Show Budget to Actual variances using any time granularity in the system with on-demand calculations

Description

This requires the CPM tool to allow comparisons at daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually and so on time frames. This means that users can put specific dates side by side and show the variance on a report or sheet.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A large manufacturing company uses CPM software to monitor its financial performance. The firm has an annual budget, but it needs to analyze its financials at quarterly, monthly, and even weekly intervals. They need to calculate variances on a regular basis with that time granularity in mind.

Solution: The CPM software should allow the company to set any time granularity - be it annual, quarterly, monthly, or weekly - for its budget versus actual analysis. Moreover, it should also feature on-demand calculations, enabling the company to promptly calculate variances based on the most recent data.

Considerations

Showing variances for monthly, quarterly, and annually is simple. Weekly and daily are more complex due to their inconsistent nature from year to year. As such, discuss with the vendor how they recommend this be done in their system.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Usability: How simple is it for end-users to produce variance reports at granularities like daily and weekly? Is this a simply drag and drop exercise, or do we need to engage a developer?
• Weekly: How do we compare equivalent weeks from previous years? Does it require us to create a report and hard code weeks each time?
• Daily: Same as for weekly. How do we compare equivalent days?