Financial Variance Review email report (v104)

Display the report

1. Log in to Apptio and navigate to Planning > Costing Standard.

2. On the Home page, click IT Financials.

   The Financial Review report opens.

3. In the Financial Review report, click the Send Financial Budget Variance Email icon.

   NOTE: This email icon is only displayed for users with admin permissions.

   

   The Financial Variance Review email report opens.

1. Log in to Apptio and navigate to Costing Standard.

2. On the Home page, click IT Financials.

   The Financial Review report opens.

3. In the Financial Review report, click the Send Financial Budget Variance Email icon.

   NOTE: This email icon is only displayed for users with admin permissions.

   

   The Financial Variance Review email report opens.

TIP: If you are having trouble getting this report to open, do the following:

• Ensure that you are in the Production environment, by checking it is displayed in the toolbar. The email feature is not available in the Development or Staging environments.

• Check your browser settings. For example, you might have trouble in Chrome if your Block 3rd Party Cookies option is enabled. Alternately, consider adding "https://[*.]apptio.com" to your allowed sites in Chrome, or a similar setting in other browsers.

Key elements

The report contains the following elements.

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(1) Configure Email

• Filter Outliers Table - (Optional) Use the following settings to configure the Outliers table:

  • % Variance - Set a minimum variance percentage. As you adjust this value, the report will show outliers that exceed the percentage threshold.

    For example, a setting of "0%" returns all results, regardless of variance percentage. A setting of "50%" returns everything with an absolute variance greater than 50%.

  • $ Variance - Set a minimum variance dollar amount. The report will show outliers that exceed the dollar threshold.

    For example, a setting of "0" returns all results, regardless of dollar amount. A setting of "3000" returns items with an absolute variance over $3000.

  • Top Results - Set the number of outliers that you want to include in the report.

    For example, a setting of "10" will return the top 10 variances.

    The results displayed in the Outliers table are the accumulation of these settings. For example, settings of "50%," "5000," and "10," respectively, will return the top 10 results that have an absolute variance greater than $5,000 and over 50%.

• Recipients - (Optional) Click in the Add Recipients field to enter an email address for the person you want to receive this report, then press Enter. Repeat as many times as needed.

  After you have finished entering all comments, click Send to distribute the email to the list of recipients. The Add Comment and Save buttons are now disabled and the filters are inactive. To send another email, click Reset, which allows you to again edit the filters, make comments and send the report to a new recipient. Click Save to save your changes without sending the email.

  NOTE: You will normally only send one financial variance review email per month. The outlier filter and email recipients you set will persist to the following time periods until they are changed again and saved.

(2) Comment fields (optional)

You can add comments anywhere you find an Add Comment button. The top section is for entering an overall message about the financial review for the month. Typically, you want to include a high-level statement about the state of the budget and possibly explanations for significant variances. The field is limited to 400 characters.

To edit a saved comment, click Edit Comment. To delete a comment, click Edit Comment, remove the text in the comment box, then click Save.

(3) Operating Expenses YTD

This section displays your budget and variance at the highest level.

(4) Cumulative Budget Variance

This section displays the budget variance by period (column) and the YTD cumulative budget variance (trend line). Ideally, the cumulative variance should approach or be trending to zero to meet the financial plan.

(5) Accountability

This section displays your budget variance by owner, typically the CIO-1 level. A comment can be added to explain any variance at this level.

(6) Outliers

This section displays your budget variance by cost center and account sub-group using the parameters you set in the Configure Email pane (element 1). You can optionally enter explanations for each.

(7) Details

Clicking the Questions link from the received email message will bring you to the budget variance review report in Apptio.

Questions answered

You can use this report to answer the following questions:

• Which cost centers are driving spend vs. plan variance?
• Which accounts within the cost center accountability are driving the greatest variance (over or under)?