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Budget not in line with Cost plan

  • 1.  Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jan 26, 2012 11:18 AM
    Hi,

    We are sometimes experiencing an issue with the cost plan to budget mechanism, where a budget amount is not equal to the cost plan it originates from. We found out that one option is to submit and approve a zero budget, to remove any ghost entries, before submitting the revised cost plan.

    Did you already experience such issue? Do you have any tricks you can share for dealing with this problem, as our current workaround add more complexity to the cost plan to budget validation process?

    Regards

    Brice


  • 2.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jan 29, 2012 06:26 AM
    I experienced such a thing earlier. It only happens when submitting a costplan a second budgetplan or higher, doesn't it?

    I don't know what exactly happens internally, but I had the idea that the previous budgetplan is copied as a placeholder and that new values from the submitted costplan are copied in.
    The timeframe of the new costplan can however be shorter and the number of roles less and this causes old values to stay.

    This would be a plausible cause to explain that:
    - if the original duration of a role is shortened, e.g. from august to june, the planned cost for july and august is still there.
    - roles that were previously present but not any more, are still in the list with planned cost.

    And so the budgetplan has a higher budget than the original costplan

    The approval of a zero budget as you suggest, supports the above.

    Possible Workaround for the Roles issue
    Roles: Assign the role to a task named "Budgetplan WorkAround" (Open for Time Entry: No) for the duration of the project ending at costplan enddate.
    (it's a while ago, I did not test this yet

    What should be done is:
    1. Copy the costplan itself.
    Or.
    2. Empty the planned cost of the copied rows before copying in the values of the submitted costplan
    And remove Roles in the budgetplan that are not present in the submitted costplan.

    Anyone at CA who could shine a light on this?
    Other suggestions?


    Kind regards,

    Robert


  • 3.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan
    Best Answer

    Posted Jan 31, 2012 10:37 PM
    previously approved budget is kept until explicitly set to another amount (zero for removal), this is due to the designed merging of budget plans. This KB explains the functionality in details:

    Document ID: TEC482380
    Tech Document
    Title: Clarity: Cost Plan and Budget Plan amounts don't match.

    Description:

    I have an approved budget plan, and created a new cost plan and made it the Plan of Record (POR). When I submit and approve this new POR as the new Budget Plan, the amount shown for the new budget plan to be approved is different from what's in my POR.

    <<more>>


  • 4.  Re: RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted May 14, 2015 05:10 AM

    Hi Connie,

     

    Could you please provide me this KEDB article you've mentioned? TEC482380

     

    I couldn't able to find it anywhere on CA page... We're experiencing issue with zero budget plans. However Cost plan are normally maintained with Costs and Planned values,

    submitted as usual, but in Budget plan these values are zero, means not copied form Cost plan. This article would help us I hope. Thanks

     

    Matej



  • 5.  Re: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted May 27, 2015 03:42 AM

    Hi Connie,

     

    Could you please provide me this KEDB article you've mentioned? TEC482380

     

    I couldn't able to find it anywhere on CA page... We're experiencing issue with zero budget plans. However Cost plan are normally maintained with Costs and Planned values,

    submitted as usual, but in Budget plan these values are zero, means not copied form Cost plan. This article would help us I hope. Thanks

     

    Matej



  • 6.  Re: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted May 27, 2015 11:31 PM

    Hi Matej,

     

    The KB was retired due to the enhancement (finally!!!) of a new option being added in 13.2 but we've revised the KB, it should be back online soon. I've copied over the updated content below:

     

    Description:

    I have an approved budget plan, I created a new cost plan and made it the Plan of Record (POR). When I submit and approve this new POR as the new Budget Plan, the amount shown for the new budget plan to be approved is different from what's in my POR.

     

    Solution:

    In version 13.1 and lower, when you submit a new or revised cost plan POR, the amount to approve for new budget plan is the union of the budget plan POR amount and the new cost plan POR amount.

     

    In version 13.2 and up, an option has been made available to either 'merge' or 'replace' the existing budget plan POR, if the 'merge' option is chosen, it is functioning the same way as pre-13.2 and you could still see a mismatch between your cost plan POR and your submitted budget plan.

     

    The following is an explanation on how Pre-13.2 and the new 13.2 'merge' option works:


    Data in budget plan that doesn't overlap the cost plan will be preserved, overlapped data will be replaced to match the cost plan, and new data from cost plan that doesn't already exist in the budget plan will be added to the budget plan.

    The type of data can be duration of plan, group-by line item values, and/or sub-group-by line item values, and specific TSV cell values.

     

    Here is an example where the cost plan has a different duration than the budget plan (but no change to the group by value such as Charge Code):

     

    The project has an budget plan marked as approved and current, it has one detail row for $100 per month from January through December, total amount equals $1200.

    You then create a new cost plan for $1000 per month from March through December, the total amount for this cost plan equals $10,000.


    When this cost plan is submitted as the new budget plan, the new budget plan will have a total of $10,200 where $200 ($100 each for January and February) is from the existing budget plan + $10,000 (March to December) from the new cost plan. Here the months of January and February are preserved on the budget plan, and the months of March through December are added from the cost plan. 

     

    What if I want to discard the existing amount for January and February in my budget plan, but the 13.2+ 'replace' option is not available or feasible for some reason?


    You could do the following:

     

    1. Create or update the cost plan so that it includes the months of January and February, the group by value should remain unchanged and matches the budget plan.

