Clarity Financial
Management
Identifying and Leveraging the Right Tools
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Agenda
● Clarity Financial Outputs
○ OOB Portlets /RegoXChange Portlets
● Financial Components
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Financial Setup
Resources
Investments
Tasks (yes tasks)
YOU Design the Financial Architecture
Cost Plans/Budgets
An Approach to Annual Forecast/Budgeting
Open Forum
2
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Financial Output
Project Dashboard-PMO Accelerator-PMO Project Status Layout
3
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Financial Output
Project Cost Plan/Budget
4
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Financial Output
5
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Financial Output
Posted Transaction Review Portlet
6
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Financial Output
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Financial Output
8
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Financial Output
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RegoXchange Financial Outputs
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RegoXchange Financial Outputs
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Financial Implementation Best
Practices
● Keep Things as Simple as Possible
● Spend Time on the Full Architecture
"A clever person solves a
problem. A wise person
avoids it"
- Albert Einstein
● Clarity is Cash Based – No concept of P&L / Depreciation
● Clarity is NOT the Company Financial System of Record; Clarity will never
match general ledger 100%
● Clarity is a MANAGEMENT tool – enough information to make decisions
● Start with required outputs, how do you need to classify financial data;
involve finance team
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Clarity Financial Components
● Entities / Classes
○ Categorization of Costs
○ Attributes to Determine Rates
● Financials Plans
○ Forecasting
○ Actuals
● Task & Resource Level Costing
○ Earned Value
● Project / Departmental Chargebacks
○ Subscription
○ Debit Rules
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Entities
● Financial OBS
○ Department (Object and OBS)
○ Location (Object and OBS) – Linked to a Department
● Defaults
○ Default Financial Plans
● Fiscal Periods
○ Used within datamart jobs
○ Used on Financial Plans-Cost Plans and Budgets
● Currencies
Best Practice
○ Home Currency
• One Entity if Possible
○ Billing Currency
• Only use Department and
Location if needed for rates,
○ Exchange Rates
otherwise – just one of each
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Classifications
● Resource Classes
○ Internal / External
○ Specialized Resources
● Company Classes
○ Default to Corp
○ Lines of Business
● Work In Process (WIP) Classes
○ Default
● Investment Classes
○ Default
● Transaction Classes
○ Labor
○ Equipment
○ Material
○ Expense
Best Practice
• Default where possible
• Align Transaction Class to
Financial Reporting Needs.
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Other Financial Attributes
● Input Type Code on Resource Record (required for processing)
○ Billable
○ Non-Billable
● Cost Type on Project Object
○ Capital
○ Operating
● Charge Code on Investments (required for processing)
○ Capital
Best Practice
○ Expense
• Determine Charge Code usage
vs. Cost Type
● Roles on Resource Record
• Roles – Understand difference
○ Available to Rate Matrix
between Primary and
Assignment Roles
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Rate Matrix
● Define Columns to Derive Rates
○ Exact Rates
○ Aggregate Rates
● Non-Labor
○ $1 Defaults
● End Dating
Best Practice
• End Dating-Minimum of current
year +1
• Exact Rates for
Contractors/Aggregate Rates for
Internal Resources
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Resources & Roles
19
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Resource Timesheets
Resources have the ability to modify financial classifications on
their timesheet
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Investments
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Tasks
• Tasks Must Have Charge Code to Process Financially:
• Charge Code
• Project Level
• Summary Level
• Task
• Cost Type: Used for Portfolio Alignment in 13.3
• Project Level
• Summary Level
• Task
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Design the Financial Architecture
Scenario #1
The Bucket List Company wants to capture internal labor costs and SOW
expense costs on projects. They are only tracking time on strategic
projects. Every once in a while an hourly contractor will book time to
strategic projects and they want to capture that cost too.
Scenario #2
The EyeBill All Company must account for all project costs for internal
labor, external labor and Capital Purchases. They require tracking exact
costs to the project (to the penny).
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Design the Financial Architecture
Scenario #3
The Department of Financial Oversight needs to implement Clarity
financials to capture internal labor costs by sub-department. They also
need to capture the project costs that are sponsored by each subdepartment. Resources can only work on projects in their own subdepartment. Aggregate Rates for resources are determined on a
department by department basis every year.
Scenario #4
My Specialty store needs to track the cost of internal labor, external
labor and Services Transaction for SOW contracts. One group of external
labor resources, filling the Architect role has a rate that is double the
other external Architects. The total cost of this Special Architect class
needs to be reported separately on each project.
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Financial Plans
● Cost Plans:
○ Three ways to create a Cost Plan
• Manual
• New From Investment Team
• New from Task Assignments
○ Choose the Classes to display in your Cost Plan.
