ApliqoFPM Fact Sheet

Owned by Adam Davis
Jul 26, 2023
5 min read

Use Case

Apliqo FPM is a pre-built FP&A application that helps the office of finance to be in control of reporting, analytics, planning and forecasting of their financial data and more. Apliqo FPM works with IBM Planning Analytics for Watson (TM1), an in-memory, multi-dimensional, functional database.

Reporting, Dashboards and Analytics

The core structure for reporting and analytical needs are:

  • Version: Actuals, Budgets and Forecasts as well as system calculated rolling versions (e.g. Actual-Forecast) and variances for version comparison

  • Currency: Amounts will generally be loaded or entered in local currency, the system converts to your reporting currency at closing or average rates and calculates the Cumulative Translation Adjustment (CTA).

  • Time: Based on financial periods (month) with a lot of flexibility to analyse quarters, half years, years, YTD, YTG etc.

  • Company: Legal entities / accounting areas that can be consolidated

  • Business Segments: Virtually unlimited further segmentation of data, e.g. by Cost Centers, Profit Centers, Regions, Divisions, ...

  • Chart of Accounts: Structure for Balance Sheet, P&L and Cash Flow as well as statistical accounts can be set up in the system or imported from a source. Templates are available to accelerate the process. The comprehensive set of almost 100 pre-defined financial KPIs is ready to use and can be amended to suit individual requirements.

  • Adjustments: Different data sources and adjustments are clearly separated to give full transparency of the data origin.

Apliqo's frontend "Apliqo UX" is included with Apliqo FPM and the standard frontend to build, publish and consume dashboards, scorecards, reports and analytical applications. A variety of apps is included but additional ones can easily be amended by business users. Additionally an Excel add-in or any other frontend that can connect to IBM Planning Analytics with Watson (TM1) can be used to analyse or present the data in Apliqo FPM.

Planning and Forecasting

Chart of Accounts

A different granularity for the purpose of Planning and Forecasting can be defined to plan on a higher level than the actual data has been imported into the system. KPI calculations and the cash flow statement will work on the planning chart of accounts as well.

Business Segments

Each business segment can be configured whether it is used for a plan type (e.g. Revenue Planning, Expense Planning - more details below). If a business segment is to be used for planning purposes the plan granularity can be defined, e.g. for a cost center structure with multiple levels it could be configured to plan on cost center groups rather than individual cost centers.

Versions

Different types of versions are available for different purposes. For each type multiple versions can be created, e.g. for different scenarios.

  • Working Budget: Used for a traditional annual budget with 12 month of plan data (can contain multiple years)

  • Working Forecast: To forecast the remaining months of the current year, actual data for the first x months will be automatically included

  • Rolling Forecast: To forecast a defined range of months from a given start period.

  • Snapshot: Any version can be copied into a snapshot, i.e. the data of a budget or forecast will be frozen for reference and comparison purposes

Plan Types and Methodologies

The main plan types are Revenue, Expenses and Balance Sheet. Typically Revenue and Expenses are planned first and the P&L result then flows into the Balance Sheet Plan. The recommended entry approach is driver-based, i.e. for each planning account and combination of plan business segments (if used) an appropriate forecast method/driver (e.g. full year estimate + x%, more details below) can be selected as well as a phasing method (e.g. last year actuals). The drivers can be set top-down initially and fine-tuned on lower levels as needed. Alternatively to the driver-based approach the data can be entered directly, either bottom-up or on any higher level ("spreading"). Purpose-built drivers for different plan types are available as well as operational planning models for certain plan areas. Custom requirements can be covered by building additional models and copying the results into the Apliqo FPM planning components.

Revenue Planning

The revenue planning model typically contains Revenue as well as Cost of Sales (Gross Profit). Examples for revenue and cost of sales planning drivers are:

  • Prior year budget or estimate plus X / X%

  • Run Rates (3, 6, 12, 18 month)

  • Percentage of revenue or another account

  • Multiplication with statistical account (e.g. sales units)

Expense Planning

Operating Expenses can be planned using similar drivers as the revenue planning. Additionally the following operational models can be used for sub-plans:

  • Workforce: Planning of individual employees or FTEs, existing an new. Assumptions for social security, taxes, bonuses etc. can be centrally planned (e.g. by region or company) and the results will be mapped to the correct account to become part of the expense plan.

  • Travel and Entertainment: For different travel routes parameters such as average flight and accommodation cost can be set and the number of trips be planned (e.g. per cost center).

  • Marketing: Individual campaigns and activities (e.g. social media, SEO, print) can be planned in detail.

Balance Sheet Planning

Including the results of the Expense and Revenue Plans the balance sheet positions can be planned with different drivers and by using specific sub-models, e.g.:

  • Inventories: Days in Inventory (entry per year, % of revenue etc.)

  • Capital Expenditure: Plan of assets or asset classes by entering investment dates, asset lifetime etc. The depreciation will be calculated in balance sheet and P&L.

  • Debt: Plan of loans with repayments and interest expenses.

  • Generic drivers: yearly estimate plus X / X%, run rates, etc.

  • Cash: Will be calculated by the system from the total movements according to the indirect cash flow statement

Workflow

Apliqo FPM comes with a simple workflow component, which allows to track the status of each plan type by different business segments. A typical workflow consists of the states "Not Started" -> "In Progress" -> "Submitted" -> "Approved" / "Rejected" and the status changes will be tracked with user name and a timestamp and can also include commentary. Security settings will allow plan data entry only in certain states.

Data Integration

The load of trial balance data and dimension structures can generally be handled using file sources (CSV, Excel), ODBC connections or proprietary APIs.

Pre-built connectors

A growing number of out-of-the-box connectors is available, e.g.:

  • SAP

  • Xero

  • DATEV

  • FinancialForce (Salesforce)

The pre-built connectors allow for the fastest implementation time because all queries to import the trial balance movements and build the business segment or account structures are included. They usually also include the ability to drill-through to journal entries.

Custom integrations

If a pre-built connector is not available for a data source or there are special requirements, the included ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) capabilities can be leveraged to develop the data integration processes needed. Common functionality like the mapping of new GL accounts and business segments can be used with custom integrations as well.

Administration

System Setup

The initial configuration of the system and daily administration can be handled by a trained business user through bespoke front ends for the different tasks.

Security

The Apliqo FPM security concept is based on users and groups. A set of common user roles (e.g. Expense Planner, GL Consumer, Module Admin) is pre-defined but additional profiles to apply more granular permissions can be defined easily. Element security can be defined to limit the read or write access to certain versions (e.g. budget scenarios), companies and business segments (e.g. cost centers).

Backups

Backups of the Apliqo FPM database can be scheduled or taken on demand.