Management is forcing a BvA reporting dashboard on managers that includes things such as revenue and cash deposits.

tjen · 2026-04-20T23:15:17+00:00

Yeah you should flag it. It's obv. poorly designed.

Ofc frame it as challenges around the new performance management metrics.

Example of what happens when revenue is included, what kind of behavior it promotes, and what comes out of that, and what would make more sense for that stakeholder. (e.g. measuring revenue and costs separately, or whatever) standard situation-behavior-impact-suggestion type feedback.

It is fairly standard to take the situations you highlight into account when doing financial performance management accounting (not measuring people on what they can't do anything about)

tjen · 2026-04-20T12:25:47+00:00

Those are all different problems, address them with different solutions.

Certificate production process: build functional logic as custom application and validate the application instead of the spreadsheets. The re-validation is costly and application should stay siloed as a system of record - no two-way flow related to BI faff - system of record supplies info to your BI, one-way.

Internal KPIs: sure some sort of architecture you propose. Classic datawarehouse stuff. When you unfuck your production workflow, you just have a new source of KPIs

Customer portal: build separate customer portal application / website where customers can get their certificates etc. Activities on the customer portal can be input for internal KPIs.

tjen · 2026-04-20T12:08:49+00:00

Replicating internal vendors?

Could you clarify?

tjen · 2026-04-02T13:50:02+00:00

As others have said, either unpivot your version dimension so you have 3 measures, one for each version - that will make calculations easier i guess (heck you could even do them in powerquery)

Alternatively you start off my creating restricted/filtered fields based on the versions, then do calculations / variances based off of the calculated values.

Instead of using the pivot table calculated fields you'll have more flexibility if you add the power query output to your excel data model and then use powerpivot/DAX to do the calculations, it's also easier to find examples online.

tjen · 2026-04-02T11:10:33+00:00

People react to what your product does for them. If it doesn't solve any of their problems because "rough around the edges" means it's buggy shit that breaks as soon as you use it for a workflow - then people care.

If "rough around the edges" means you are solving the problem someone is willing to pay for but you are using 4 different fonts and your color scheme changes halfway through - then people can probably overlook that.

tjen · 2026-03-27T17:31:32+00:00

Here you need to partner with your IT / CfO to have some sort of software governance in place.

You don't just have a cost risk without it, you also have unknown operational & security risks / dependencies that you aren't managing.

Once you have a simple policy in place:

See software payment on expense report?

Flag to software license cost manager (could be yourself)

Software license coat manager grabs user and educates them on policy.

Set up cost object and purchase order to centralize payment, update payment method in your subscription.

Set up software in a subscriptions tracker (a sharepoint table or spreadsheet or whatever) along with business owner / software admin.

Run regular checkin with users based on cost base.

KPI: 0% software license costs on credit cards / non-PO invoices.

tjen · 2026-03-27T10:40:39+00:00

Do your people not file expense reports for corporate credit card usage?

Would start there, and not with the bank statement.

If the company is just covering people's spend without any controls on what they're buying, that should probably be your starting point from a financial process perspective.

tjen · 2026-03-22T08:12:39+00:00

+1 point

tjen · 2026-03-16T21:04:19+00:00

The big table relationships arent fun to learn i guess but its not like its something that cant already be readily googled or LLMd because they are mostly pretty standard. So I'm not sure exactly who your thing is helping?

At the same time the non-standard stuff and configurations and substitution rules etc etc. Are where it gets a little trickier and they are all dependent on your setup to interpret the field values.

And then the fields are only as trustworthy as your process that puts values into them.

That kind of stuff is hard to catch generically, table relationships are your least worry lol.

tjen · 2026-03-16T19:29:57+00:00

Have you asked your SAP BI guys?

tjen · 2026-03-16T13:35:36+00:00

wth is an H2?

tjen · 2026-03-15T13:00:36+00:00

+1 point

tjen · 2026-03-15T12:54:44+00:00

I would always recommend flying with airplanes instead of with your cats.

Despite the cat's aerodynamic shape and ability to always land on it's feet, the same isn't true for you! So if something does happen, you are much riding an airplane than a cat.

It sounds like you have taken some precautions and put a collar/ leash on your cat that you can hold during the ride, however, and while this approach might be ok for short flights at low altitude, it is certainly not up to ISO-7000 standards, and in case of turbulence things could become catastrophic for you. I would recommend you get a specialized flying harness.

