Managing financials for planning items in Strategic Planning Workspace

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 13 minutes to read
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    Summary of Managing financials for planning items in Strategic Planning Workspace

    Strategic Planning Workspace enables ServiceNow customers to efficiently manage and analyze financials related to planning items, including budgets, cost plans, actual expenses, labor costs, and financial baselines. The workspace offers comprehensive views to track planned versus actual costs, forecasted expenditures, and remaining estimates, providing project managers and portfolio managers with detailed financial insights at multiple project levels.

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    Key Features

    • Cost Management: Create, edit, and manage cost plans and expense lines, including labor costs based on resource assignments. The cost view consolidates financial data from sub-projects and allows inline reforecasting of future costs at different time scales (monthly or by period).
    • Multicurrency Support: Manage financials in both functional and investment currencies to support global or multinational operations. This feature facilitates real-time currency conversions and financial reporting in multiple currencies, enabling tracking of costs across diverse geographic locations.
    • Display Modes: Switch between multiple financial display modes—Forecast, Budget vs Forecast, Budget Allocation (for funding roles), Planned vs Actual, and Planned—to suit different user roles and financial review needs. These modes help compare budgets, forecasts, actuals, and planned costs at various fiscal periods.
    • Financial Baselines: Create on-demand or scheduled financial baselines to capture snapshots of financial status for planning items, including aggregated data from child projects. Baseline comparisons highlight variances in costs and provide detailed breakdowns of actual and planned expenses, supporting variance analysis and financial tracking over time.
    • Budget Allocation and Lean Budgeting: Portfolio managers can allocate, approve, and manage budgets with detailed breakdowns by time periods and cost types. The system supports lean budgeting for shorter planning cycles and automatically distributes budgets based on actuals and forecasts using proportionate or even distribution logic depending on fiscal periods.
    • Benefit Plans: Capture both monetary and non-monetary potential benefits associated with planning items. Benefit plans can be managed alongside cost plans within a unified financials view for streamlined forecasting and tracking.
    • Simple Financials: Enter high-level preliminary planned capital expenditures (Capex), operational expenditures (Opex), and benefits directly from the planning item details without detailed cost plans. Simple financials can be baseline-captured and compared against detailed financial baselines to track financial performance as projects progress.
    • Data Export and Customization: Export financial data from cost and benefits or baseline comparison views in Excel or CSV formats for stakeholder review. Customize financial views with personalized column settings and saved preferences for improved usability.

    Key Outcomes

    • Enhanced Financial Visibility: Project and portfolio managers gain consolidated and granular views of financial data across projects and sub-projects, improving budgeting, forecasting, and cost control.
    • Improved Financial Planning Accuracy: Ability to reforecast costs inline, compare baselines, and allocate budgets based on actual and forecast data enhances financial planning and responsiveness to project changes.
    • Global Currency Management: Multicurrency support enables organizations operating globally to manage financials seamlessly across different currencies without losing accuracy or traceability.
    • Streamlined Budget Approval Process: Funding users can allocate and approve budgets directly within the workspace, with clear insights on variances and forecasts to support informed decision-making.
    • Integrated Benefit Tracking: Combining cost and benefit plans in one interface supports holistic financial analysis of planning items, aligning financial management with value realization.
    • Ease of Use and Flexibility: Customizable views, saved user preferences, and simple financials entry reduce administrative overhead and support diverse financial management needs.

    Manage budget, cost plans as forecasts, actual expenses as expense lines, generate labor costs, create financial baselines, and view, analyze, and compare the financial performance of your planning items at required cadence in Strategic Planning Workspace.

    The comprehensive financials view helps you to understand planned and actual costs, Forecast (previously EAC - Estimate At Completion), Remaining Estimates (previously ETC - Estimate To Completion), Actual (previously Actuals to date), and so on, for the selected item. You can manage cost plans and associate the expense lines and process them to reflect the actuals for a planning item.

    Export the financials data from Costs and benefits or Baseline comparison view as Microsoft Excel or a CSV file and share it with your stakeholders to review the financial performance of your planning items and portfolio.

    Cost view

    Forecast your planned costs, create, and manage cost plans and expense lines to track the financial performance of your planning items, review the latest costs and actuals.

    Financials screen.

