Integrating with Financial Management

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Integrating with Financial Management

    Customer Service Management (CSM) and Field Service Management (FSM) integrate with the ServiceNow® Financial Management application to enable detailed cost allocation, tracking, and reporting of expenses. This integration supports financial administrators by providing graphical tools and dashboards to allocate and analyze expenses tied to service management activities.

    Show full answer Show less

    Key Features

    • Financial Management Workbench: Accessed via Cost Transparency > Workbench, this graphical interface allows financial administrators to allocate expenses and view cost allocations linked to CSM and FSM.
    • Plugins: Separate plugins enable integration for CSM and FSM. These also provide dashboards with cost allocation insights. The CSM plugin includes demo data for fiscal years FY16 Q1 through FY17 Q2, while the FSM plugin does not include demo data.
    • Cost Models: Predefined cost models determine how expenses are allocated:
      • CSM:
        • CSM Allocation Model for Cost Account – allocates expenses to individual B2B customer accounts.
        • CSM Allocation Model for Channels – allocates expenses by communication channels.
      • FSM: FSM Allocation Model for Company – allocates expenses to companies.
    • Segment Hierarchy: Accounts are grouped in hierarchical segments enabling roll-ups of expenses. Typical hierarchies include Assignment Group, Product, and Customer Account (CSM) or Company (FSM).
    • Account Buckets: Categorize cleansed expenses before assigning them to accounts and segments, with common buckets such as Facilities, Payroll, Professional Fees, Supplies, Training, and Other Expenses.
    • Allocation Metrics: Rules that split expenses based on activity-related dimensions, such as number of cases, case resolution time, number of work order tasks, and task completion time. Various predefined allocation metrics are included for both CSM and FSM.
    • User Roles: Specific roles like costtransparencyanalyst and financialmgmtadmin have access to the Financial Management workbench to perform allocations and analysis.
    • Dashboards and Reports: Performance Analytics content packs provide dashboards for both CSM and FSM financials, accessible via Performance Analytics > Dashboards.

    Key Outcomes

    By integrating CSM and FSM with Financial Management, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Gain visibility into detailed expense allocations linked to customer service and field service activities.
    • Use predefined cost models and allocation metrics to accurately distribute expenses across accounts, channels, and companies.
    • Leverage graphical workbench tools for efficient financial analysis and expense allocation management.
    • Access targeted dashboards for quick insights into financial performance related to service management operations.
    • Support better financial transparency and control over service-related costs within their organization.

    Customer Service Management and Field Service Management provide an integration with the ServiceNow® Financial Management application as well as dashboards and reports.

    The Financial Management application enables you to allocate, track, and report on expenses in your organization. When the Financial Management application allocates an expense, it breaks down the expense into detailed amounts of money called allocations. These allocations can be associated with specific segments and accounts for a specific cost model. The integration with Financial Management provides cost allocations for Customer Service Management and Field Service Management.

    Use these cost allocations on the Financial Management workbench, which provides financial administrators with a graphical interface to allocate expenses. Access the workbench through the Cost Transparency > Workbench module.

    Plugins

    Two different plugins, one for Customer Service Management and one for Field Service Management, enable the integration with Financial Management. These plugins also add dashboards based on cost allocations.
    • Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Customer Service plugin (com.snc.pa.fm.csm).
    • Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Field Service Management plugin (com.snc.pa.fm.fsm)
    The Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Customer Service plugin includes demo data for FY16: Q1 through FY17: Q2. The demo data includes records with the CSFM prefix, which indicates that the records are for the Customer Service Management integration with Financial Management. Activating the plugin adds these records to the Case (sn_customerservice_case) table.
    Note:
    The Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Field Service Management plugin doesn’t include demo data.

    Cost models

    A cost model is a set of rules, methods, and metrics that determines the allocation of expenses. Select cost models on the Data Definitions tab of the Financial Management workbench.

    For Customer Service Management, the integration with Financial Management provides these cost models:
    • CSM Allocation Model for Cost Account: Allocates expenses for individual B2B customer accounts.
    • CSM Allocation Model for Channels: Allocates expenses for communication channels.

    For Field Service Management, the integration with Financial Management provides this cost model:

    FSM Allocation Model for Company: Allocates expenses for companies.

    Segment hierarchy

    All accounts in the chart of accounts belong to segments which are structured in a hierarchy. This hierarchy enables the roll-up of expenses from lower-level accounts and segments to higher-level accounts and segments.
    • CSM Allocation Model for Cust Account uses this segment hierarchy: Assignment Group > Product > Customer Account.
    • CSM Allocation Model for Channels uses this segment hierarchy: Assignment Group > Product > Channels.
    • FSM Allocation Model for Company uses this segment hierarchy: Assignment Group > Product > Company.

    Account buckets

    Use account buckets to categorize cleansed expenses before assigning them to accounts and segments. Account buckets can be organized in parent-child relationships so that several child buckets can refer to a single parent bucket.

    The Customer Support and Field Service Support account buckets include:
    • Facilities
    • IT Chargeback
    • Payroll and Labor Expenses
    • Professional Fees & Services
    • Supplies
    • Training
    • Other expenses

    Allocation metrics

    Allocation metrics are rules that you can create and use to split an allocation based on dimensions such as:
    • Number of Customer Service cases: Allocate expenses to a product based on the number of cases closed in a fiscal period.
    • Total Customer Service case resolution time: Allocate expenses to a product based on the total hours worked on cases closed in a fiscal period.
    • Number of Field Service work order tasks: Allocates expenses to a product based on the number of work order tasks completed in a fiscal period.
    • Total work order completion time: Allocates expenses to a product based on the total hours worked on tasks completed in a fiscal period.
    For Customer Service Management, the integration with Financial Management provides these allocation metrics:
    • CSM Allocate to Assignment Groups by Headcount
    • CSM Allocate to Product by # Cases
    • CSM Allocate to Product by Case Time Worked Duration
    • CSM Rollup from AssgGrp to Product by # Cases
    • CSM Rollup from AssgGrp to Product by Case Time Worked Duration
    • CSM Rollup from Product to Account by # Cases
    • CSM Rollup from Product to Account by Case Time Worked Duration
    For Field Service Management, the integration with Financial Management provides these allocation metrics:
    • FSM Allocate to Assignment Groups by Headcount
    • FSM Allocate to Product by # Work Orders
    • FSM Rollup from Product to Company by # Work Orders

    User roles

    These roles can access the Financial Management workbench (Cost Transparency > Workbench):
    • cost_transparency_analyst
    • cost_transparency_admin
    • financial_mgmt_user
    • financial_mgmt_admin

    Dashboards and reports

    The Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Customer Service and Performance Analytics - Content Pack - Financial Management for Field Service Management plugins provide the following dashboards:
    • CSM Financials Dashboard
    • FSM Financials Dashboard
    Navigate to Performance Analytics > Dashboards and select the desired dashboard from the Dashboard menu.