FCCS - First Look at Advanced Consolidations

The December 2017 update to FCCS will include advanced consolidation, meaning support for multiple types of ownership in the entity hierarchy. This is a first look at the function. For users of HFM and Enterprise, this will look very familiar.

First, when the update rolls out, it has to be enabled in Enable Features. This can be done without rebuilding the application.

There are two main screens that show the feature. The first is Manage Ownerships.

First, use the point of view to select the entity hierarchy, scenario, year, and period. Then you can adjust the ownership percentage, control (yes/no), and consolidation method (more on this below). This does allow organization by period (where an entity may roll into a parent one period but not the next).

The next relevant screen is Manage Methods (selected from the Actions dropdown above). Methods define different types of consolidations.

For each method, ownership ranges can be assigned to determine when a method should be assigned to a relationship. The methods can also be selected manually in the Manage Ownership screen above.

The calculations, target accounts, etc. for each method are seeded, meaning not changeable. This is expected to change soon, where customers can configure what happens.


Looks solid!

HFM 11.1.2.4.206 PSU

PSU 206 for HFM 11.1.2.4 came out on Nov 27, 2017. There are no new notable features included in this patch, but there are a whopping 53 defects and enhancements. They run the gamut from journals to task audit to security to infrastructure to IC matching to data grids to everything. There are three framework patches required along with 206 and a FDMEE PSE, so don't forget those. Also, FDMEE and Financial Reporting haven't been patched lately, but if those PSUs aren't up-to-date then now is a good time.

FCCS - what if parent accounts are not populating?

Working on a FCCS project and came across an issue. Built the main income statement hierarchy using the seeded hierarchy and that worked well. Created a second, alternate hierarchy using shared members and the shared members worked well but the parents of those shared members had no data. Using the new simplified dimension editor (which currently doesn't allow you to add a shared member so you have to use the old one but anyway) all of the attributes looked good. Got some help from a friend at Oracle and turns out there is a property that needed changing. And the best place to do it, right now, is the dimension editor in Smart View.

In our case the parent accounts, like 4050000, had no data. You think setting the Default Data Storage (shown twice in columns C and G) as Dynamic Calc would be enough but it's not. If you look at the columns, there is one that doesn't show in the simplified editor called Consol Data Storage - column F. For the parents this needs to be Dynamic Calc as shown. When the hierarchy wasn't working it was Never Share.  So, click the cell, get the dropdown and change to Dynamic Calc (or copy/paste) and then click Submit and refresh the database.

Overall I'm having fun with FCCS but it does remind me of the first year or two of HFM, where Enterprise was so mature and HFM was less so. But I'm also seeing a faster ramp-up of FCCS compared to HFM, so that's good.

Have fun!

FCCS - Exchange Rate Type for Accounts

Working with FCCS, one of the account properties is Exchange Rate Type. There are multiple choices as shown here from the Simplified Dimension Editor.

Looking at the choices, you might be tempted, as I was, to use Average for income statement accounts and Ending for balance sheet accounts. After all, the two account types usually do currency translation at the respective exchange rates. Or, you may be thinking Average for the balance sheet accounts since the Time Balance property should be Flow (not Balance - and yes, it should be Flow, not Balance) because of the movement dimension information.

But, as it turns out, the correct answer (with one exception) is No Rate. Not exactly sure why, but apparently FCCS already knows what to do.

The exception is if a balance sheet account needs a historical translation. Those three are okay to use. If an override is used, either rate or amount, then pick the appropriate choice. If an account is historical but does not contain an override (the help uses the example of Retained Earnings) then select Historical.