Adding/Removing Business Units Categories & to link them through out the model

Multi Business UnitsBusiness UnitsCategories
4 posts / 0 new
Last post
Stuart Smith A 1
SS
Adding/Removing Business Units Categories & to link them through out the model

Good Day 

Kindly assist with my current dilemma. 

In the Multi Business unit model dynamic template. 

I'm struggling to add a new category to the Business unit categories, as the company i'm modeling needs more than just revenue and & cost of goods sold Categories.

My question is, is there an easier way to add more categories into the model via the Business Units categories Tab  and to link the category through out the model.

As i can't currently find any information regarding the dilemma on the forum and the updated instruction page does not cover it also.

Is it save to assume i will need to create a new module to link into the current model to pull through to all the key areas, Or will it be possible to map the current added category to the business units and the rest of the model, by means of mapping both categories to one business unit and the corresponding outputs and then mirror the one Unit?

Your input will be greatly appreciated.

Model Back ground:

  1. Multi business unit, with each having 5 revenue streams with corresponding Cost of goods sold & 2 other categories (Travel & Salaries & Wages) affecting Gross margin.
  2. Would like to show case these in the business unit model.
Michael Hutchens A+ 189

Hi Stuart,

Just to be clear, are you wanting to add categories to existing category blocks within the business unit modules, or are you wanting to add completely new category blocks to these modules?

It's obviously easy to add new categories to any of the existing categories blocks within the business unit modules by simply adding categories, but adding a new category block of new categories will require the addition of a new categories group - as done in the Creating Modules learning exercise here:

www.modano.com/resources/learning/automation/creating_modules/creating_a_categories_group

Adding new categories groups and blocks isn't too painful as long as you know where everything links in your model. This can be fiddly if you're building a historical & forecast model, as you will need to allow for the addition of corresponding categories groups and blocks to both precedent (i.e. historical financial statements modules) and dependent modules.

The existing business unit modules already provide for revenue, cost of goods sold and operating expenditure categories. Is there a good reason why you need to add completely new category blocks?

Sorry if I've missed your point, I'm a little unsure exactly what you're trying to do!

M.

Stuart Smith A 1
SS

Hi Michael Hutchens

Thank you for the response.

You answered my question, as to adding new category blocks to the Business unit Categories and what i need to do to achieve my goal. 

The reason it was requested, as the client wanted to see the break down of the different categories in cost of good sold linked to the revenue stream, meaning my different COGS category names needed to be the same as my revenues categories names. To do analysis across the different Units, as the all provide the same services. Hope i explained it well enough. 

Thanks again for the assistance was just hoping there was a faster way. 

Stuart

Michael Hutchens A+ 189

Hi Stuart,

You are able to merge categories groups and spin off categories blocks, which may assist you with this.

If you'd like the revenue and cost of goods sold categories to be consistent (i.e. within the same categories group) you can achieve this by merging the Revenue and Cost of Goods Sold categories groups within a module (see www.modano.com/resources/user_guide/developing_modules/categories/merging_categories_groups).

In the Multi-Business Unit Model content libraries, the categories are by default based in the Business Unit Categories module, as shown below, so you will need to merge the categories groups in this module, as well as each of the business unit modules.

I hope this helps, there are a lot of ways to achieve what you're trying to do so please be aware that this is only one possible approach.