    In the Cost screen, you can:
    • As a Project Manager, you have the enhanced visibility and ability to manage the financial data across multiple project levels. Cost view of financials shows cost plans and expense lines from sub-projects, allowing you to track the finances.
    • The parent project widgets display the consolidated values of forecasted costs and expenses.
    • Identify and manage costs using the Project/Demand column for any sub project or demand directly from Cost view of the parent planning item.
    • Re-forecast all the cost plan values for future fiscal periods by double-clicking to edit the value in the least time scale view, either by month or by period.
    • Manage cost plans for your planning items. For more information, see Add, edit, or delete cost plans.
    • Add or edit expense lines for your planning items to record any planned or unplanned expenses. For more information, see Add or edit expense lines.
    • Generate labor costs based on the resource assignments. For more information, see Generate labor costs.
    • Create and compare baselines to capture the financial snapshot of your planning items. For more information, see Create and compare financial baselines for your planning items.
    • Configure widgets to get a high-level overview of the financial data for your planning item.
    • All financial details from sub-projects will be aggregated and displayed in the parent project's cost plans and widgets.
    Tip:
    Cost view gives you enhanced user experience to customize the left pane columns by using the personalize icon (Personalize gear icon.) and by saving user preferences to retain the customizations made to hide, view, or adjust columns, time scope viewing, and so on.

    Multicurrency

    Multicurrency feature enables you to manage financials of your planning items in two different currencies, Functional currency and Investment currency. Functional currency is typically defined by the admin based as the primary currency which is used for planning, budgeting, and tracking the financials of your planning items.
    Important:
    Following are the current limitations for multicurrency.
    • Multicurrency for cost plans that are bundled with project tasks. This feature is scheduled to be available starting with the January patch update.
    • Financial baselines don’t capture investment currency fields. This feature will be available with the March store release.
    Financial users can now perform the following financial activities in Investment currency.
    • Ability to select the Investment currency.
    • Track the planned and actual expenses.
    • Allocate and manage the budget.
    • View simple financials data.
    Important:
    New customers should install the PPM Standard Multicurrency (com.snc.ppm_multicurrency) plugin to enable multicurrency feature and Activate scheduled job to populate to multicurrency fields.

    Using this feature, you can work on financial reporting at global level and see the real-time currency conversions of your financial records.

    Organizations operation at global or multinational level, the work is planned and financed at one location and executed at a different location. Each might use a different currency from what was used in the planning phase, multicurrency makes it easy to manage and track your planning items using any currency.

    You can monitor and track the financials in one currency, and capture the costs in a different currency.

    Using multicurrency, you can see all the costs in the currency you choose for the planning item, instead of restricting to use Functional currency defined in your locale. For more information on how to choose investment currency of your planning items, see Configure multicurrency for planning items.

    Financial records and widgets will display the costs based on the currency selection.
    Note:
    Once a cost plan, benefit plan or expense line or an investment budget gets created, you will not be able to change investment currency. You can change the investment currency as long as there are no financial records captured against the planning item.

    Display modes

    On the financials page for a planning item in Strategic Planning Workspace, you have Display Mode drop-down switch between different modes to view different formats of financial information of your planning items. These views provide the relevant and focused information which helps project managers and funding users to work on the financial planning.
    • Forecast
    • Budget vs forecast
    • Planned vs actual
    • Planned
    Users with financial funding role [sn_align_ws.spw.funding_user] will see Budget allocation option instead of the Budget vs forecast.
    Table 1. Display modes value
    Mode Value
    Forecast View Actuals, Remaining estimates, and Forecast for the entire scope of the planning items.

