The August 2024 release of Strategic Planning and the Project Workspace applications introduces a powerful new feature that enables financial budget allocation for planning items within Strategic Planning or projects in the New Project Workspace. This enhancement allows for a more granular approach to managing budgets by supporting detailed breakdowns by expense type or cost type, facilitating improved budget planning and control.

Allocate budget by Expense type:

Allocate budget by cost type:

How to Configure the Flexible Budget Allocation:

1. Enable Budget Allocation PropertyThis property is enabled by default for new customers using the financial module in the Next Experience interface. Existing customers need to update the property to start using the new budget allocation capability.Required Role: AdminSteps To Enable:

- Navigate to All > System Properties > Properties.

- Use the filter on the Name column to find the ‘sn_invst_pln.enable_budget_allocation_v2’ property.

- Set the Value field to `True` and select Update.

2. Configure Budget Attribute at Instance LevelThis setting allows you to define the budget by either expense type or cost type for planning purposes.

Note: Existing customers with budget allocated by Expense type to work items in the past, cannot switch to cost type attribute.

Required Role: Admin

Steps to Configure:

- Navigate to All > System Properties > Properties.

- Filter by Name to find the `budget_allocation_attribute` property.

- Set the Value to one of the following:- ‘cost_type’ – Groups financials by cost categories (e.g., Hardware Opex, External Labor Capex).- ‘expense_type – Groups financials by types such as Capex and Opex.

- Click Update.

How to Use the Flexible Budget Allocation Feature

1. Approve Budgets Top Down or Bottom Up:

Portfolio managers can approve budgets for demands, projects and epics at various levels monthly, quarterly, or yearly. This helps users to approve budget traditionally by years or to do lean budgeting by a shorter time frame.

In the budget allocation view, managers can use the "Copy cost as budget" option from the cell context menu on the budget header to approve budget bottom-up based on the forecasted costs.

Short demos:

How to approved budget by Expense Type : https://youtu.be/fl5iJWTalKw

How to approved budget to a Demand: https://youtu.be/Uzx0kC421PY

How to approve budget by Cost Type: https://youtu.be/TMmMHU93KgU

2. Compare Latest Costs to Approved Budgets:Project managers can enable the Budget vs Cost toggle to compare latest forecasted costs against the approved budget. This feature allows for real-time adjustments where actual expenses exceed the planned budget.

Managers can view comparisons by Capex/Opex or by Cost Types and at various timescales (monthly, quarterly, yearly).

Short demo:

How to compare latest costs to the approved budget: https://youtu.be/dBx32VKB1jc

3. Migrate Existing Budgets:

The feature allows migration of existing budgets from the Classic UI to the new Next Experience interface allowing customers to view the budget data from past or on-going projects in the new experience. The migration can be done using a scheduled job named ‘Migrate budget for active demands and projects’.

By following these steps, you can easily set up and use the new budget allocation feature to improve financial planning and control within your organization.

Additional notes:

Checkout this playlist for short How-to videos to use the new Financial Planning capability: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkGSnjw5y2U6-KDSrknFglF3iiu%5FWYKva

Labels:

• Budget
• Financial Planning
• project financials