Enter a plan and compare it with actuals

Without a plan there is no variance, and without a variance nobody notices in time that something is getting out of hand. In the “Plan & analysis” tab, you plan revenue and costs per month for every cost centre and cost object. The actuals from the postings are shown alongside. The difference is the variance – your early warning.

Enter a plan

Each plan value is a separate entry: one month with the planned revenue and the planned costs. You can plan a whole year at once or a single month.

Plan a whole year

1. Open the detail manager of the cost centre or cost object, e.g. via Finance → Cost objects.
2. Switch to the Plan & analysis tab. In the default view you see the column Plan per month with Revenue and Costs, grouped by year.
3. Click the plus at the top right or, on the left under Actions, click Cost object plan (Cost centre plan for cost centres).
4. In the dialog, select the Year* and, under Month*, - All - for the whole year or a single month.
5. Enter the planned Revenue and the planned Costs and save. With - All -, the value is then entered in every month: €5,000 revenue therefore results in €5,000 per month, €60,000 per year. So always enter the monthly value, not the annual value.

Change a month

In the list, click the month you want to change (or the pencil icon at the end of the row). The dialog (Cost object plan or Cost centre plan) then only shows Revenue and Costs for exactly this month. This is how you adjust individual months after pre-filling the year with - All -, for example for holiday months with lower sales. Use the bin icon to delete a plan value. The plan total is shown below each year.

Tip: For cost objects, plan the CM from the quotation or the costing; for cost centres, plan the area’s budget. Plan salary cost centres so that they roughly come out at zero with realistic utilisation.

What the tab shows in the Details view

Use the view icon at the top left to switch to Details. The tab then shows the following per month:

Read plan and actuals

Example cost object KLR-KT1, year to date:

How to interpret the signs:

• Positive variance in revenue: you earned more than planned.
• Negative variance in costs: you spent more than planned.
• Positive variance in the CM: the object is doing better than planned, despite higher costs.

The key is to look at the cumulative variance. A single month often fluctuates because invoices and costs arrive at different times. Only the trend since the start of the year shows a pattern.

Plan per customer

Via the target project, every cost object knows its customer. So plan, actual and variance are also available per customer, across all their projects and contracts (see Contribution margin I and II).

Notes

• The plan is a benchmark, not a posting lock. The signal is the variance, so it is worth having a fixed date on which area and project management review it.
• For projects there is also project planning with budget and forecast per phase in project management (see Project reports). The plan in the Plan & analysis tab is the cost accounting view of it.

Common problems

I cannot enter any plan values. You lack the right Edit cost accounting elements (master data and plan data) for this object type.

The variance jumps sharply from month to month. This is usually due to accrual timing: an annual invoice, such as insurance, lands in one month. Read the cumulative variance or spread such costs across the months with a general posting.

The actuals of a service cost centre are zero after the turn of the month. The allocation has emptied it. So compare the actuals before the allocation (CM1) with the plan. The result after the allocation (CM2) belongs to the recipients.

Common questions & needs

Related topics

• Cost centres, cost objects and cost categories in the detail manager Cost accounting How-to
• Contribution margin I and II by project, customer and area Cost accounting Concept
• Project controlling methods Controlling Concept
• Topic: Cost accounting Cost accounting
• Cost centre accounting with teamspace