Financial planning and performance management
A solution for corporate financial management: plan, actuals and rolling forecast of revenue, costs, the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow, connected into one whole. Finance, leadership and management always see where the company stands and where it is heading.
Plan · Actuals · Rolling forecast · Oracle Essbase
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Plan and budget
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Monthly actuals
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Plan vs. actuals · Rolling forecast
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Decisions and actions
The challenge
Most companies start planning in Excel. Problems arise when several people need to plan at the same time, when sales, costs, the balance sheet and cash flow have to be connected into one whole, and when the plan has to be compared with actuals during the year and kept up to date.
Which version of the plan is the right one? Every department has its own.
Collecting and merging data takes more time than analysing it.
A change in revenue doesn't automatically flow into the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow.
The plan is approved in January, but deviations only show up at the end of the quarter, when it's too late to act.
A company doesn't just need a spreadsheet for the plan. It needs a model to run the business.
More than planning
A plan proves its value during the year: when you compare it with actuals, understand the deviations and update the forecast in time. The solution supports the whole financial management cycle, not just preparing the plan.
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An annual plan and budget, connected from sales to cash flow. With scenarios for different assumptions.
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Actual data is loaded into the same model every month. Plan and actuals are always comparable.
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Where we deviate, by how much and why: by company, product, cost centre and account.
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Actuals to date and updated expectations to year-end. The impact on profit, the balance sheet and cash is visible immediately.
Will we hit our annual EBITDA?
Where are we off plan, and why?
How much cash will we have at year-end?
What does a weaker quarter mean for the annual result?
Which costs are growing faster than revenue?
How would higher raw material or energy prices affect the result?
Will we have enough liquidity for planned investments?
What is the forecast for the next 12 months?
Planning model
Instead of developing a planning application from scratch, you get a ready-made financial planning model. During implementation we adapt it to your organisational structure, chart of accounts, products and way of planning.
Standard planning model
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Adaptation: your company · your accounts · your products · your cost centres
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Your financial plan
✓ Planning architecture
✓ Income statement model
✓ Balance sheet model
✓ Cash flow model
✓ Standard drivers
✓ Scenario and version logic
✓ Actual · Plan · Forecast
→ Chart of accounts
→ Organisational structure
→ Product hierarchies
→ Cost centres
→ Business assumptions
→ Users and permissions
→ Input data
What's included
Revenue
Volumes, prices and revenue by product and period.
Costs
Material costs, labour costs and other operating costs.
P&L
Automatically from revenue to EBITDA, EBIT, EBT and net result.
BS
Assets, liabilities and equity, linked to the business plan.
CF
The business and balance sheet plan, converted into expected cash flows.
Plan · Actuals · Forecast
Plan vs. actuals, variance analysis and a rolling forecast to year-end.
Sales · Workforce · Projects · Capex and depreciation
For more complex processes we extend the core model with specialised planning models. Their results flow automatically into the central financial plan.
Example: detailed sales plan → revenue → financial plan. For a company with thousands of items, the full detail doesn't have to live in the financial model.
How it works
Change a business assumption and its impact flows automatically through the entire financial model.
Volume × Price → Revenue
Volume × Unit cost → Material costs
FTE × Working days × Cost → Labour costs
Investments × Useful life → Depreciation
Revenue + days sales outstanding (DSO) → Receivables
Sales +10%
↓ Revenue grows
↓ Material costs grow, EBITDA changes
↓ Receivables grow
↓ Working capital changes
↓ Cash flow changes
The income statement, balance sheet and cash flow aren't three separate plans. They are three views of the same business plan.
User experience
Users plan through Oracle Smart View directly in Microsoft Excel, an environment they already know. But the data isn't stored in individual files — it's stored in the central planning model.
A familiar environment. No need to introduce a completely new way of working.
A single version of the data. Everyone works on the same planning model.
Instant calculations. Changes are immediately included in the consolidated plan.
[ Placeholder for a screenshot: planning in Smart View ]
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We load actual data
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We prepare a baseline plan
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Users complete the plan
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We calculate the impact and approve the plan
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We monitor monthly and update the forecast
The 2027 plan can, for example, be based on 2026 actuals. During the year, actuals are loaded into the model every month, and the year-end forecast combines actuals with the updated remainder of the plan.
Who it's for
Plan, actuals and forecast in one view, without reconciling versions.
Monthly variance analysis instead of manual consolidation.
See in real time how their area tracks against plan, and contribute to the forecast.
A timely answer to whether we'll hit our targets — and what to do if we won't.
Implementation
Because we start from a ready-made planning model, the project doesn't begin with building an application from scratch. A typical implementation takes 12 weeks.
1 · Analysis
We get to know your current planning process.
2 · Mapping
Accounts, organisation, products and data.
3 · Configuration
We adapt the standard model to your company.
4 · Data and testing
We load actual data and verify the calculations.
5 · Users and go-live
We train users and run the first planning cycle.
In the standard setup you provide data in an agreed format (a CSV file, a table or a database view). The solution takes care of loading it into the planning model. More advanced integrations are available as an extension.
ERP / accounting system
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Prepared actual data
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SmartQ planning model
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Plan and forecast
At the core of the solution is Oracle Essbase, a multidimensional platform for planning, modelling and analysing financial data.
Oracle Essbase · Oracle Cloud Infrastructure · Microsoft Excel with Smart View
In a short demo we show you the whole cycle: from the plan and monthly actuals to a rolling forecast of the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow.
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