    Use the time scale to view the actuals for the past fiscal periods and planned costs for the current and future fiscal periods.
    Budget vs forecast View the Budget, Actuals, and Variance for the fiscal periods and Forecast values for the entire scope of the planning items.
    Using this mode, you can:
    • Compare the latest forecasts with the approved budget at different time scales.
    • View the budget vs actual for past fiscal periods and budget vs planned for current and future fiscal periods at fiscal period level.
    Budget allocation (funding role) View the Budget, Actuals, and Variance for the fiscal periods and Forecast values for the entire scope of the planning items.
    Using this mode, funding users can:
    • View the latest forecast and enter the budget that can they be approved to the work item.
    • Analyze the variance for the past fiscal periods and work on budget allocation for future fiscal periods.
    • Compare latest forecast with approved budget and revise the budget, if required.
    Planned vs actual Compare the planned costs with actual expense for the past and current fiscal periods, and view planned costs for the future fiscal periods.
    Planned View only planned costs for the full range and manage the planned costs using the inline editing feature.
    Note:
    The last selected view is saved as user preferences.
    Table 2. Default display mode and access level for financial users
    User role Default mode Role-level access
    sn_align_ws.spw_funding_user Budget Allocation Allocate and approve budget, manage cost plans and expenses lines.
    sn_align_ws.spw_financial_user Forecast Manage cost plans and expense lines.
    business_stakeholder Forecast View financial data.

    Baseline view

    Create a baseline to capture a snapshot of the financial changes for your planning items. You can create on-demand baselines or at a cadence using a scheduler job.
    Note:
    Baselines created on the parent project includes the cost plans and expense lines from all of the child projects to calculate and give you a better breakdown of the financial performance of the projects and sub-projects.
    Compare baselines to compare the difference in costs between latest status against a baseline or between any two baselines.
    Note:
    Each baseline is tagged with a number based on the order that they’re created. The Current Financials baseline captures the financials details in real-time and is always represented with a flag icon (Flag icon to indicate current baseline.).

    The baselines comparison view helps you to understand the variances between the two baselines.

    Baselines comparison view.

    Use the widgets when you compare baselines to view:
    • Two dedicated widgets for each baseline displaying the EAC.
    • Third widget displays the total variance between the EAC values of the selected baselines.
    • Fourth widget displays the top three variances contributing to the overall variance by cost type.
    The widgets and the header rows are color-coded to help you identify the selected baselines.
    Tip:
    Switch between different baselines from the comparison view by selecting the name of a baseline from one of the widgets.

    When you compare baselines, you get the list of cost plans with their associated costs types, EAC at full scope, and a breakdown view of actual expenses and planned costs.

    By default, the time scale of the breakdown view is set to Month.
    • Use the Time scale option to view the comparison breakdown view at monthly, quarter, and yearly levels.
    • Select Time scope to filter fiscal periods, data in the widgets, and the comparison table.
    The widgets and the header rows are color-coded to help you identify the selected baselines.
    Tip:
    Select the name of a baseline from the first or second widget to compare different baselines.

    Let's take an example of the comparison view of two baselines: 2023-10-01, Baseline A, and Current Financials, Baseline B.

    How actuals, planned, and EAC are compared between two baselines captured at different timestamps

    For a selected baseline, based on the creation date, the table shows Actuals values for the past fiscal periods from the created date and Planned values for the current and future fiscal periods.

    Consider a planning item scoped from July 2023 to June 2024. Baseline A is created on 2023-10-01. If you compare the Current Financials baseline in December 2023 to the baseline captured in October 2023:
    1. The baseline comparison view show Actuals vs Actuals columns from July 2023 to September 2023.

      Baseline comparison of actual vs actual costs.

    2. Planned vs Actuals for October 2023 and November 2023.

      Baseline comparison of planned vs actual costs.

    3. Planned vs Planned from December 2023 to June 2024.

      Baseline comparison of planned vs planned costs.

    Note:
    The columns are defined to calculate EAC, which is the sum of Actual costs till the last fiscal period and Planned costs from current to future fiscal periods.

    Budget allocation

    Portfolio managers can manage and approve the budget for planning items. The approved budget helps project managers to plan and meet the expenses to execute work.

    Plan and approve the budget for a shorter planning cycle at monthly, quarterly, or yearly level using the lean budgeting and funding feasibility. Lean budgeting helps Portfolio managers to track the value in return for the approved budget and to better plan the budget for future fiscal periods.
    Note:
    If the budget is allocated monthly, the total budget is rolled up to quarterly and yearly level. Similarly, if the budget is allocated at a quarterly or yearly level, the equal breakdown happens till monthly level.
    For more information on how to allocate, approve, and handle budget for planning items, see, Manage budget of your planning items in Strategic Planning.
    Tip:
    In the budget allocation view, Portfolio managers review the EAC to understand the financial projections made by Project managers and use the Copy cost as budget option to allocate the entire planned cost as budget.

