Introduction

When you want to analyze the variance between two categories for a number of accounts you can use this document to create a report. With reports based on this document you will be able to see the trend in the two categories and see which analytical dimension member and entity is causing this difference. This template is often used for P&L, balance sheet or for instance cash flow reports.

You can view a typical P&L report with P&L accounts in the screenshot below. The variance column will give you an indication of accounts that need attention. When you click on one of these accounts you can analyze this account on the right side of your screen. Here you can see what the trend of the account is. But you can also see what the main causes for the variance are for example a specific entity product combination.

Custom Dimensions: The CXO-Cockpit will for instance recognize for the end users that an account like Sales in a P&L report is linked to a number of custom dimensions within the HFM application. The users of the CXO-Cockpit do not need to understand these custom dimensions or where they come from because the CXO-Cockpit translates these custom dimensions into sensible labels for end users like Product, Entity, Customer or Channel. This way a user of the CXO-Cockpit only needs to understand his or her business (and not HFM or Hyperion Enterprise) to get instant insight into key financial information displayed this P&L report. You can also see the communication possibilities at the bottom of this screenshot. This comment box at the bottom will be automatically created for you when you start building a new report in the CXO-Cockpit.

What is shown in this example in this report?

Report Elements

1. Rows

The left column shows a nicely formatted account list. In this example it is a selection of P&L accounts. In the business settings you can change the account list and put formatting on different accounts. The symbol means you can drill down to all the direct descendants of the account or another account list. In this case the drill down is based on another account list but it can also be based on the account hierarchy. It is also very useful that you can re-use these already built account lists as building blocks for other reports that use the same account list.

2. Reference Picklist

In the two center columns we look at two categories. Usually the first column is Actual and the second can be any other category specified or the previous year values of the category in the first column. In the business settings you can change the displayed categories and by clicking on the header you change the data in the column to the different category like for instance forecast, previous year or previous period data. What you can display here depends, like all information in the CXO-Cockpit, on how you have defined this in HFM or Hyperion Enterprise.

3. Variance Type Picklist

The column to the right of the two center columns shows the variance between the two categories as a percentage or as a number. By clicking on header you can choose between variance in percentage and absolute values. The signal colors red or green will give you a quick view on how a certain account is performing.

4. Trend Chart

The top right bar chart gives a trend of the selected account over the current and five previous months for the categories selected in this report (see point 2). You can look at Periodic or YTD values independent of the view in the POV. When you click on one of the bars in the chart you change the period of the drill down table below (see 5).

5. Detailed Breakdown

The bottom right shows the variance between the two categories in the two center columns. These columns show a breakdown of the selected account by Entity or any other analytical dimension relevant to the selected account for the two categories in the columns of 2. In this example you can choose between the dimensions entity, product, customer or channel. As shown in the screenshot below, you can also expand or collapse the hierarchy of the selected analytical dimension by clicking on one of the members. By clicking on pick list next to Entity you can switch between the other dimensions mentioned above. Important functionality in this part is the fact that the grid selection as shown below in the screenshot remains “opened up” even if you switch accounts in the account list.

The detailed breakdown is automatically filled with the relevant dimensions. This depends on how dimensions are mapped but by default the following dimensions are shown:

• All analytical dimensions (A01-A06)
• The flow dimension (FLO)
• The GAAP Dimension (GAP)
• The intercompany party dimension (ICP)