Financial Review

This report collection provides the IT financial details you need to review your spend variances and forecast accuracy:

• Financial Review (open by default) (described in this page)
• Financial Review - CapEx
• Financial Analysis
• Cost Pool Analysis

Use the local and global slicers to refine the data in your report. Slicers in this report let you see your cost data by region, account group, and organizational accountability, including cost center, cost center owner, and owner (for example, CIO -1).

The following roles can use the slicers in this report for a more personalized view:

• IT Financial Controller or CIO: Without setting any slicers, you can see the overview of the spend across all cost centers in the organization. You can drill down into cost pools, cost center owners, and individual accounts.
• Cost Center Owner or CIO -1: Set the Cost Center or Cost Center Owner slicers to filter for your areas of responsibility.
• Financial Analyst: Set the Cost Center slicer for areas you support or set a specific account group to enable a detailed, cross-organizational category spend analysis.

KPIs provide a high-level view of your OpEx spend:

• OpEx and OpEx Budget: These two KPIs show your overall OpEx budget compared to the OpEx spend for the current month. The percentage of variance is shown to the right.
• OpEx YTD and OpEx Budget YTD: These two KPIs show your OpEx spend compared to the budget YTD. The percentage of variance is shown to the right.
• Annual OpEx and Annual OpEx Budget: These two KPIs show your annual OpEx spend compared to the budget YTD. The percentage of variance is shown to the right.
• % OpEx Variable YTD and % OpEx Fixed YTD: These KPIs help you determine the agility of your IT spend by looking at the ratio of fixed and variable expenditures for the fiscal year.

Select a metric (cost pool, account group, owner, cost center owner, or cost center ID) from the View by list to populate the Top Over Budget YTD and Top Under Budget YTD charts with the items in the category with the greatest budget variance to plan YTD. This information will help you prioritize where to look for reduction opportunities.

Select a bar in either chart to open a Variance Detail dialog that shows the OpEx spend, budget, variance, and percentage of variance for the selected metric. Use the options at the top of the page to select a time period.

Select an account code to see the transaction details from your financial source of record (such as your general ledger).

The Details table allows you to see a summary of the OpEx budget, variance, and percentage of variance for all items in the selected metric based on the time periods you select above the table.

Questions answered:

• Where are significant variances between spend vs. plan?
• Which cost centers are driving spend vs. plan variance and who is responsible for those cost centers?
• Is a variance real or caused by mis-categorization of an expense?
• Where does the largest portion of our IT spend go? By cost pool? By IT owner (for example, CIO -1)? By cost center owner?
• Are there significant changes in spend period-over-period?
• What expense line items contribute to the cost of an IT function?

Select a metric (cost pool, account group, owner, cost center owner, or cost center ID) from the View by list to populate the Top Over Forecast YTD and Top Under Forecast YTD charts with the items in the category with the greatest forecast variance to plan YTD.

Select a bar in either chart to open a Variance Detail dialog that shows the OpEx spend, forecast, forecast variance, and percentage of variance for the selected metric. Use the options at the top of the page to toggle between time periods.

Select an account code in the left column to see the transaction details from your financial source of record (such as your GL).

The Details table allows you to see a summary of the OpEx forecast, forecast variance, and percentage of forecast variance for all items in the selected metric based on the time periods you select above the table.

Questions answered:

• Where does the largest portion of our IT spend go? By cost pool? By IT owner (for example, CIO -1)? By cost center owner?
• Where have we seen any significant period-over-period changes in spend?
• What are the expense line items that contribute to the cost of an IT function?

Select a metric (cost pool, account group, owner, cost center owner, or cost center ID) from the View by list to populate the OpEx Spend YTD and OpEx Trend charts with the items with the highest variance in spending to plan YTD and the spending trend over the previous six months.

Select a bar in the chart to open a Variance Detail dialog that shows the monthly, quarterly, and yearly OpEx spend for the selected metric. Use the options at the top of the page to select a time period.

Select an account code in the left column to see the transaction details from your financial source of record (such as your GL).

Use the FY Outlook tab to view the OpEx budget, forecast, and spend variance for the fiscal year.

Select any item in the left column to see the transaction details from your financial source of record (such as your GL).