Investment Funding: entities, budget consumption, top level investment

[Tommaso2]

Hi all,

Three questions about Investment Funding:

1. A Top Level Investment can be created directly against a portfolio, project or demand, right? 

I am trying to create a new Top Level Investment but for any portfolio, project or demand that I choose, ServiceNow launches this error message: "There can only be one active investment for a given entity."

It means that funds are already allocated via Top Level Investment to all entities that I selected? 

2. Once the funds are allocated for example to a Project budget, then the PM can see the new budget record in the proper section in the Project record ("Project Budget").

PM cannot concretely "allocate" that budget, right? I got that the amount is static, the PM has to create expense lines and once they are processed, then the actual costs are generated.

There's no ootb relation between actuals and project budget, but it would be possible and logical to create a rule to verify if the sum of the actuals is within the project budget to inform the PM if actuals passed the project budget.

3. When exactly a Top Level Investment should be created? And by who? Can you please provide examples?

Many thanks!
Tommaso

[Mark Manders · Accepted solution]

1. Yes

2. You can create alerts (notifications) when actuals go over budget, but budget is budget. Within a project you don't add budget to different tasks. However, you can allocate portfolio budget to a project. So the portfolio budget of 1M sets 25K to Project ABC, but the PM can't allocate it further down. That's just checks on the created expense lines.

[Mark Manders · Accepted solution]

1. Yes

2. You can create alerts (notifications) when actuals go over budget, but budget is budget. Within a project you don't add budget to different tasks. However, you can allocate portfolio budget to a project. So the portfolio budget of 1M sets 25K to Project ABC, but the PM can't allocate it further down. That's just checks on the created expense lines.

[Vinay3 · Accepted solution]

@Tommaso2 A Top level investment is typically intended to add a 'bucket of money' like the budget of a Portfolio (ex: IT) which needs to be distributed to individual projects as an 'approved funds' amount that the project manager is allowed to spend.

The funds are shown as 'Budget' on the Project financials screen against which a project manager can compare the latest "forecast" and ensure that the forecasted cost is not going over budget. The widgets on the financials screen gives that overview to the project manager showing any negative variance between the approved budget and the latest forecast in Red.

If you are looking for financial planning and budget allocation capabilities from a portfolio to demands/projects, I recommend checking out the latest capabilities of financial planning instead of using Investment Funding.

you can find more information at this community article - https://www.servicenow.com/community/spm-articles/quick-start-guide-for-financial-planning/ta-p/2959...

Also check out this webinar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEfu9_69nXk

[Tommaso2]

Hi,

What does it mean the following statement that I found in the article that you attached?

"Note: The New Financial Planning experience is not yet compatible with legacy Investment Funding and Scenario Planning capabilities."

Because I have already introduced Investment Funding to the client and I'll do the same with Scenario Planning and Strategic Planning Workspace and I wonder why they are not compatible.

Many thanks,

Tommaso