    Choose the cost type as the attribute to allocate and approve the budget for individual cost types such as labor, non-labor.

    Project managers can view the approved budget at the required time scale using the Budget vs forecast option from the display modes. As the work progresses and the actuals are captured, you can compare the budget and actual costs using the Budget vs forecast mode and reforecast the planned costs where the actuals are exceeding the budget using the inline edit feature at the required time scale.

    Product managers can compare the latest cost with the approved budget by Capex or Opex, cost types, and for the required time scale at monthly, quarterly, or yearly level. The comparison view provides insights to Product managers to locate any variance at expense type or cost type, and at which fiscal period. Product manager can leverage this information to request for additional budget from the Portfolio manager.

    You can migrate the budget of existing active projects and demands items from the Classic UI to Next Experience. Financials in the Next Experience has new budget data model that facilitates to store the budget at a detailed level by monthly breakdowns and cost types. You can migrate the budget for active projects and demands individually or by bulk using the scheduled job.
    Note:
    The migrated budget is captured in the sn_invst_pln_invst_budget table to enable the lean budgeting for required time scope.
    Budget distribution logic

    Budget allocation approach introduces data‑aware budget distribution, prioritizing actuals for completed periods and EAC for remaining or future periods. The system uses different distribution strategies depending on whether actuals or Estimate at Completion (EAC) values are available, and whether the fiscal period falls in the past, present, or future.

    Budget allocation logic is divided into three focus areas, past fiscal periods, cureent fiscal periods, and future fiscal periods.
    1. Past fiscal periods that have already ended.
      • If actuals exists, the budget is distributed proportionally to actual spending. If the total budget amount equals the total actuals, the distribution exactly matches the actual values.
      • If there are not actuals, the budget is distributed evenly across the past fiscal periods.
    2. Current fiscal Year, is like a mid‑year scenario where both past months and future months are available.
      • For past or completed months, the system distributes the budget proportionally, matching the distribution to the actual spending pattern. If there are no actuals, budget is evenly distributed across all months in the fiscal period.

        After subtracting the actuals from the total budget, the remaining budget is distributed as follows:

      • If EAC exists, remaining budget is distributed proportionally based on EAC values.
      • If EAC doesn't exist, remaining budget is distributed evenly across the remaining fiscal periods.
    3. Future fiscal periods
      • If EAC exists, remaining budget is distributed proportionally based on EAC values.
      • If EAC doesn't exist, remaining budget is distributed evenly across the remaining fiscal periods.
    Table 3. Budget distribution based on financial records
    Fiscal periods Available financial data Distribution method
    Past fiscal Actual expenses Proportional to actuals
    Past fiscal No financial records Even distribution
    Current year – past fiscals Actual expenses Allocate budget proportionate to actual values
    Current year – remaining months EAC exists Allocate budget proportionate to EAC values
    Current year – remaining months No financial records Even distribution
    Future fiscal periods EAC exists Allocate budget proportionate to EAC values
    Future fiscal periods No financial records Even distribution

    Benefit plans

    Monetary benefit plans capture potential benefits accrued while executing a planning item. Non-monetary benefit plans capture the potential non-financial benefits accrued while executing a planning item. You can create and manage monetary benefit plans and non-monetary benefit plans to capture the potential benefits of your planning items.

    Instead of switching to and fro from the financials record page to benefit plan tabs, you now have a seamless experience to manage all the cost plans and benefit plans from the Cost and benefits view and can leverage the new financials experience with the side panel and grids for quick forecasting and tracking of monetary benefit plans.

    Simple financials

    Simple financials gives you the ability to enter the preliminary high-level planned capex, opex, benefit and so on from the Details page without capturing the costs plans from the Cost view. You can update the simple financials values as required until you have the planned and actual costs captured.

    Simple financials view in the Details page of Strategic Planning workspace.

    Using the baseline feature, you can capture these simple financial values in a baseline and compare them against any existing baseline. You can:
    • Reforecast simple financials and compare the by selecting the Current Financials from the list of baselines.
    • Capture the planned and actual expenses as the project progresses and compare any financial baseline with a simple financials baseline to track the financial performance of the planning item.