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Within CPM the Budgeting & Forecasting process components seamlessly feed into each other. There are no worksheet linkages or distribution lists to maintain and the CPM database provides data integrity so that you can trust the numbers. Initialize planning templates
Within CPM you only need to create each unique template once. Most CPM clients need to create between 10 to 20 unique planning templates. CPM will automatically replicate the template for each business unit. Once a new business unit is added, CPM automatically creates its associated planning templates. Creating links between templates
CPM allows you to create and control all of the linkages between accounts including inter-financial statement relationships. For example, the effect of balance sheet loans can flow through to P&L interest. Headcount Plan
Use the CPM database to communicate directly with your payroll package to upload your existing headcount. Then, define templates in CPM to gather your projected new hires, calculate a merit increase, determine your payroll taxes and benefits, and even split individual employees across more than one department or project. Through CPM, you have the control to determine which Budget Managers see which templates. CPM will aggregate individual salaries, payroll taxes, and benefits for each department. SG & A Expense Plan
Whether it be 100 or 1000 cost centers, CPM provides an intuitive environment for managing their rollout to Budget Managers and their roll-up to consolidated totals. After the plan is entered, many of our clients then define allocation methodologies through the CPM Allocation Manager to either perform inter-departmental or overhead allocations. Capital Plan
Another great benefit of CPM is compiling the Capital Plan for each business unit into one, real-time, collaborative environment. Capital can be planned at the transactional level by individual purchase and depreciation tables can be maintained by category to flow the correct amount through to your accumulated depreciation and P&L depreciation.
An enterprise-wide consolidated list of capital requests can be viewed at any time. If you choose, capital items can be allocated across multiple business units or even sorted by capital requests by approval status. Profit & Loss Planning
Never has P&L Planning been so easy, so complete and so accurate. CPM allows for greater controlled flexibility to break your revenue and cost of goods into their contributing drivers for improved planning accuracy. Break revenue into Price x Units, or Hours x Rate, or Contractual Adjustments. Split Cost of Goods into Standard Cost x Units. Determine your price-volume mix and calculate fully contributed P&Ls at all levels or your organizational structure. Forecasted Balance Sheet & Cash Flow
Many of the most complex forecasting formulas are contained within Balance Sheet and Statement of Cash Flow. Whether it be an inventory lag, Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) calculation or a plug on your forecasted cash flow of long-term debt CPM is up to the task. The rules for each of these calculations are defined in the CPM database (i.e. decision to based forecasted Accounts Receivables on a DSO), the assumptions are maintained by the end-user as basic assumptions in your templates (i.e. the number of DSO) are maintained in the CPM template and can even be changed by planning scenario. Communicating approved plans & results
One of the biggest planning challenges is communicating the final budget and actual results back to your Budget Managers to make them accountable to their results. How many times has a Budget Manager been managing a version of the plan other than the approved plan? Through CPM, your Budget Managers can either have real-time access to the most recent version of the plan and actual information as it is loaded or receive scheduled report books through e-mail. Initialize templates for re-forecast
For most organizations it takes days to create templates that mix months of actual data from the General Ledger with months of plan from the last forecast period. Whether it be a monthly reforecast, a quarterly reforecast, or a rolling forecast, CPM is easily configured to create these types of templates in minutes. CPM will lock down the months that contain actual data and provide forecasting tools and data entry templates for you to trend out or key in the remaining planning months. | 
