Planning Maestro’s Balances feature enables you to track the balances (current totals) of different periods and accounts.

Previously, you could only track the Activity, or transactions, of each line item in Planning Maestro. If you wanted to measure the accumulated or running total of a line item in each period (such as the cash net income for each period) or amounts you wanted to carry over into the next fiscal year (such as revenue and expense amounts you wanted to reflect in the next year’s asset, liability, and equity accounts) you could only represent them accurately in Analytics Maestro.

Now, Planning Maestro helps you record and track Balances. This new feature includes the following improvements:

• New Period Types in the Time Dimension
• CNI (Cash Net Income) Node in Account Number Hierarchies
• GL Source – Retained Earnings Calculation
• Balances on the Data Maintenance Page
• Retained Earnings – Default GL Account
• New Period Types in the Trial Balances (Data Preview)
• Review Balance Data in Planning
• Closing Entry Calendar View
• Balances for Data Links
• Balance Sheet Report

 

New Period Types in the Time Dimension

Your Time Dimension now has three Attributes:

• BB – Beginning Balances
• P – A regular period
• C – A Closing period

These Attributes help Planning Maestro calculate the correct amounts for the year: the Beginning Balance helps you track how much you start with, regular periods show amounts that happened at certain points of the year, and Closing Periods help you determine the Beginning Balance for the next year.

 

CNI (Cash Net Income) Node in Account Group and Balance Sheet Hierarchies

This feature adds a new node (level) to your Account Group and Balance Sheet Hierarchies in your Account Number Dimension. This CNI (Cash Net Income) node contains all of your expense and revenue accounts to calculate how much cash you have available per period, as well as at the end of the year. CNI helps you regulate your cash flow more easily in Planning Maestro.

CNI Node in your Account Group Hierarchy:

CNI Node in your Balance Sheet Hierarchy, on your new Balance Sheet Report:

Please Note: CNI/Retained Earnings Calculations are not deployed to Cubes in Analytics Maestro.

 

GL Source – Retained Earnings Calculation

Some GL (General Ledger) systems calculate Retained Earnings on their own; others do not. If your GL system does not calculate Retained Earnings, you can set up Planning Maestro to calculate that GL Source’s Retained Earnings for you.

• For GL Sources that do not calculate Retained Earnings, click on the dropdown menu in the Retained Earnings Calculation column and select Enabled so Planning Maestro can calculate Retained Earnings for you.
• For GL Sources that do calculate Retained Earnings, in the Retained Earnings Calculation column, make sure the option Disabled is selected.

Enable Retained Earnings Calculations for GL Sources that do not already calculate Retained Earnings:

 

Balances on the Data Maintenance Page

The Source Data page has also been updated to show BB (Beginning Balance) and C (Closing) periods when you are clearing Summary data.

 

Retained Earnings – Default GL Account

You can now select a default Dimension Member to store your Retained Earnings for each Plan. This default account helps you track your Retained Earnings automatically and roll them into your asset accounts for the next fiscal year.

Please Note: The Retained Earnings calculation here in the Modeler only applies to your Actuals. In Worksheets and Reports, you can calculate projected Retained Earnings for other Versions, such as various scenarios and reforecasts.

 

New Period Types in the Trial Balance (Data Preview)

When you preview your Plan, Beginning Balance and Closing Entry amounts appear in your preview. These amounts help you review these numbers for your Actuals as well as projecting how your budgetary numbers will total for the beginning and end of the fiscal years in your Plan.

• BB – Beginning Balances
• P – A normal period
• C – Closing period

 

Review Balance Data in Planning

Using the Details pane in the Worksheets modules, you can now check the Balance of each line item for each period as well as the Activity.

Example: For a Revenue line item, you can check the Activity for each period (transactional value) and the Balance (how much has accumulated so far this year).

 

Please Note: Planning Maestro calculates the Balance of each line item based on either the start of the Time Dimension or the line item’s Start Date, whichever date is later.

For example, if the line item’s Start Date (such as an employee’s Hire Date) is 01/01/2014 and your Time Dimension starts in 2016, the Planning Maestro will begin calculating the Balance from 2016.

Please Note: Some transactions, such as Input Drivers that measure percentages or Price calculations in Revenue, do not calculate Balances.

 

Closing Entry Calendar View and Adjustment

Balances also enable you to see Closing Entries for line items in the Worksheets modules. These Closing Entries help you track monthly and year-end closing amounts for each line item.

Calendar subset that allows you to see Closing Entries:

Closing Entries view:

In Adjustments, you can set certain line items to act as Closing Entries for the years in your fiscal calendar and then use this Closing – All FY calendar view to review them. Select Closing – All FY as the calendar view in both the main application and in the Details pane.

Adjustment line item: click on the Year Close toggle switch to make this line item a Closing Entry:

 

Balances in Data Links

You can now set up Data Links (formulas that help you calculate dynamic values in your business, such as the cost of a trip equaling [Cost of fuel per mile] x mileage) to use the data from a line item’s Balance, instead of its Activity. In other words, you can use the running total of a certain line item instead of just the amount of transactions within one period.

Example: You want to budget for vehicle insurance. Your company may buy, sell, or retire a certain number of vehicles per month. You want to budget based on the Balance of vehicles, or the actual number the company has in each period, instead of the Activity, or number the company gains or loses in a month. You can set up this Data Link to take the Balance of vehicles and the Activity (transactional amount) of insurance per period.

 

Balance Sheet Report

You can now run a Balance Sheet Report in Planning Maestro, instead of needing to deploy a Cube to Analytics Maestro. Use this Balance Sheet Report to track your asset, liability, and equity totals for your Actuals, budget, or various scenarios as you reforecast.

This Balance Sheet includes:

• A Retained Earnings node that contains your retained earnings for each year and rolls them into the next year.
• A CNI (Cash Net Income) node that contains all of your expense and revenue accounts to calculate how much cash you have available per period, as well as at the end of the year.

Please Note: Filter your view for the Closing – All FY calendar view to see the closing entries for all fiscal years in your Time Dimension in this Balance Sheet.