to be doing and how they actually spend their days. Often-cited research by APQC shows that only 40% of 130 finance executives from very large organizations rated their FP&A capabilities as effective.

Further, our research shows that 75% of CFOs want their teams to have a significant and strong impact on their organization, yet only 46% expect that their team will have that kind of impact this year. The chief reason continues to be a lack of time for strategic planning.

The clear benefits of rolling forecasts

Despite these time-crunch challenges, the benefits of getting to rolling forecasts are clear. The APQC survey showed that organizations that use rolling forecasts are better aligned with unfolding business strategy, are more effective at business analysis, derive greater value from their budgeting and planning processes, and have more reliable forecasts than those that do not use them. The survey revealed that 94% of businesses that use rolling forecasts described their business analysis as effective. Only 50% of those that do not use rolling forecasts described their analysis that way.

Finance leaders need to clearly promote the many benefits of rolling forecasts and how they can directly impact business results. For example, you can produce a cash flow forecast at the end of a rolling financial forecast process—resulting in a consolidated balance sheet and an accurate view of cash flow for the entire enterprise. Getting C-suite buy-in helps pave the way to get the resources and time needed to develop relevant and robust rolling forecasts.

Moving to rolling forecasts is possible at organizations that have executive support and invest in new, cloud-based finance software. These solutions offer easy-to-navigate dashboards and scores of time-saving hacks that can free finance pros from transactional busywork and allow them to focus on more strategic activities that improve business performance.

Like a state-of-the-art GPS, rolling forecasts can go a long way toward helping you get where you want to go—and position FP&A to be a driver of the business, not stuck in the back seat.

This blog post was originally published on the Workday Adaptive Planning blog and appeared here.

Read more guest blog posts from Workday Adaptive Planning:

FP&A Done Right: Three Driver-based Budgeting Tips for CFOs When Change is Imminent

FP&A Done Right: Modernize your Budget Process to Anticipate Change

FP&A Done Right: Reforecasting in a COVID-19 World – Best Practices you can Implement Now

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: active planning, Adaptive Insights, dynamic planning, enterprise performance management, Financial Performance Management, FP&A, FP&A done right, Planning & Forecasting, Rolling Forecasts, Workday Adaptive Planning

FP&A Done Right: Five Tips for Budgeting in the Age of COVID

November 13, 2020 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning, written by Gary Cokins. Cokins explains why traditional budgeting is not a fit for the volatility, complexity and uncertain times businesses face today.

The pandemic is causing boards of directors and C-suite executives to take a new look at net cash flow. Traditional budgeting is simply too slow and too rigid to keep up with the rapidly changing business environment caused by COVID-19. There is too much volatility, complexity, and uncertainty right now.

Gone are the days when budgets could be one-and-done—tied to a fixed point in time and too inflexible to adjust to quickly changing business opportunities and challenges. In today’s world, a startup can be up and running and profitable in three months and disrupt its competitors. Consider Uber and Airbnb as examples. If your company takes nearly as long to create an annual budget, which is typically out-of-date a few months later, it will be extremely difficult to fight off the upstarts or keep up with your established competitors.

The solution? A flexible and continuous budgeting and forecasting process, often referred to as a rolling financial forecast, that helps you anticipate change and focus on outcomes rather than outputs and that is derived from the drivers to determine planned spending.

Here are five tips to modernize your budget process:

1. Just say no to one-and-done

Now more than ever, December’s fiscal year-end numbers often bear little resemblance to July’s realities—meaning budgets and forecasts must become more streamlined, accurate, and responsive. Annual budgeting won’t go away, but spending weeks and months processing data and reconciling spreadsheets that are out of date soon after the consolidated master budget is published doesn’t cut it anymore.

Modern budget solution:

  • Increase the frequency of budgets and forecasts to reflect shifting business conditions
  • Make decisions and plans based on data-backed insights rather than old and stale information
  • Change how resources, employees, and assets are allocated throughout the year and how the budget incorporates real-time opportunities and challenges

2. Focus on business drivers, not cost centers

Traditional budgeting focuses on allocating resources to cost centers, but business objectives (projects, products, and service lines) result from end-to-end cross-functional processes across the org chart. So if you determine the level of resources and spend based on forecast demand, then budgets and rolling forecasts can reflect performance that is company-wide rather than specific to a cost-center department.