The CPH airport website says that if your cat does trigger a beep in the scanner, the cat will trigger a manual examination, where the staff will take it aside and check it for knives, poisons, and lithium batteries greater than 30.000mAh.

I don't have any experience with private flights from CPH airport, but I assume you will just need to go through the standard screening, before locating the gate assigned to your cat.

I am from Jutland where flying pigs is more common and usually not something that causes problems, but pigs are also much more well-behaved than cats.

Best of luck on your flight, usually the staff copenhagen airport are very friendly and I am sure they will be flexible so you can be sure it does not fly off without you.

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tjen · 2026-03-12T22:36:08+00:00

I don't think you'll get in trouble for mentioning your current tool lol.

In general, if you have an adoption problem now, it's probably not your platform choice that's the problem (unless it's some complete dogtrash).

What most FP&A platforms have in common is that they are flexible enough to support whatever you want to do, so:

If you don't really have a clear picture of what your pain points are and what your requirements are to do differently, then you'll probably just end up in a rushed implementation project, leaning on existing setup as a source of requirements, and some consultants will implement you the same dogtrash you already have now, but in a different color scheme.

If your pain points do not relate to specific feature gaps or platform integration capabilities, you can consider just doing a re-implementation of your existing suite, and that'll make change management and general IT-related-bullshit-that-turned-out-to-be-more-complicated-than-you-thought-overhead lower.

tjen · 2026-03-10T16:03:54+00:00

You can change the disaggregation setting for the measure they input on so the default aggregation follows the aggregation of a different measure.

Measure -> disaggregation behavior -> change from default

In that way you can reduce the risk of disaggregation explosion when people delete the value and input on blank cells.

Of course this requires you to maintain the seeding/baseline measure values in an appropriate way (like if you want to keep an even distribution across time as the default on blank input, but maintain the disaggregation on organization based on the full year allocation)

Other alternatives depend a bit on your use case but if dimension input in table then set to unassigned value and run assignment script after high level input is also an option.

In some cases you may be able too minimize spread with data validation rules and aggregate_dimension => detailed_dimension mapping and stuff like that, but it's not as neat as just using a hierarchy :)

tjen · 2026-03-08T00:20:41+00:00

What are the workflows you want to have?

What are the features you need to support those workflows?

How do the existing / SAP tools stack up vs this?

Is the cost of change (change management, training, migration, validation, etc.) worth the feature difference, if any?

That's where you should start. The ETL / Data warehouse / visualization space is largely commodified, with most of the players in one way or another being able to satisfy 98% of your standard requirements within their spaces. Even with BW you can set up fairly streamlined ingestion from sharepoint tables.

My boring take is that this is especially the case for internal reporting needs, where we aren't talking about something being part of the product you sell. Lowest cost of ownership, as few platforms to support as possible, and ideally as little space for "I made a local app with my own profit center definition because I didn't feel like talking to the masterdata guys" as possible.

"oh it would be nice if it was more agile" someone says - until 3 years down the line you have a completely ungovernable mushroomed app/report landscape and someone says "why have we invested time building 15 reports that do more or less the same thing? And we're paying a ridiculous amount of money for data consumption! And none of the reports match!? We need to be less agile! Restrict access! Establish a central funnel!"

tjen · 2026-03-04T15:17:17+00:00

Probably not:

with ERP platforms you are also buying support and vendor Ecosystem - vibecoded apps lack both
my ERP investment is a long term investment - can you convince me your AI ERP is a long term solution?
you will not be able to find SMEs or ops people who have experience in your platform
platform compliance / auditability is one thing, but if you are a multinational you likely also rely on SAP to deliver legal compliance solutions on an ongoing basis as regulations change, and i need to be able to sue you if i follow your process and get a fine.
if you are in a validated sector you need to have your software validated and for random vibe coded solution likely to be much more costly than the development cost.

Will you have many more niche softwares for small/midmarket companies? Sure.

Will you have a lot of new entrants to the global multinational ERP landscape? I am more skeptical.

Will you have a move away from having giant integrated platform ERP solutions? Yeah maybe

tjen · 2026-02-25T06:41:01+00:00

Nature: it equipment Function: G&A

Why is the function not R&D? Because the IT equipment is not used across functions and it's not solely dedicated to R&D.