○ The Cost Plan populates the Planned Costs field at the project level
○ Actual costs will pull into the cost plan for variance comparison by time period.
Best Practice
• Set Cost Plan Update
Policy, how cost plans
are to be created.
• Default Cost Plans to
show key financial
metrics
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Financial Plans
● Budget Plans:
○ A cost plan becomes a budget plan when the cost plan of record is
submitted for approval and approved
○ Same structure and view as a cost plan – a saved/static version.
● Benefit Plans:
○ Once you create a benefit plan – Clarity will make the planned cost
fields read only.
○ The Benefit Plan populates Planned Benefit at the project level.
○ If the Benefit Plan is attached to the Budget, it populates Budgeted
Benefit at the project level.
○ Realized Benefits-manual entry
Best Practice
•
Align Budget and Baseline
processes
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Financial Jobs Summary
● Post Timesheets
● Post Transactions to Financial
○ Review Invalids (fix)
○ Post Transactions to Financial
● Post to WIP
● Import Financial Actuals
Best Practice
• Be a part of
RegoXchange to get our
Post to WIP Job.
● Other
○ Slicing
○ Investment Allocation
○ Update Hierarchy Data
• Communicate Posting
Schedule
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Actual Costs - Timesheets
● Base Setup
○ Determine Posting Cadence
○ Adjustment Postings?
● Approval Policy
○ Auto-approval?
● Timesheet Adjustment Policy
○ Number of Open Time Periods
Best Practice
Whatever your posting and processing
cadence is, make sure it is well
communicated. Postings modify project
dates and financials, therefore important
to have a transparent and predictable
schedule
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Actual Costs – Manual Transactions
● In the create entry section on the application side, you must first create a voucher
○ Vouchers can be “Expense” types or “Other”
● Within the voucher, you can create multiple transactions
● Transactions must have a date, investment, task, charge code, resource id, transaction class,
input type code, and the various costs and amounts
● Run Post Transactions to Financial
● Run the Post to WIP
● Run import financial actuals job
○ Afterwards, check the admin side for invalid transactions
○ If there are some, fix the needed fields and repost
● Run the investment allocation job (adjust the investment list fields)
Best Practice
Have Rego build a better interface for
entering these costs, or have us build
application integration from your
financial system of record.
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Cost Planning & Budgeting
● Defining the objects to use to forecast financials and resources
● Strategic Project Alignment
● Non-Strategic Work Definition
Best Practice
Annual Forecast and Budgeting should
be incorporated into the annual schedule
of Corporate/departmental activities.
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Annual Budgeting-Strategic Projects
Create Idea
Cost Plan
Benefit Plan
Submit Idea
Approve?
YES
Assign
Appropriate
Template
Convert to
Project
Revise
Resource
Estimates
Build Cost
Plan from
Assignments
NO
Rejected Idea
NO
Approve?
YES
Add Project to
Portfolio /
Program
Prioritize &
Sequence
Project List
Review
Capacity /
Revise
Resources
Approve?
YES
Baseline
Budget
Approval
Launch
Project
NO
Project Hold or
Rejected
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Annual Budgeting – Strategic Projects
7/1/2014
Open Submission for
Ideas
10/1/2014
Evaluate Projects
12/31/2014
Annual Portfolio
Complete
Evaluate New Project Ideas
Approve Projects
7/1/2014
10/1/2014
12/31/2014
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Ideas
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Annual Budgeting-Non-Strategic Projects
Create
Support
Project
Allocate
Resources
Build Cost
Plan from
Assignments
YES
Approve?
Revise Project
NO
YES
Add Project to
Portfolio /
Program
Prioritize &
Sequence
Project List
Review
Capacity /
Revise
Resources
Approve?
YES
Baseline
Budget
Approval
Launch
Project
NO
Project Hold or
Rejected
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Expected Resource Distribution
Prior to Annual Budgeting Process
Strategic 70%
Support
15%
OOO
5%
Admin 10%
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Actual Resource Distribution After
Annual Budgeting Process
Strategic 40%
OOO
8%
Support
37%
Admin 15%
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Open Forum-Collaborate & Motivate
• Financial Setup Experiences
• Innovative Class Definitions/Assignments
• Whatever you do…DON’T
• Financial Policy /Standards
• Posting Cadence
• Cost Plans/Budget Approval
• Baselines
• Earned Value
• Integration of Financial or HR Systems
• Annual Budgeting Cycle
• Strategic Planning
• Non-Strategic Planning
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Questions
Contact US
Thanks for participating!
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If you have any follow up questions or
comments about this presentation.
Dave.wachsmann@regoconsulting.com
Thank you.
Email Contact
info@regoconsulting.com
Web Site
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