Modern budget solution:

  • Enable organization-wide access to reports and data, allowing everyone to have visibility into the enterprise’s performance, including into individual departments
  • Review forecasts against budgets to eliminate confusion among competing departments
  • Provide real-time information for the needed insights to support better decision-making at all levels of the organization
  • Use drivers to determine the level of needed capacity (i.e., types and numbers of employees) to match your supply of capacity with demand

3. Create rolling financial forecasts

More than ever, fluctuating market conditions make accurate forecasts of future demand load (e.g., customer orders and sales) extremely challenging. Rolling financial forecasts help manage investments or financing determined by cash flow. They provide visibility into business performance using time horizons that reflect the speed of your business.

Modern budget solution:

  • Generate rolling financial forecasts that accommodate real-time shifts in market conditions
  • Enable self-service reporting so everyone in the organization can measure their performance against company-wide KPIs
  • Help everyone in the organization understand the downstream effects of their resource allocation decisions

4. Look forward, not back

Most budgets and forecasts are outdated before you push “publish” or soon after. And some factors are impossible to take into account (natural disasters, pandemics, broken supply chains, work stoppages). The rearview-mirror orientation of traditional budgeting (e.g., last year’s actuals create this year’s budgets) often results in increased “actuals” as managers exhibit “use-it-or-lose-it” behavior by spending needlessly to attain their prior fiscal year budget. Traditional budgets can’t keep up with the speed of modern business. One needs to look forward through the windshield.

Modern budget solution:

  • Respond faster to shifts in market conditions with real-time access to financials
  • Adjust outdated budgets and forecasts as change occurs
  • Move leadership discussions toward insight, planning, and action, rather than using the budget as a cost control mechanism to punish those with unfavorable cost variances

5. Use the right tools for the job

Creating a budget process that keeps up with the pace of today’s business requires a comprehensive, collaborative, and continuous planning platform—one that gives you robust, accessible reporting and modeling capabilities; dashboards with indicators and their targets that provide visibility into overall company performance; and automated tools that streamline budgeting and forecasting processes.

Modern budget solution:

  • Enable comprehensive planning that aligns the actions and priorities of everyone across the organization around common KPIs
  • Create opportunities for collaboration by giving everyone access to the data they need and deserve
  • Adjust and update budgets and forecasts on a continuous basis so you can navigate volatile market conditions in real time

Don’t let traditional budgeting lock you into outdated assumptions and fixed targets. Those outdated targets handcuff managers when the organization changes directions. Some managers view the fiscal year budget as a “contract” that they will not deviate from to minimize unfavorable variances from their allotted cost center budget expenses. This short-term focus jeopardizes the longer-term view. The modern FP&A professional knows the truth: Aligning budgets and rolling financial forecasts with comprehensive plans lays the groundwork for proactive rather than reactive planning—a significant strategic advantage in today’s highly competitive environment.

This blog post was originally published by Workday Adaptive Planning and appeared here.

Read more guest blog posts from Workday Adaptive Planning:

FP&A Done Right: Three Driver-Based Budgeting Tips for CFOs When Change is Imminent

FP&A Done Right: Three Words for a COVID-19 World – “Flexible Budget Variance”

FP&A Done Right: Planning for What’s Next in Uncertain Times

Home » enterprise performance management » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Analytics, Beyond Budgeting, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, enterprise performance management, Financial Performance Management, Rolling Forecasts, Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: CAPEX Planning – Your Tool for Growth

November 11, 2020 by Mary Luchs Leave a Comment

CAPEX (capital expenditures) planning is a key feature in Workday Adaptive Planning and gives the Office of Finance and senior executives greater visibility into the company’s financial risk, while also providing a tool for measuring corporate growth. Before we go into the specifics of CAPEX in Adaptive Planning, let’s take a step back and get an understanding of CAPEX.

Capital Expenditures: Overview

Capital expenditures are expenditures within a company that are not expensed on the income statement. They are considered to be investments into the company. Companies with higher capital expenditures are said to be investing more heavily into the future of their organizations.

CAPEX to Operating Cash Ratio

The CAPEX to operating cash ratio analyzes a company’s ability to acquire long term assets using cash flows. In other words, it indicates how much of a company’s cash flows is going towards capital expenditures. It is a great tool for measuring a company’s emphasis on growth. A higher CAPEX to operating cash ratio is an indicator of high growth in a company. A company whose ratio is too high could be taking on too much financial risk. While it is beneficial to invest in CAPEX, overspending in this area can compromise a company’s ability to pay off debts or cover other operating expenses. It is vital for the Office of Finance to have accurate, up to date visibility into CAPEX data in order to assess the company’s level of risk and make appropriate adjustments.

