Expense Planning

In addition to personnel-related expense planning, capital-related expense planning (depreciation expense), and allocation expense planning, most companies have a variety of other expense planning requirements. These expenses are often driver-based, such as travel expense driven from the number of trips and cost per trip. The drivers can either be planned by budget managers, or controlled by administrators using global assumptions and pre-established formulas that are read-only for budget managers.

Adaptive Planning does an excellent job with expense planning, because it’s a purpose-built planning application, with a centralized database and automated data integration capabilities, plus driver-based modeling capabilities, and flexible reporting and analysis tools.

• Unlimited Custom Dimensions. Create as many dimensions as you need to track expenses, e.g., department or cost center, geographic location, project, fund, program, etc.
• Driver-Based Planning. Use drivers such as number of trips and cost per trip, or data from elsewhere in the plan, such headcount, production units, etc. to plan spending.
• Multiple Account Types. Utilize multiple account types to hold financial data, plus non-financial data such as number of trips.
• Centralized Assumptions & Formulas. Establish centralized assumptions and formulas, with the ability to lock these from user editing — facilitating consistency across the model where appropriate. Expense formulas can be quickly set up by administrators, and made read-only for budget managers.
• Multiple Line Item Detail. Plan spending within any given account in as much detail as required, using unlimited rows, each with its own notes and descriptions, providing detailed support behind numbers.
• Notation. Use notation throughout the application, in specific cells, on sheets, and in workflow. Notes roll up and consolidate along with data, so that managers can view notes from staff.
• Reporting. Use our drag-and-drop report builder to easily sort and subtotal reports on any or all expense planning dimensions.
• What If Scenario Analysis. Use Adaptive Planning’s modeling and reporting capabilities to easily perform what-if analyses based on different spending scenarios.