You can view the project finance settings from the Settings tab on the Project Finances page. The top part of the page displays various finance settings for the project. The lower part of the page displays the finance categories based on the finance template selected when the project was created.
Finance Template: The finance template used in your project.
Finance Edit Mode: This is a read-only field. It shows the mode in which finances can be edited or tracked. This value is set in the finance template by your administrator.
Default Finance View: Select the default view for finances. You can choose from: Actual, Plan, Forecast, or Budget. The Forecast view shows Actuals up to the Forecast Cutoff month and Plan values for the months going forward. The Budget view shows the Budget snapshot. The Budget snapshot is taken when a project is created from a proposal, and will be blank if no proposal is used.
Finance Tracking Start Date: Select a date to start tracking finances.
How should shifting the Finance Tracking Start Date affect Financial Data?: If you have changed the finance tracking start date, select if you want to clear financial data for only the months which are no longer in the project, or shift the finance data based on the finance tracking start date.
Finance Tracking Months: Select the number of finance tracking months for your project. The default pre-filled value is the default number of months specified at the finance template level. You can only decrease the number of tracking months for a project if new value is greater than or equal to the default number of finance tracking months specified at the finance template level, and the new value does not remove any tracked months that already contain values.
Forecast Cutoff: This field sets the default cutoff date that is used as a separator between Actual values and Plan values. If you select Finance Lock Month (from Actual), then all finance data prior to the finance lock month specified for the Actual view is pulled from Actual. If you select Current Month, then all finance data prior to this month is pulled from Actual.
Import Finances from MS Excel: Select if you want to import finances from MS Excel. Select from one of the following options:
- Import MS Excel Finance Template From Admin : Select this option if you want to import the MS Excel finance template associated with your finance template from the Administration module. This Excel could be different from the MS Excel template that is currently associated with this project.
- Retain Existing MS Excel Finance Template on the Project : Select if you want to keep the MS Excel Finance template associated with this project.
- Upload a new MS Excel Finance Template: Select this option if you want to upload a new MS Excel finance template.
Input for NPV, IRR and/or ROI: Select the categories or subcategories to be used in calculating each of these values.
Resource Computation: If set to Yes, the effort data flows from the activities or timesheets into the Project Finance Template. Set this to No if you want to import finances from MS Excel.
Use Global Lock Month: Select this option to use the global finance lock. If it is set to No, then project level finance lock month is used.
Global Lock Month: If the Use Global Lock Month selection is set to Yes, then this field will contain the global lock month. This field is not editable at the project level. Global lock month can be changed by finance administrators.
Local Lock Month: Select a local project lock month and year. This field is displayed only if the field Use Global Lock Month selection is set to No. Finance representatives will have to update project level lock month as they validate their projects so that realized/actual finances are reflected correctly in financial rollups.
All Months Locked Globally: If this field displays the value Yes, then global finance lock has been set by the finance administrator and financial data at project level cannot be updated.
Unlocked Locally (Global Lock Overridden): If the finances are locked by a temporary global lock and project finances need to be edited, finance administrators can override and unlock using this field.
Finance Element Types: Finance element types allow you to define various financial elements and assign a rate per unit for that element, for example, you could define an Element type called Man-Hours and assign it a rate of $20 per unit. Entering element types allows you to use financial and non-financial inputs to calculate financial savings. You can also compute and override overtime and setup cost on a project level. The defaults are defined by the administrator, but can be modified from the Setting page by users with appropriate permissions.
The system allows you to apply multiplication factors for finance categories, for example, only 10% of all Working Capital may be counted as part of Savings. When entering data, users enter working capital numbers normally, but the system will rollup 10% of the total working capital on the Financial Summary page as well as in reports. Weighting factors (e.g., WACC, Working Capital Multiplication Factor, etc.) can be applied to numbers before cumulative totals are calculated.