    2. Enter new values for January and February to have $0 amount, submit this cost plan as plan of record for approval.

     

    Result: The total amount to approve will now be $10,000 because the $0 for January and February from the cost plan have replaced the $100 in the budget plan for the same months, while March through December are not changed.

     

    Note: Populating zeros to clear existing data in budget plan can be easily accomplished by performing a XOG read action for the existing budget. Change the existing segment TSV cell data to zeros and perform a XOG write action into the application as a new cost plan. Once the new cost plan has been uploaded, mark it as the POR and submit it as the new Budget. A better option, if you are on 13.2 or up, is to use the 'replace' option during budget submission.

     

    Here is an example where you have new detail row and also an overlapping month:

     

    The project has an budget plan marked as approved and current, it has one detail row for $1,000 per month from January through June, total amount for the row as well as the whole plan is $6,000.

     

    You then create or modify the cost plan POR so that the plan duration is June through December, June has $2,000 while the months of July through December has $1,000 each. Now the cost plan total is $8,000.

     

    When this cost plan is submitted for approval, the new budget plan will have a new duration of January to December, still the same detail row but a total of $13,000 because January through May from the previous budget plan are preserved at $1,000 each; June is replaced by the June amount from the cost plan which is $2,000; and July through December with $1,000 each are added from the cost plan.

     

    In addition to modifying data for existing detail rows on the Cost Plan, adding new rows will exhibit the same behavior


    Still using the same example above, let's change the cost plan again so that it starts in January and not June, also add a second detail row with a monthly values of $1,000 per month for January through December. Now the second row has a total amount of $12,000, while the first row still has $8,000 ($0 for January through May, $2000 in June, and $1000 monthly for July through December), so the cost plan total is $20,000.

     

    If you submit this cost plan for approval, no change is needed for the budget plan's row #1 which has $13,000; and row #2 with $12000 total amount is added. Your new budget plan will now has two rows, and total amount of $25,000



  • 7.  Re: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted May 28, 2015 06:23 AM

    Thanks for sharing this, Connie

     

    Regards

    NJ



  • 8.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jan 31, 2012 10:43 PM
    Forgot to mention that there is an open ERQ for changing the design:

    CLRT-24716 "Provide the option to merge/not merge cost plan data with an existing budget when submitting a cost plan for budget approval"

    Connie


  • 9.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jan 31, 2012 10:49 PM
    Hi Connie,

    Please convey if you have an idea which version of clarity will have this feature included.

    Thanks and Regards,
    Rajini


  • 10.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jan 31, 2012 11:01 PM
    Hi Rajini
    It is not yet determined. To help promote for implementation in the near future, please submit it to the Ideas tab on the community along with business case, impact, etc. We can then try to get votes from community members :)

    Thanks
    Connie


  • 11.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Feb 02, 2012 11:09 AM
    Just opened an idea: "Replacing budget capability".

    Looking forward for your vote to promote this change request!

    Thanks

    Brice


  • 12.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan



  • 13.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Mar 08, 2012 11:27 PM
    Hi Brice,
    I hope you have had time to promote the implementation of this idea. I am having similar issues and it will enable a more seamless upgrade to version 13. Please promote the idea. Get your colleagues to promote it as well. It is a great enhancement because it enables the user to choose how they want the cost plan to act.

    Best,
    Michelle Hatata
    macys.com

    https://caideation.secure.force.com/ideation/ideaView?id=08730000000gNce&returnUrl=%2Fapex%2FideaList%3Fc%3D09a30000000I8ZTAA0%26sort%3Drecent


  • 14.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Apr 06, 2012 02:19 PM
    I would like to add that the benefits of the ERQ are

    1. you would be able to make a new revision of POR (different line items, different duration, etc) and replace the budget without having to put in the 0 values as mentioned in the KB
    2. you would be able to change the structure of the budget plan. Say the current budget plan is grouped by Charge Codes, going forward you would be able to change it to grouped by Transaction Class by creating a new cost plan with the new grouping structure, then making it the POR and submitting it
    3. you would be able to change the period type of the budget plan

    Connie


  • 15.  RE: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted Jun 22, 2012 03:11 PM
    This enhancement is Listed as "Currently Planned (See Product Roadmap)" Where can i find the Roadmap and when this is targetted for?


  • 16.  Re: Budget not in line with Cost plan

    Posted May 27, 2015 03:46 AM

    Check this -

    https://communities.ca.com/ideas/103016486

     

    ====

     

      Connie Rong Fu Sep 15, 2012 1:22 AM (in response to bob_anderson-ca)

    It seems the status of this Idea has not yet been updated, but this requested enhancement has been implemented in 13.1 :D<br><br>The release notes states:<br><h3 class="heading3">
         Budget Merge or Replace</h3>
    <p class="bodytext">
          Before this release, submitting a cost plan for budget approval could only be done if the structure (grouping attributes and fiscal time period) of the cost plan was identical to that of the approved budget.</p>
    <p class="bodytext">
          In this release, you can do one of the following actions:</p>
    <ul class="listbullet"><li class="listbullet">
               Merge the cost plan being submitted with the currently approved budget (existing functionality). This option is available only when the structures are identical.</li><li class="listbullet">
               Replace the currently approved budget entirely, regardless of structure (new functionality). This option is available on any cost plan when at least one approved budget exists.</li></ul>

     

    ====

     

    NJ