Understand the Organization of the Financial Planning Detail Screen

Summary

This article provides an overview of the Financial Planning Detail Screen.

E-learning: Overview of the Financial Planning Detail Screen

Keystroke Steps: Organization of the Financial Planning Detail Screen

1. Respond to a Requires Attention notification in a Notification tile or search for the relevant project >  > Financial Planning Detail.
2. The Work Financial Planning Detail screen will open (Figure 1). Key aspects of this screen include:

• Select the Focus Control button (1) to expand the Focus row in the page header. You can drag and drop attributes before or after the splitter bar, and to change the attribute order in the hierarchy. The screen will refresh to reflect your new focus.

• The Category dropdown (2) allows you to change which rows display. The option of All Available Account Lines displays all possible accounts, even if they have no data. All other categories display only rows in accounts of that category type that have data. The All Cost or All Benefit & Cost categories are very useful to show all accounts that have data.

• The Timescale dropdown  (3) allows you to quickly expand all months, quarters, or years (if these options are selected in Preferences) (Figure 2).

• Review the columns and project totals (4) to keep up with the status of your financial plan.

•  Use the dynamic action menus  (5) to display relevant actions for the selected account line.

• Click  (6) to review the line notes for a line.

• The View control  allows you to select between the Detail view (data entry and analysis) and the Subtotal view (read-only analysis based on column sets) (Figure 3).

• Click the Display Measure buttons (Currency, Effort, FTEs, Units, etc.) to display information depending on which accounts are in the database configuration and in the Category control. For example, the Labor account may allow for Currency, Effort and FTEs, while Expense accounts may only allow Currency. Selected items display in the grid in the Measures column. If selected, the buttons appear dark blue.

• The Preferences button  allows you to change your viewable range settings and allows you to show Total columns of Quarters, Years, or Actuals/Forecast. If total columns are enabled, the monthly periods can be collapsed by hovering over the name of the total column, then selecting Collapse.

• Some additional system-wide preferences, such as currency and effort units, can be adjusted from the Preferences link under My Account.

• The Description column displays attributes in a hierarchy format, based on the accounts and predefined attributes configured in the system. The Category and Focus Control buttons (Figure 4) are both used to adjust the hierarchy to specific data sets, or all available data, depending on what is selected.

• The Add a Line button  allows you to add data to the plan. Data can be entered into some cells, only at the lowest level of the hierarchy, if the cells are editable.

• To the right of Account Structure are the Financial Periods. Adjust the periods that display using Preferences (enable Total columns for Quarters, Years, or Actuals/Forecast), the Timescale (to expand all months, quarters, or years in the horizon), or by hovering over a total period on the grid itself and selecting expand/collapse.

• The Version Control screen (Figure 5) lets you change the Working Version (version of financial data that is currently editable), Comparison Version (version of the financial data being compared to), and toggle the Variance on or off. This is also where you can access the advanced Excel Import/Export (if enabled), access additional pages under Manage Plan, or Load the financial plan from the execution data.

• The Manage Plan button (found on the Version Control screen) allows you to:

  • Copy financial data between two projects, or between versions on the same project, and provides the option to copy lines, or lines and financial data.
  • Refresh the labor cost. If labor rates are updated on a quarterly basis, you may want to leave the FTEs and Hours the same but refresh the Financial Amounts based on new rates.
  • Shift financial data to different periods. Data that is loaded (labor and expenditures) will shift weekly as part of the financial load, but data which is manually entered (benefits, expenses that were not loaded) can be shifted using this option.
  • Lock the financial plan. If selected, the financial plan is locked from both editing and loading. It can be unlocked by the administrator.
  • View Sponsorship (if enabled).
  • Compare with Work Plan (if enabled). This option opens a screen which allows you to see the financial plan, then expand the lines which were loaded to see the underlying execution data (actuals from timesheets, requirements, reserves, and allocations).
  • View the timestamp and name of the last person to update the financial plan.
  • View Associated Financial Plans.
• The Excel button (found on the Version Control screen) allows you to:
  • Download financial planning data.
  • Import financial planning data.
  • Review downloads and imports.

• The Export button  lets you export the plan to PDF or Excel (Figure 6).

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