This section will take you through the different concepts and best practices of pcFinancials and how to adapt those to your organization budget process.

IMPORTANT: If you are unfamiliar with pcFinancials we strongly suggest reading the introduction What is pcFinancials? before proceeding to familiarize yourself with the concepts and words used in the application and documentation.

During the installation, Only the administrator is a part of the Budget Application. To Add Other Users, you have to use the Modeler.

To Add a new user, select the tab “Users” in the Security Role.

Create the user and check the Active Checkbox to activate the user.

Then Go back to the tab “Security Role” and select a role in the list.

Role Member To be able to add users in the selected role, you need to:

1. Press
2. Add the User in the List.
3. Press

Model Access

To be able to grant the access to the member of the selected role, you have to:

1. Click on
2. Select the Dimension (Scenario) in the model.
3. Click on To grant Read/Write Access Or to grant Read Acces Only. This will grant the access for all the scenario in the selected model.
4. Click on to select specific scenarios.
5. Do the same steps for each model.
6. Click on

You need to authorize the access for the combination Scenaro / Time. Go to the page Database Locks.

Press

Select Budget For the scenario and Time.

Uncheck the 2 checkboxes:

And

Press The member Seletor

And Select the Time members for the current Budget

Press

The Mantenance of the Time Dimension could be necessary if you are using an opening period Or a closing Period in your ERP system.

Select the dimension Page

Then Go to the Members Page

Press

Add A new member “Closing” For example if you have closing periods.

Press
Press

Go to The Hierarchy Tab

Drag your new member in the Hierarchy

Then Drag all the closing period Inside each month Under your Closing Member.

Press

For further detail information on this please refer to Canvas Planning Modeler reference

You can maintain and update the entity dimension. The Entity member correspond to a book in your ERP system. You are able to change the Hierarchy, add new aggregation. To change the Entity dimension, in The Modeler, Select the dimension Page, You will see the list of all the dimension available in your application. In this list, you have to select the entity dimension to be able to maintain the Organization and Entities.

NOTE: If your usage of the system is limited to ONE book in ONE company in your ERP system, you will most likely not need to adapt the Entity settings. If that is the case you may process directly to Natural Accounts.

To be able to modify the Entity Dimension, you must “CheckOut” the dimension.

• Check Out – lock a dimension so it can be edited.
  • Only one user can have a dimension checked out at a time.
  • (Note: Any changes saved while a dimension is checked out will not be included in a deployment until the dimension is checked in.)

To modify the entity dimension, you can also export it to Excel.

• Export to Excel – export members and hierarchies in table formats to an Excel workbook. This allows easy movement of dimension contents between different servers or databases. Export to Excel is also useful for making bulk changes to things like property values. (Note: The workbook is created in Excel 2003 xml format.)
• Import from Excel – import members and hierarchies from an Excel workbook. (Note: The workbook must be saved in Excel 2003 xml format.)

When all your modification are finish, you can “CheckIn”

• Check In – unlock a dimension and make any changes available for deployment. This makes a dimension available for check out by someone else. (Note: Any user can check in any item even when it is checked out by someone else. This prevents a user from accidently locking up a system because they forgot to do a check in and they are not available.)
• Rollback – discard all changes made since the last deployment and unlock the item to make it available for check out again.

For further detail information on this please refer to Canvas Planning Modeler reference

Like the Entities, The accounts can be changed. Proceed in the same way as the Entity dimensions. The hierarchy is very important for the Accounts, as with a good hierarchy you will be able to have better reports and input schedules. By default the hierarchy is done by group, you need to add the right aggregation for the balance sheet and for the P&L.

Suggested aggregation outline from base level members are

• NETINC - Net Income
  • PRETAXINC - Pre Tax Income
    • OPINC - Operational Income
      • GM - Gross Margin
        • REV - Revenue
        • COGS - Cost of Goods Sold
      • OPEXP - Operational Expenditures
    • NOOPEXP - Other Expenditures (Non-operational)
  • TAX

• BS - Balance Sheet
  • ASSETS - Assets
  • LIABEQUITY - Liabilities and Equity
    • LIAB - Liabilities
    • EQUITY - Equity

Typically you will then move your Account groups and accounts into the relevant high level categorization.

Like the Entities, The accounts, The Time, Th Other Dimensions can be changed. Don't hesitate to create or change Hierarchy, add agregations in the other dimensions if necessary.

Configuring the Budget process in Excel uses the Process oriented Admin Tasks Menu. The steps are as follow:

1. User configuration
   • Here you will link each user to the appropriate Excel menu (either Admin or Standard)
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Menu User
2. Budget Segment configuration
   • Each Dimension/ Segment is configured and set to how it will be used in the budget process.
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Budget Segment
3. Forecast configuration
   • Number of Forecasts is defined (in addition to the defaul Budget).
   • Each Forecast is defined in terms of
     • Which Scenario to hold each specific Forecast.
     • What period to the forecast shall apply from.
     • Which Scenario to use as basis for Forecast.
   • Selection is made which is the current active budget/ forecast.
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Forecast
4. Input Schedule configuration
   • All Input schedules are listed here - and is configured for the budget process with
     • Label as it will be shown in the budget process
     • Default Submission and Approval dates
     • Whether they should be Active as a part of the workflow
     • Whether the full Excel Menu should be active when using the schedule or not
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Workflow Schedules
5. Configure Workflow Driver 1
   • All elements in Workflow Driver 1 (as configured in the Budget Segment configuration above) is listed here - and is configured for the budget process with default values for
     • Responsible for the budget process
     • Approver for the budget process
     • Administrator for the budget process
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Workflow Driver 1
6. Spreading Rules configuration
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Update Spreading Rules
7. Generate Workflow
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Generate Workflow
8. Budget Items
   • For detailed information on this step, refer to Budget Items

Described in the section How to change an Input Schedule.