Opening balances in Budgeting & Planning

The opening balance values must exist only for the first year within a configuration set and version containing data. Opening balances are calculated by cube rules.

Note: Opening balances must be imported for both a configuration set and a version.

These values must be used for these versions:

  • Budget versions: The start year of the configuration set
  • Forecast versions: The first year based on the time scope definition
  • Actuals: The first year within the configuration set that contains data

These tables show examples of positive and negative scenarios for configuration set 2020-2022, start year 2020 to demonstrate the defined logic:

Positive scenario Description
Actuals are available for 2018 and 2019.
Note: This scenario does not depend on the configuration set start year.
 Opening balance must be imported only for 2018.

Opening balance for 2019 is calculated based on the closing balance 2018.
Budget for 2020-2022 time scope Opening balance must be imported or entered only for 2020.

Opening balances for 2021 and 2022 are calculated based on the closing balance for the previous year.
Forecast January-December 2020 time scope Opening balance must be copied, created, or entered only for 2020.
Negative scenario Description
Actuals are available for 2019 Initial opening balance for actuals for 2018 is imported into 2018.

In general, this scenario works because the opening balance is carried forward to 2019. But the movements in 2018 within actuals are missing. Therefore, the calculated opening balance for 2019 is not correct.
Actuals are available for 2018 Initial opening balance for actuals for 2019 is imported into 2019.

Movements in 2018 are taken as an opening balance for 2019, but the initial opening balance values for 2018 are missing.

To load an initial opening balance, you can import a manually created .csv file to the OLAP BPCMAIN cube. We recommend that you export the BPCMAIN cube and verify its structure before you import the .csv file. This is to ensure the correct file content for the import to be successful. You can export the BPCMAIN cube and import .csv files in the Edit Database dashboard in EPM Administration.

For the purpose of the correct import of an opening balance, you must address these slices:

  • Level: Import_OB.
  • Time: The last period of the previous year, for example, period 12.2022 (12_2022) to import actuals for 2023.
  • Schedule Detail: You can choose all opening balance-relevant details, for example, E_OB.
  • Cycle, Version, Entity, Account, and any other potential references, as required.

The imported values are carried forward to the current year as an opening balance.

Note: Before the import, ensure that the target area is empty. Otherwise, any existing values are overwritten by the imported values. You can verify whether the target area is empty by exporting the cube and filtering in Excel.
Note: Ensure that you import opening balance values only once per configuration set-version combination.