Cost Managed & Financial managed

[aruscitti]

Dear All

I need to find the correct way to manage the IT financial in platform and I would like to
Start with the perfect solution 

My scope are
- planning and managed the budget IT
- define the cost model 
-monitorign cost IT 
- allocate the cost in correct model 
-receve from ERP the amount of invoice a S automatically allocate for project or services

Can you indicate the correct steps or learning material for imlementation?
Need I to use others add-is? If yes which?

Best regards
Andrea 

[Ashish Nahar · Accepted solution]

Hello, I would like to suggest the following:

- planning and managed the budget IT --- SPM Demand Management
- define the cost model  --- Using cost plans see below

1. Rate model - to define rate cards for resources
2.  Product Model pricing - for costing software and hardware cost coming from model

-monitorign cost IT 
- allocate the cost in correct model  - Allocation happens using cost model either to a cost center or the specific account based on cost type.
-receve from ERP the amount of invoice a S automatically allocate for project or services -- Integrating with ERP first to get the project code, this is not OOB, you might need to work on a model to understand how and when you will allocate the cost to the project. The way project are structured in ErP might be different then you would run the project. This is doable but requires your org model to solution correctly.

Let me know if you need more help on this.

For learning use this:

https://nowlearning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/strategic-portfolio-management/strategic-portfolio-managem...

[Carter1]

Hi Andrea,

At Proven Optics, we have two applications available on the ServiceNow Store that support the ITFM activities you laid out. Here's some more information:

- Planning and managed the budget IT

The Proven Optics Budgeting & Forecasting application is purpose built for this. Our application enables Budget Formulation directly on the platform with built in workflows. Budgets can be created by cost center or department managers ("Budget Analysts" as we call them). Once created, a budget analyst can submit their budget line items for approval. The workflow can be defined per your specific requirements, but typically we see a 1 or 2 step approval process. All activities against a budget line are captured in the system and auditable in the record activity as needed (who made a change, what change was made, when the change was made). Once we have budgets created, we can import expenses from an ERP or other source. These actual expenses are matched to a budget line item via what we call a "Budget Key". Then we can generate forecasts in the application using the combination of budget + forecast data. We typically see most of our users generate a forecast monthly. Department or Cost Center heads (budget analysts) will then update their forecast lines to reflect the expected spend for their IT Budget lines.

- define the cost model 

The Proven Optics Cost Model application allows you to create Cost Models. We typically see Cost Models use either a budget or actuals dataset - but you can use any source of transactions to create a model around.  You will define your structure (segments), mapping rules to categorize transactions to a service, application, or other "cost object", and allocation rules for how costs should be distributed up the model. Once these are defined, we produce data outputs that are visualized in dashboards. Some of the common views/questions we provide/answer are: What is the total cost of my Application or Service (TCO)?  How much of a service/application did this business unit consume? What is the unit cost to provide this service or application? And more.

-monitorign cost IT 

This one can go hand in hand with either application. Our Budgeting & Forecasting application allows you to plan and monitor your IT expenses monthly, quarterly, or yearly. The Cost Modeling application can also assist with this as you can analyze the cost to deliver a service or application and how this has changed over time or how the consumption of a service or application has changed.

- allocate the cost in correct model 

For our cost modeling application, you will define how to allocate the cost of your different "Cost Objects". Cost Objects are anything in your model structure - but often are things like Services or Applications. Depending on what you are allocating, you may have a different "Allocation Rule". For something like an Application, you may use the # of Application licenses per Business Unit to allocate the costs to a Business Unit. For something like a service, say Service Desk as an example, you may use the # of tickets per Business Unit to allocate. An allocation could be as simple as Headcount or even a defined percentage split. There are an endless number of Allocation methods but common ones we see are: License Count, Ticket Count, Server Count, Hours Worked, Device Count, Headcount, or even just "Percent". 

-receve from ERP the amount of invoice a S automatically allocate for project or services

We commonly receive ERP data and import this into the platform (sometimes with an integration, sometimes manually via transform maps). Part of the application then categorizes or maps these expenses to the different projects or services that they support.

Hopefully this is helpful for your question. Let me know if this spurs any other questions or if you would like some further information.

Best,

Carter Christley

Proven Optics