The complexities of importing actuals
Financial analysis and re-forecasting starts with comparing actual financial and operating results with plan. The trick is getting all of the parts imported from multiple database systems and lined up apples-to-apples in a rolling forecast format and for variance comparisons.
- Level of detail — Managers frequently plan at a lower or different levels from accounting structures — for example, a sales manager may plan sales by product by channel but the general ledger delivers only sales by product — the real sales detail is in another database. Alight supports importing from multiple disparate databases at any level of detail, not just GL totals.
- Underlying units and rates — Granularity of detail is critical. Managers who plan using a unit/rate/amount architecture want to see that level of granularity with actuals data. Alight supports importing any combination of actual units, rate and amount for all P&L and balance sheet items. Alight also back-calculates missing elements — for example, if you import sales units and dollars, Alight calculates average price. If you import dollars and average price, Alight calculates the units.
- Operational data — Importing actuals should incorporate operating metrics as well as general ledger amounts — especially when financial plans are activity based with assumptions about activity levels and productivity. Alight supports importing operating data at any level with modeling or back calculating of ratios and metrics. For example, if you import billed consulting hours and consulting staff headcount, you can model and calculate consulting staff utilization.
