HORIZON PPM is not designed to be a comprehensive finance management system. The focus is on providing a lightweight Project Finance tool that meets basic financial tracking and management needs. The platform provides a method to set budgets and to build up manifests of cost items against these budgets.


Accessing Project Finances

Activities can be accessed from 4 locations in HORIZON PPM ...


Project Home

An automatically generated chart comparing Budget against Run along with two dashboard widgets for Spend vs Approved and FTC vs Approved are available on the Project home.

Hovering over the chart displays popups with values and comments for each of the charted components.

This chart shows the overall comparison of the agreed budget compared to the current spend and forecast spend. This ignores cost category differences in this chart.

The Spend vs Approved widget provides a percentage view of costs to date compared to the budget - ignoring any additional Forecast To Complete (FTC) costs. This provides a picture of the investment to date.

The FTC vs Approved widget provides a percentage view of the combined costs to date plus the Forecast To Complete (FTC) costs compared to the approved budget. This provides a picture of the investment to complete the project. 


Navigation

Project Finances are also accessible from the left-hand side navigation bar...


Project Finances

This page has two tabs allowing a user to toggle between Overview and Details

The Project Finances Dashboard

The dashboard includes 3 elements to help teams understand the scheduled activities...

  • Automatically generated charts providing a visual comparisons of the finances
    • Budget vs Run - Overview: the overall comparison of the agreed budget compared to the current spend and forecast spend. This ignores cost category differences in this chart. [This is the same chart displayed on the Project Home page].
    • Budget vs Run - by Category: the comparison of the agreed budget compared to the current spend and forecast spend, but this time split by the different budget categore types.
  • Dashboard Widgets providing easily readable budget health dimensions
    • Budget: The total approved budget across all three budget category types.
    • Actual: The total spend to date across all three budget category types plus a percentage comparison of this spend vs budget. Anything over 100% indicates a budget overspend.
    • Forecast: The total Forecast To Complete (FTC) the project across all three budget category types plus a percentage comparison of this spend plus forecast vs budget. Anything over 100% indicates a budget overspend.
    • Variance: The overall variance between the total budget compared to the existing spend plus the Forecast To Complete.
  • And a table to manage the overall budgets and the detailed budget items.


Budget Overview Table

The Budget Overview table is where the budget is managed. Here the budget amounts are set along with status information and comments. The table automatically sums totals across the different categories and calculates variances.


Horizon PPM provides 3 budget categories ...

  • Capex: Capital Expenses (Capex) relate to the purchse of assets from which future benefits are expected to be realised. This is typically (but not always) one-off payments for physical items, but can also include upgardes and enhancements to existing assets. Examples are the purchase of buildings, computers and machinery or the enhancement of systems (including software) to increase capacity or extend functionality.
  • One-Off Revex: These are single one-off operational costs. The category is split into one-off items in this category that would typically be a project cost and recurring items (below) that are expected to extend beyond the life of the project and need to be catered for in ongoing operational budgets. Examples of one-off revex include analysis, training or one-off system maintainence activities. 
  • Recurring Revex: These are repeated recurring operational costs. The category is split into  recurring items (below) that are expected to extend beyond the life of the project in this category and one-off items (above) would typically be a project cost. Examples here are most sort of rentals, licenses that have annual charges or maintenance and support agreements.


It is very important users obtain local guidance on finance rules within an organisation as these definitions, requirements and approach may differ significantly.


Viewing/Managing Budget Categories

Select a budget category to enter the editor... 


Selecting a budget category opens a form which can be updated...

These form fields are...

  • Category Activity. This is a fixed title that cannot be changed.
  • Approved Budget. The total amount current agreed for this budget category.
  • Status. A Red/Amber/Green (RAG) traffic light that should be set to indicate the health of the budget category.
  • Tags. An optional field to add tags to a budget category. To add a tag type the word or words and press the return key (this may be a go button or similar in the virtual keyboard on a mobile device). The system then highlights the new tag in blue but doesn't submit the form allowing additional tags to be added.

Note: Tags are a powerful feature allowing easy identification and access to common items across the projects and portfolios. See the Tag Search page for more details.

  • Comments. Comments relating to the status/plans of the budget category.
  • Last Updated. An automatically updated field displaying the last date/time this budget category was updated


Adding a new Budget Category

The budget categories are fixed and additional categories cannot be added.


Deleting a Budget Category

The budget categories are fixed and categories cannot be deleted.


Budget Items Table

The Budget Items table is where the individual cost items are managed. Details added here are automatically included in the Budget Category calculations above.



Viewing/Managing a Budget Item

Select a budget item to enter the editor... 


Selecting an budget item opens a form which can be updated...


These form fields are...

  • Item. The title of the budget item.
  • Quantity. The quantity of items in this line.
  • Unit price. The price for a single item. 
  • Overhead Cost. Any overhead costs such as delivery that affect the cost of this item or batch of items.

The total price is automatically calculated based on the quantity multiplied by the unit price before the overhead cost is added.

  • Category. The budget category from the list of Capex, One-Off Revex or Recurring Revex
  • Type. A budget item cost may be Forecast as a future spend or a Committed spend that has already been encountered. Note: In commercial organisations there is often a time delay between a cost being encountered and actually being paid.
  • Approved. An indication that an item is an approved cost of the project.
  • Description. A more detailed description of the budget item and what it is to be used for.
  • Tags. An optional field to add tags to a budget item. To add a tag type the word or words and press the return key (this may be a go button or similar in the virtual keyboard on a mobile device). The system then highlights the new tag in blue but doesn't submit the form allowing additional tags to be added.

Note: Tags are a powerful feature allowing easy identification and access to common items across the projects and portfolios. See the Tag Search page for more details.

  • Last Updated. An automatically updated field displaying the last date/time this budget items was updated


Adding a new Budget Item

To add a new budget item select the Add button at the top right of the table.

Adding a new budget item opens the same form as described in Viewing/Managing a Budget Item. See above for details.


Once the form is submitted and the new budget item is created and the user will be redirected back to the Budget Item Dashboard with the table refreshed to display the new item.


Deleting a Budget Item

To delete a budget item enter the specific item (see Viewing/Managing an Escalation above) and then select the Delete button at the bottom left of the form.

HOIZON PPM will prompt for confirmation of the deletion before proceeding.


Once the user confirms the deletion by selecting OK to proceed HORIZON PPM will provide confirmation of the budget item then return the user to the Budget Items Dashboard.