Glossary

Actual historical data, such as AHR and other work details, and point-of-sale data, such as revenue. The application can use actuals to generate plans and can display them on the Worksheet for comparison purposes.

The location and time period specific average hourly rate (AHR). The application uses the historical AHR to calculate the forecasted AHR. The forecasted AHR is calculated by multpling labor costs by AHR. The AHR rate is loaded into LFSO.

A periodic plan of expected labor costs, based on historical actuals, AHR, driver distributions, staffing requirements, events, special days, and non-productive hours that is created using the Budget Creation module.

An year-long financial plan of estimated sales revenue, expenses (including payroll), and profitability for a particular time period, which is usually the following year. A budget is an annual forecast that has been reviewed, agreed upon, and approved by Corporate. Once approved, it is rarely changed and it is used as a baseline to measure performance.

The module that generates a “bottom-up projection”.

The module that generates a top-down forecast and supports the solicitation process for budgets and forecasts.

A person responsible for the budget at one or more specified locations in the corporate hierarchy.

Abbreviation for “bottom-up projection”.

See “location”.

A user who is the root budget manager for the root location linked to the CORPORATE Labor Budgeting location type.

A comma-separated values (CSV) file format is a tabular data format that has fields separated by the comma character and quoted by the double quote (“) character. Typically a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is saved to a CSV file.

A stream of “actuals” and forecasted data about a specified unit or volume type that is expressed in a specified interval, such as an hour, a 15-minute period, or a day. Examples of drivers are: sales dollars per hour; the number of units sold per hour; the number of transactions per hour; and guests per hour. Drivers are usually not connected directly to a group of products or an area of the store: they are connected indirectly to different departments by “workload”, which is expressed as “staffing requirements”.

A description of how point-of-sale data in the “driver” is distributed at each time interval during the hours of operation.

Mandatory non-productive staffing requirements such as company meetings and training sessions.

Annual calendar divided into quarters, periods, and weeks. This calendar does not use actual dates. During implementation, a fiscal year can be configured to span more than 52 weeks.

A unit of time that loosely corresponds to a calendar month. A fiscal year has 12 fiscal periods. Each period has either 4 or 5 weeks, depending on the fiscal calendar setup.

A prediction of future results. See also “top-down forecast”. Dynamic sales and labor projections that are periodically updated based on actuals to date. Forecasts are used to track progress against a budget.

Acronym for Infor Consulting Services. This service replaces Infor's WFM Professional Services.

A service organization within Infor that provides consulting services to Workforce Management (WFM) customers. See your Infor WFM representative for more information.

Labor as a percentage of sales. Same as “payroll percent”.

The modules that support the annual budgeting and periodic planning process. This process includes both the Budget Creation module and the Budget Management module.

Determines which data is displayed, organized, and labelled on the Worksheet.

A “location” that has a parent location but no child locations. This location is the lowest location in the location hierarchy.

A “time period” that has a parent time period but no child time periods.

A place in the corporate hierarchy, called a location hierarchy. The location can be: a leaf location (lowest location in the hierarchy); a root location (highest location of the budget/forecast); or any location in between. A parent location is always one level above a child location.

Budget managers at root locations release budgets/forecasts down the location hierarchy for review, edit, and approval by the budget managers of the child locations. At each location, the budget managers review, edit, and approve the budget/forecast and pass it down the location hierarchy, one level at a time, until it reaches the leaf locations.

Budget managers at leaf locations submit their approved budgets/forecasts up the location hierarchy for additional review and modification by their parent locations. At each location, the budget managers review and modify their budget/forecast and pass it up the location hierarchy, one level at a time, until it reaches the root budget manager.

The Labor Forecasting and Schedule Optimization module.

Last Year's (LY) and This Year's (TY) actuals for forecasted plans. LY and TY AHR actuals and TY sales actuals are part of forecasts generated using the Budget Adjusted Trend forecast method. LY and TY sales actuals are displayed for review on the forecast Worksheet.

The maximum number of payroll dollars that each location is allowed to spend annually. If the annual payroll exceeds this value, the budget manager cannot submit the budget for approval.

The minimum number of hours required to run a location in a time period. Minimum hours for each location are imported weekly.

Hours when employees are not at work, such as vacation, holidays, sick leave, and unpaid leave. Depending on corporate policy and local labor laws, employees are paid for some of these hours, and not paid for others.

See “location”.

The ratio of payroll dollars to sales dollars, expressed as a percentage.

An update to the budget during the current fiscal year that indicates how the company is performing against its budget.

A generic term that describes either a “budget” or a “periodic plan”. In the context of the Labor Budgeting modules, a plan can be a “top-down forecast”, a “budget”, or a “bottom-up projection”.

Part of the solicitation process supported by the Budget Management module, where a budget manager of a location allocates the data in the plan to the budget managers of the locations below for editing and approval.

The budget manager of the root location, which is the highest “location” in the corporate hierarchy or within the plan.

For example, a regional budget manager who creates a forecast for the region is the root budget manager for all locations under that region, which is the top location for this forecast. Similarly, a corporate budget manager is the root budget manager for the root location at the corporate level (CORPORATE location type). Budget managers can see the entire hierarchy below their locations.

The highest “location” in the corporate hierarchy or plan.

The process that allocates the data in the plan to the locations below for editing and approval. The budget manager at a location edits the data and releases it to the budget managers of the locations below it for editing and release to the next level. This process repeats until the plan reaches the bottom level of locations in the solicitation process. The plan is then submitted back up the hierarchy, one or more level at a time, where the budget manager at each location edits it and submits it to the parent location, until it reaches the root level.

A day when there are unusual changes to volume types, such as AHR, sales, units, and transactions. The changes are caused by unusual circumstances.

Sales Per Hour. The application calculates this number based on the imported sales and hour data. The application recalculates SPH after receiving solicited feedback that changes this data.

The total workload based on the required jobs for a location, the skills that go with the job, and the activities the employee in that job will perform. These requirements differentiate between the types of work, which can be volume driven, non volume driven, and location/store properties driven. Staffing requirements impact the required workload.

The condition of a location, which determines whether a plan can be viewed or edited by budget managers with appropriate permissions for that location.

Part of the solicitation process supported by the Budget Management module, where a budget manager of a location sends the plan to the budget managers of the locations above for editing and approval.

The amount of time for a plan. The smallest time period for a plan is one week.

A periodic plan or budget created by the Budget Management module. See also “forecast”.

The edition of a plan, which the application determines based on system actions.

User-defined parameters that drive the staffing requirements of a location, such as sales revenue, number of items sold, or number of transactions processed, in a specified time period.

Also knows as forecast type. How the application identifies and stores budgeting data.

The amount of work time for a specified time period, expressed in hours.