Driver Based Budgeting and Rolling Forecast
Budgets built from drivers, refreshed monthly
A budget built from the things that move the business can be reforecast every month without starting again.
The problem
The annual budget takes three months, is out of date by the time it is approved, and is then defended for the rest of the year. Each cost centre owner enters numbers by hand, so nobody can say what assumptions sit behind them. A reforecast means doing it all again, so it happens once, late, and badly.
What good looks like
Drivers, not line items
Headcount, volume, price and rates set the numbers; owners adjust the drivers.
A rolling view
Twelve or eighteen months ahead, moving every month, with the approved budget as one version among several.
Less collection, more review
Owners spend their time questioning the numbers, not typing them.
Traceable assumptions
Every figure shows the driver and rate it came from.
How we approach it
Step 1
Identify the twenty or so drivers that explain most of the cost and revenue base.
Step 2
Build driver tables and calculation logic in SAP Analytics Cloud.
Step 3
Set up the monthly reforecast cycle, workflow and versions.
Step 4
Run two cycles with finance before handover.
Standard content we start from
SAP ships the Rapid Financial Planning and Analysis Suite for SAP S/4HANA as SAP Analytics Cloud content: four linked models (Rapid Finance, Rapid Sales, Rapid Workforce, Rapid Capital) with actual, plan, budget and target versions, driver tables, rolling time horizons and prebuilt input forms and variance stories.
We start from it rather than from a blank model, then replace the sample drivers with the client's, set the monthly reforecast calendar and workflow, and put version governance in place.
Questions people ask
Talk to us
If the budget takes a quarter and is wrong by the second month, there is a better way to build it.