Alternate Hierarchies

Understanding Alternate Hierarchies

Alternate hierarchies provide information on a segment of your hierarchy and in some cases only certain members of that segment (based on how you set up the hierarchy). Alternate hierarchies use the same set of books for the alternate hierarchy and the segment the alternate hierarchy is based off.

Use Alternate Hierarchies to summarize specific members of a dimension for more granular reporting needs. For example, you need to combine Company cost centers in 3 different ways for reporting purposes. So, you create 3 different alternate hierarchies on the Company dimension.

Alternate hierarchy #1 - contains only those cost centers for management reporting

Alternate hierarchy #2 - contains cost centers for division reporting

Alternate hierarchy #3 - cost centers for legal entity reporting

Adding an Alternate Hierarchy

Alternate hierarchies are generally copied from existing hierarchies and modified to suit more individual needs.

To make a duplicate copy of a selected hierarchy, perform the following steps:

1. Select the hierarchy you want to copy. In this case it is the Department Main hierarchy shown below.

   

2. Click Copy.

3. Hierarchy Type is defaulted to Alternate Hierarchy.

   

4. Enter a Name and Description for your copied Alternate Hierarchy and click Save.

   

Setting Up Alternate Hierarchies

1. Access the Maintenance > Hierarchy > Hierarchy Management page.

2. Under Hierarchy Selection, click Setup.

3. Select the dimension for which you want to set up the alternate hierarchy.

4. Click Add to add a new alternate hierarchy.

5. The dimensions selected defaults on the Add Hierarchy page. Select Alternate for Hierarchy Type.

6. Enter a name for the new alternate hierarchy and click Save.

7. Return to the Hierarchy Management page and select the dimension for which you added the new hierarchy.

8. Select the hierarchy you just added in the Hierarchy list box.

9. Click Show.

10. Edit the hierarchy by adding members as you would with any hierarchy.

How to Delete an Alternate Hierarchy

1. Access the Maintenance> Hierarchy > Hierarchy Management page.

2. Under Hierarchy Selection, click Setup.

3. Select the Alternate Hierarchy you want to delete.

4. Click the Delete button.

   

Alternate Hierarchy Use Case - Intercompany Eliminations with Multiple Hierarchies

For reporting purposes there may be a need to create multiple company hierarchies with different intercompany eliminations requirements. This section discusses how to accommodate additional hierarchies and best practices associated with intercompany eliminations and reporting in Planful.

In Practice

1. You have a Legal Company hierarchy and another hierarchy for Management reporting, but intercompany eliminations for both hierarchies are different because of the way the companies are grouped for reporting purposes.

2. You have a consolidated company view and a consolidated division view (where companies are grouped by division), but intercompany eliminations between the two views is not unique.

Solution
The following is a description of a Managed Rollup (Hierarchy 1) and a Divisional Rollup (Hierarchy 2).

In Hierarchy 1, the elimination entries need to be posted to Elim1 whereas in Hierarchy 2, the elimination entries need to be posted to elimination companies Elim2, Elim3, and Elim4.

To handle this requirement in Planful, complete the following steps:

Setup one of these hierarchies as the Main hierarchy and the other as an Alternate hierarchy in Hierarchy Management.

Setup elimination companies in the Main hierarchy to support the consolidation requirements of that structure.

Flag a company as an elimination company on an Alternate hierarchy (even though this same company is setup as a non-elimination company on the Main hierarchy) to support the consolidation requirements of that structure.

Run the Elimination process. based on where the elimination companies are placed in the respective hierarchies (Main or Alternate), the system will eliminate properly and populate the data against the elimination companies in each hierarchy to support complete reporting requirements.

Generate the different reporting views based on hierarchy selected. Selecting the required hierarchy (Main or Alternate) will determine the eliminating companies displayed on the report.

• When a member has the Elimination property set to Yes, you can identify the member distinctly in the list with its maroon font color along with a tooltip that suggests you can post elimination data to this particular Hierarchy member.