This article describes the basics of the financial section of the Portfolio Designer view in Meisterplan.
- Overview of the Financial Section
- Displayed Financial Figures
- How Zoom Level Affects Summation
- Cost Budgets and Benefit Targets
- Entering Financial Events for a Project
- Financials for Selected Projects
- Traffic Lights
Overview of the Financial Section
In the General section of your user group, you need to have the Access Financial Data right to access this function.
If you're using financial values, the financial section will be displayed in the Portfolio Designer view. To hide the financial section you need to delete all financial values in Meisterplan.
Up to four figures will display the sum of costs (first three columns) and benefits (last column) of all projects in the active portfolio (project costs and benefits come from allocations of roles and resources, as well as from financial events). If cost budgets or benefit targets have been entered for the active portfolio, those will also be displayed.
You may select which financial figures to display as well as the scaling of cost and benefit columns in Settings for the Portfolio Designer view (see the Portfolio Designer Settings article for details).
As with the resource section, the financial section will be updated immediately with any changes made to planned allocations or financial events in the project section, e.g., when you move a project to another period.
Underlying Data
The financial values shown in the Financials section of the Portfolio Designer are based on planned allocations and planned financial events.
Displayed Financial Figures
The following financial figures may be displayed in the financial section:
- O: Operational Expenditure (OpEx planned allocation costs and planned financial events) and portfolio budget
- C: Capital Expenditure (CapEx planned allocation costs and planned financial events) and portfolio budget
- T: Total Cost (Operational Expenditure + Capital Expenditure) and total portfolio budget
- B: Benefit (Benefit financial events) and target
Hover over a column to display a summary of the associated figures (see the Hints for Financials article).
Click a column to display details of the associated figures (see the Finance Trace Mode article).
How Zoom Level Affects Summation
Depending on the Portfolio Designer zoom level, financial values will be summed up and displayed by month (Week zoom level), quarter (Month zoom level), or year (Quarter and Year zoom levels) in the financial section.
Cost Budgets and Benefit Targets
You may enter cost budgets and benefit targets per month, quarter or year for each portfolio in the associated settings (see the Portfolio Budgets - Details article).
- Cost Budgets will be displayed in gray as long as costs are within budget.
- Costs within Budget will be displayed in green.
- Costs over Budget will be displayed in red.
- Benefit Targets will be displayed in gray as long as they have not been reached.
- Benefit under Target will be displayed in red.
- Benefit at or over Target will be displayed in green. Once the target has been reached, it will be displayed as a horizontal black line.
In Portfolios without any cost budgets or benefit targets:
- Cost columns will always be red.
- Benefit columns will be red when the total benefit is lower than the total costs.
- Benefit columns will be green when the total benefit is higher than the total costs.
Cost budgets and benefit targets can be defined per month, quarter or year (see the Portfolio Budgets - Details article). Depending on the zoom level, however, Meisterplan may sum up those cost budget and benefit target values for display in the financial section (see the How Zoom Level Affects Summation section):
- If the displayed period is longer than the planning period, cost budgets and benefit targets will be summed up.
- If the displayed period is equal to the planning period, cost budgets and benefit targets will be displayed as planned.
- If the displayed period is shorter than the planning period, remaining cost budgets and benefit targets will be distributed equally to the displayed periods.
Entering Financial Events for a Project
Any project costs that are not allocation costs as well as benefits must be entered as financial events for the corresponding project in the project's details.
For details, see the Financials section of the Viewing and Editing Projects article.
Financials for Selected Projects
- Select one or more projects to highlight their costs and benefit in the financial section.
- Hover over a column segment to display a hint with the associated figures (cost/benefit value and budget/target).
- If a project's financial events use finance categories, individual figures per category will also be shown in the hint.
Traffic Lights
When you collapse the financial section, it will be reduced to a single row of traffic lights.
These traffic lights display whether costs are within or over budget and whether benefit targets have been reached:
- A Red Costs Light indicates costs are over budget.
- A Green Costs Light indicates costs are within budget.
- A Gray Costs Light indicates no budget has been defined.
- A Red Benefit Light indicates benefit is under target value. If no benefit targets have been defined, a red benefit light indicates benefit is under total costs.
- A Green Benefit Light indicates benefit is on or over target value. If no benefit targets have been defined, a green benefit light indicates that the benefit is greater than or equal to the total costs.
- A Gray Benefit Light indicates no benefit target has been defined for the associated period. Gray benefit lights will only be displayed if a benefit target has been entered for at least one period.
While the actual figures will not be visualized in this mode, the hints displayed when hovering over traffic lights display a summary of costs or benefit in the corresponding periods (see the Hints for Financials article).