Summary

Accounts are used in all departments to build your budget and/or forecast. Accounts may be added or deleted depending on the internal structures within the property or property chain. Please see Planning Menu for more information on how to add an account.

Intended Users

GM, Controller, and Heads of Departments

Instructions

Add Value

There are different ways to populate the accounts:

1. Manually input amounts.
2. Even – enter amount that will populate all months with that amount.
3. Source Definition – here you can connect to other sources or to a constant and the icon will change to a Calculator if connected to other sources and to the other icon if connected to a constant.

1. Comments – here you can add a comment to the account
2. This icon shows that there is a Source Definition connected and behind this is an advanced calculation
3. This icon shows that there is a Source Definition connected and behind this is a basic connection to another source.
4. This icon is used to add an even number over several month.
5. This icon is used to add Sub Account – see below.

Sub Account

• Sub Account is an easy and quick way to add more accounts and to have them add up to the main account.
• The name on the main account cannot be changed but the sub account can be named anything.
• Sub Account is primarily a help for specifying expense.

To add the sub account, you press the + icon on the account you want your sub account under. Be aware that you can only add a sub account to an account that does not have any connection to a source. If you want to add a sub account to such an account, you have to delete the connection. If a sub account is used, the account itself is a summary of the sub account.

In the window that appears, please enter the name of the sub account. Take care that the sub account is not in the account table that is used. 

When adding a sub account there are a couple of choices.

1. Change the name and identifier number of the sub account
2. Move the sub account up or down if there are several sub accounts
3. Delete the sub account
4. Add an even amount to the sub account
5. Add a Source Definition to the sub account

Constants

Constant is an element that is a part of every department’s input. Constant represents keys that are used when calculating values. An example could be cost of goods sold, night shift allowances and other cost that can be calculated with a constant as a part of the calculation.

Constant is really good to use because if there is any change in the costs, you can change the constant and all parts of your forecast/budget will be changed.

When you open Constant in a department you will get an overview of all constants. At the top will be the department’s own constants, then those common for the hotel chain, and below that, those for the country the hotel is situated in. 

When adding values, one can use the “even” sign in front of the row if you have the same value all year out. Otherwise, you just add values directly in the field. You add as a percentage with decimals, for example 10% = 0.10.  

You may add a constant by building a New one or Copying an existing one. When adding a New one, you will have the option to choose where to put the constant; in the Profit Center drop list you can choose if the constant should only be connected to one department or to the whole hotel. You may also choose to make the constant available to the chain, if connected to a chain.

If you Copy the constant, you may copy an existing constant to other departments or other properties within a chain of properties.

Connect to Source

• Click the pen to open the Source Definition.

• Click the + sign.

• Now you can connect to different sources. Use ratio as percentage. 1 is 100% of the source, 0.3 is 30%, etc. You can connect to another Account, Accounts Actual LY (if you have Actual Imports), Profit Center, Cockpit, Division, Staff module, Account Sum & Constant.
• Depending if you are in the Forecast or in the Budget/Target you have the option to connect this to source only for the Forecast or Budget/Target & Forecast. This enables you to have different calculations for Budget/Target on one hand and Forecast on the other hand.
• Should you have several connections set up PMI will use the formula valid for both Budget/Target & Forecast prior to a connection only valid for either Budget/Target or Forecast. PMI then looks at the to and from date.
• You can also choose Period Valid. Should you have one connection for one period you could add another with the plus sign at the bottom.

• You can also click Advanced and get access to a number of ways to connect.

By entering the formula in the Connect box you can connect between different options. x*y or x+y or x+y+r+t, etc. When entering formulas you will have to press the wizard that is appearing below the box to get the source boxes to appear.

In the Source boxes you have multiple choices depending on the formula in the Connect box. One of the choices is to connect to Constants.

Add an account

Use the Tool Account when adding or removing an account from your accounts plan. Please see below how to add or remove. There is also a possibility to add all accounts at the top of the list.

Search and Filter Box

The search box allows to search on account number or text. This enables to search and display a specific account for all departments. With a comma (,) between you may filter on several accounts.

The Show All tick box is good to have unticked always and only tick it when the correct department is displayed. This will speed up the loading of each department and especially when opening Planning.

Show Formula Details in Tooltip

To be able to see the formula content in the tooltip, you have to turn on Show Formula Details in Tooltip in your View Options. When the tooltip is active and you move your cursor over the formula icon the formula content will be displayed