Purpose:
Explain how to design and implement a simple SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC) consolidation-type application for technical people with little-to-no accounting experience.
Overview:
Below is a walkthrough creating a BPC consolidation application from "scratch", populating it with both master data (dimensions, dimension members, business rules, script logic) and transactional data (monthly summary data from a transactional system such as an SAP ERP or ECC system). The following pages in this wiki will walk the reader through creating the necessary applications, dimensions, dimension properties, and dimension members for a BPC consolidation application set. The applications will then be populated with both master data (dimension members, hierarchies and property values), and transactional data (revenues, expenses, currency exchange rates, ownership relationships between a fictitional software company and its partners and subsidiaries.
Prerequisites:
The steps in this walk through assume the reader has basic functional experience with BPC 7.x and is familiar with how to create and modify dimensions and applications within an application set using the BPC Administrator's console, and is familiar with how to run BPC Data Manager packages and create simple EVDRE reports within BPC for Excel client.
Why a Consolidation application
For us non-accountant types, I am assuming that the concept of a planning application, and the need for budgeting and forecasting, as well as measuring our actual spending against our estimated/budgeted amounts is not difficult to relate to. Many of us probably have our own monthly budgets, and idea of how much of our pay cheque remains from pay period to pay period, even if the numbers themselves are not formally put on paper, or in a spreadsheet.
A consolidation application, however, is quite different from a forecasting application. Consolidation applications are required when a company owns 30% (or more) shares in one or more other companies. When a company owns that
A Fictitious Company's Accounting Story for Q1 of January 2011
In January of 2011, John started a publicly traded US-based company named Perfect Accounting Solutions, Inc. (PAS) based on an accounting software program he wrote.
Following are accounting-relevant events that occurred during the first quarter of January 2011.
January 2011
Investors purchased USD$10,000,000 of PAS stock.
Hired 2 full-time salary-paid employees
- one at USD$35,000/year
- one at USD$55,000/year
Purchased a 5-year lease on an office building for USD$8,000/month
Purchased 3 desktop computers for USD$1000/each,
Puchased a printer USD$200
Purchased a fax machine USD$200/each
Purchased some office equipment (desks, chairs, coffee machine, boardroom table) for USD$3,500
Purchased a rack of servers for USD$15,000
Purchased USD$5,000 worth of software licenses
Sold USD$10,000 of software licenses
February 2011
Hired 3 India-based employees through partner Yellow Stone, Inc for INR 4,900,000
Hired 1 China-based employee through partner Red Stone, Inc for CNY 280,000
Fully acquired public company PAS Canada, Inc for USD$500,000
Fully acquired public company PAS Brazil, Inc for USD$500,000
Sold USD$50,000 of software licenses
March 2011
Purchased stock representing 30% interest in Yellow Stone, Inc for INR
Purchased stock representing 40% interest in Red Stone, Inc for CNY
Sold USD$500,000 of software licenses
Building and Understanding a simple Consolidation application in BPC:
I had to laugh as I was writing the heading for this section of this wiki, this is the first time I have used the terms 'simple', 'consolidation' and 'BPC' in the same sentence; hopefully the process of creating this wiki can help make this heading a reality for me and others.
I have arbitrarily chosen to create a model for a fictitious U.S. software company named PAS, with fully-owned subsidiaries located in Canada, United States and Brazil, as well as minority-interest in partners in India, and China.
- Building the BPC Consolidation application structure
- Populating the BPC Consolidation application with data
- Configuring the BPC Consolidation application's Business Rules/Logic
- Executing the BPC Consolidation-related Data Manager packages
- Understanding what just happened
2 Comments
Unknown User (1072vyaig)
Hi, The rest of the links are not working. It gives an error saying that page under construction. I got really hooked on to this article and had also finished creating the dimensions in my sandbox. I am from a non-accounting background and working in my 1st Consolidation project. I really need this exercise. Please get the rest of the links up and running so that I and so many others like me can benefit out of this awesome article.
Former Member
Please, I would like to see the example as the links are not working