CAPEX and Depreciation

Depreciation is important to consider for asset management, especially for companies who are putting a lot of money towards their assets in the form of capital expenditures. A company must consider how their CAPEX depreciates when looking at their assets. This is a helpful tool to consider:

CAPEX > Depreciation → Growing assets

CAPEX < Depreciation → Shrinking assets

Accumulated depreciation of capital expenditures is indicated on the Balance Sheet, so it is important to consider how this impacts the net income of the company. Depreciation reduces the taxable income of a company, which is impactful especially for companies in a high growth phase who are investing heavily in capital. In addition to the CAPEX to operating cash ratio, depreciation can also be considered when analyzing a company’s growth.

Capex Planning in Workday Adaptive Planning

In addition to having a basic balance sheet and a P&L sheet, you should create a CAPEX sheet in Adaptive Planning. The CAPEX sheet offers a more specific look at capital expenditures than the balance sheet and the P&L sheet, allowing for more targeted analysis. Generating a CAPEX sheet also allows you to drill into expenses and depreciation for budgeting and forecasting purposes on a more granular level.

CAPEX Planning in Workday Adaptive Planning

In conjunction with the balance sheet, the CAPEX sheet is important for budgeting cash and analyzing capital investments. In Adaptive Planning, the CAPEX model consists of calculated accounts in a modeled sheet. These calculated accounts include capital values and their coinciding depreciation accounts. Each modeled account is performing the same calculation based on the asset class selected by the user. Asset class is a text selector column based on the categories of capital expenditures that are specific to your business. Companies vary greatly in the ways that they calculate capital value and depreciation, but all businesses can benefit from CAPEX planning.

How to do CAPEX planning in Workday Adaptive Planning

Adding a CAPEX sheet to your Adaptive Planning implementation gives you a powerful tool for understanding the investments in your company. When you can analyze this data at a granular level, you can better assess if your company has too much financial risk, or if you are invested at an appropriate level.

The team at Revelwood has been recognized by Workday Adaptive Planning for our thought leadership in the space, commitment to our Workday Adaptive Planning practice, and our rapid achievements of milestones. Visit Revelwood’s Knowledge Center for our Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks or sign up here to get our Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks delivered directly to your inbox. Not sure where to start with Workday Adaptive Planning? Our team here at Revelwood can help! Contact us info@revelwood.com for more information.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Override Formulas in Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Templates

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Alternate Time Tree

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Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, adaptive insights tips & tricks, Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, CAPEX, enterprise performance management, Financial Performance Management, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Override Formulas in Sheets

November 4, 2020 by Michelle Song Leave a Comment

If you want to write a formula in an account in Workday Adaptive Planning, but still want to give your team the ability to override the formula and enter different data, you can use Shared Formulas to achieve that.

The Shared Formulas function of Adaptive Planning allows users to write level-specific and version-specific formulas for GL and custom accounts. Below is a screenshot of the Shared Formula page in Adaptive.

Workday Adaptive Planning: Override Formula

First, you will select the version, account, and levels that you want to write the formula. Then, you will write the formula in the “Set formula” box. Before you save the formula, you can choose to reserve/remove the user edits in the account if any. If you reserve the user edits, the formula will not override cells that already have data and only perform the formula in the cells that are blank on sheets.

Workday Adaptive Planning: How to override formulas in sheets

You can use the “Import Shared Formulas” function to import/update the formulas in multiple accounts and levels at a time.

Overrding formulas in Workday Adaptive Planning

Unlike Master Formulas, shared formula values are not locked in sheets. You can override the formula with different data directly in a sheet cell. In the example below, I overridden the formula for account 1110 Petty Cash in Mar 2019 with a different number.

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips: Override Formulas in Sheets
Workday Adaptive Planning Tricks: Override formulas in sheets

The team at Revelwood has been recognized by Workday Adaptive Planning for our thought leadership in the space, commitment to our Workday Adaptive Planning practice, and our rapid achievements of milestones. Visit Revelwood’s Knowledge Center for our Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks or sign up here to get our Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks delivered directly to your inbox. Not sure where to start with Workday Adaptive Planning? Our team here at Revelwood can help! Contact us info@revelwood.com for more information.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Templates

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Trigger for a Cube Calculated Account

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Alternate Time Tree

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Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, adaptive insights tips & tricks, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, enterprise performance management, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks

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