Configuration Checklist for Consolidation

Define the name and number of business segments for your Planful Consolidation application. Segments are the primary components in the Planful process. Segments defined here make up your Chart of Accounts. You must define at least two segments, but no more than eight apart from the system-defined segments (i.e. Time, Measure, Scenario). Out of the eight user-defined segments, one segment must represent a legal entity and the other segment must represent a natural account.

Segments defined here translate to the columns available when adding lines to Consolidation journals as depicted below.

The Segment Name may contain alpha-numeric characters. The following Types help determine the features and use of the segment:

• Legal Entity– This is usually assigned to a company segment. The legal entity type represents the segment for currency translation consolidations.
• Account – This is usually assigned to a natural or main account segment within the general ledger.
• Additional Segment – This is used to define additional segments as needed.
• Interco (Intercompany Segment) – This is used to define an intercompany segment for entities involved in intercompany transactions.

Define business segments used for budgeting/planning. A budget entity is used to assign budget managers to specific components of a plan. Your budget hierarchy entity selections will be populated based on the segments selected here and cannot be changed once the task is complete unless you contact Planful Support. These segments comprise your default budget entity type.

Specify fiscal years based on your company's operations. Fiscal years may be associated with calendar years or any other type of year. You can also define quarters, months, and fiscal year start and end dates.

Extend Calendar

Extend your calendar. For example, you may have a 1 year calendar that you want to extend to include an additional year.

Fiscal Year Start Month

Select the month your company starts its fiscal year. Fiscal years may correlate with calendar years or any other type of year defined by your company.

Fiscal Year End Month

The month your company ends its fiscal year. This is automatically selected based on the month selected to start the fiscal year.

Name Fiscal Year by

Allows you to configure a Financial Year and name it according to your organizational needs. For example, if you have a fiscal year that starts in February and ends in January, you can use this functionality to name the fiscal year in accordance with the calendar year of the first month instead the last month. So Fiscal Year 2017 would contain periods from February 2017 to January 2018.

Calendar Start Year

The selected start year will be displayed across all the Time dimension fields.

Calendar End Year

This field is the only field that is editable once a calendar is created. Use this field to extend your calendar by selecting a future year.

Periods Per Fiscal Year

Select the number of periods that correlate to your fiscal year. For example, you may select 12 periods, which correlate to 12 months in your fiscal year.

Define Rollup Level

These levels define additional time frequencies within the calendar. The lowest level is Month.

Quarter Members

Associate quarters to your fiscal year. For example, you may choose to have a fiscal year made up of 4 quarters. Each quarter will have 3 months. Or, you may choose to have a fiscal year with 3 quarters. If this is the case each quarter will have 4 months.

Number of Members at Quarter Level

Select the number of quarters that make up your fiscal year. For example, if your fiscal year is made up of 4 quarters, enter 4. Now, each quarter will be made up of 3 months.

Member Name

Provide a name for each quarter. For example, you might want to name the first quarter Q1, the second quarter Q2, and so on.

Month

Enter the number of months associated with each quarter. For example, if you entered 2 in the Number of Members at Quarter Level field, then you will have two quarters consisting of 6 months per quarter.

Define the number of years budgeted at one time and the number of compare scenarios accessible while entering a budget. Compare scenarios are important because they allow you to compare historical actuals and data from a prior period in the budget cycle.

Define common currency, conversion basis, and interim currency parameters. There are 3 currencies associated with a legal entity: Common Currency, Local Currency, and Interim Currency. Common Currency (CC) is your functional currency. The Local Currency (LC) is the currency for each member in the company hierarchy. The Interim Currency may consist of up to 3 currencies. Data (Budget, Actuals) may be loaded in the CC or LC. When you load data in the LC, any exchange rates defined are applied. The data is then stored in tables in the CC and LC. Interim Currencies are typically used in reporting and dashboards as alternative currencies. You can view Report data in the CC, LC, or Interim Currency. For Interim Currency, you can enable one, two, or three. You cannot enable more than three interim currencies. Interim currency converts a legal entity from its local currency to a second reporting currency before converting to the common currency.

• Common Currency Code - Enter a currency code (i.e. USD for United States Dollars).
• Common Currency Name - Enter a currency name (i.e. US Dollars as the currency name for the USD currency code).
• Currency Conversion Basis - Select a basis to convert a currency. For example, select Multiply to multiply exchange rates. Select Divide to divide rates during currency conversion.
• Enable Interim Currency - This option allows you to enable one, two, or three interim currencies. You can not enable more than three interim currencies. Interim currency converts a legal entity from its local currency to a second reporting currency before converting to the common currency. For example; A UK entity converts from BP sterling to Euro to US dollars.

Enable the Consolidation Status feature for your application. Once you enable Consolidation Status each consolidation unit will have an inherent life-cycle associated with it. This life-cycle includes several statuses to indicate where the consolidation unit is within the life-cycle. Consolidation Status offers several benefits, such as; providing the necessary information to complete the close process in a timely manner and allows consolidators to view the status by entity and time period they are responsible for.

1. Navigate to Maintenance > Admin > Configuration Tasks.
2. On the Configuration Tasks page, click the Consolidation Status Setup task shown below to enable this functionality.
   
   
3. The Consolidation Status Setup page is launched. Select the month and year in which you want to start the Consolidation workflow and select the Enable Forward and Approve Status for Consolidation Process checkbox. Then, click Save.
4. Click Save & Complete. The message below displays. Click Continue.