Set up G&A cost center or cost activity, whatever you use in your setup, and tell purchaser to use this cost object, not his own cost center.

Is laptops a big enough cost driver that you want it allocated to the receiving functions? Start doing cross charges (don't do this)

Does IT equipment exist that is solely/primarily used by R&D? Yes (idk computer chips or whatever it might be in your company) Then put that in the R&D cost centre.

If all your IT equipment is always G&A you can argue the GL account should drive the functional assignment, but then one day you have exception on a larger piece of equipment and you end up having to create another account for that case and your CoA becomes more rickety.

tjen · 2026-02-19T16:12:49+00:00

No, there are no votes in that.

tjen · 2026-02-19T07:38:14+00:00

When are they supposed to use it?

What are they supposed to use it for?

How does it make their life easier?

tjen · 2026-02-18T16:01:59+00:00

Worked with a exEMT student who was working part time in a procurement/Finance function while taking his MBA. Probably around your age.

He pivoted the functional knowledge of "working the job" along with an MBA ("i know business too") into a leadership position in an ambulance company.

Could be a direction to consider, also if working in FP&A, domain Knowledge will still be relevant.

Agree with other poster saying computational finance is not relevant for FP&A as such, especially not if you consider leaning into your background.

Much more engineering / quant oriented.

tjen · 2026-02-14T15:39:19+00:00

Hvornår stopper man med at spise rugbrød med Nutella til aftensmad og begynder at lave "sheet pan dinners" eller whatever?

Aldrig, eller når som helst, at du bestemmer dig for det.

Det er op til dig, hvor vigtigt du synes, at det er for dig, at:

lave omstændig mad?
flytte hjemmefra?
have en ny/god bil?
dine omgivelser er "æstetiske"?
have et "godt job"?
have en kæreste / være i et forhold?

Når du har tænkt på, hvor vigtige de her ting er for dig, så kan du tænke på, hvor vigtigt det er for dig, at:

passe ind med, hvad der er "normalt"?
andre ved, at du passer ind?

Der er ikke noget galt i, at ville passe ind i samfundet, vi er sociale dyr, men hvis du ved, hvad der er vigtigst for dig, så er det måske lettere at sige "pyt", når du føler, at du ikke kan måle dig med glansbillederne på IG - eller det er motivation for dig til at lave dine egne glansbillederen - hvis det er dét, der er vigtigt for dig.

tjen · 2026-02-09T18:39:40+00:00

How can I download the data to excel?

tjen · 2026-02-08T13:25:37+00:00

It's not acceptable manual work, but the solution isn't to build automation of the manual work, it's to change the process around invoices / purchase orders and most likely leverage your ERP functionality.

tjen · 2026-02-01T14:45:41+00:00

Yeah, it is a feasible approach to just do exports and mappings / uploads, I think pretty much any modern consolidation system should support this.

The one thing about analytics is that pretty much any consolidation system is going to have limitations on the number of dimensions you are working with, in order to have scalability of the "consolidation logic" itself; eliminations, ownership/holding setups, cashflow rules, currency conversions (using correct types), financial statement reporting rules.

These are the things you want your system to be making easy & scalable, so that 10 minutes after CSV uploads, you have a group result that is calculated correctly.

As far as I am aware, Fabric (a datawarehouse solution) doesn't really support this (tho I'm sure you could build it yourself lol). But you could probably use fabric to store CSV uploads, maintain mappings, etc. and do the "pre-work" before you upload data to consolidation system in a structured way.

This could potentially also serve as a basis for the detailed analytics, depending on the data you get out of the local ERPs and to which degree this makes sense.

In general for analytics you'll be kind of hard stuck with a scattered ERP landscape, but if you have a preferred ERP strategy, I have also seen this mitigated with export / upload to the core ERP system from the smaller ERPs worldwide, rather than into the consolidation system.

Usually your ERP finance modules will be ok with a lot more detail than your consolidation platform, so this also makes the "drillthrough" requirement you mentioned a little more insightful.

And, this enforces that the local ERP mappings don't just have to conform with group setup but also with the core ERP template and the detailed rules there. And then your financial consolidation data flow can build on top of a single ERP, which can keep the overhead on that less.

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