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Before configuring an input template, a decision is needed on the level at which planners will enter numbers. This decision determines the shape of the templates, how submissions are stored, and what is possible in reporting. It also triggers the dimension locking behaviour described in 08.03 — so getting it right before any live submissions begin matters considerably.
Here is a video, or read below.
FastClose supports three main approaches:
Approach | Planners enter numbers against… | Best suited to |
Account Nominal | Individual account codes — no cost centre or division split | Consolidated, whole-business planning with no organisational split. The quickest to set up. |
P&L / Hierarchy | Named P&L lines (e.g. Revenue, Salaries, Overheads...) mapped to account groups | Most management reporting teams. Contributors work in familiar board-report language. |
Full GL Account | Composite GL account — account nominal + division + department combined | Bottom-up, account-by-account, multi-department planning. Most granular, most work. |
Work through these four questions will clarify the right approach:
Who is entering the numbers? A finance director entering an annual cost envelope thinks very differently from a department manager building up estimates account by account. Match the template to the planner.
How will it be reported? If the board pack has 15 named P&L lines, planning at account nominal level provides detail but also requires extra work to build hat detail, where planning at the named-line level matches your reporting requirement. That said, its important to plan at a minimum to the least level of detail you want to report at.
Are actuals available at the level being planned? FastClose shows actuals and plan side by side. If a nominal has no actual transactions, no row appears for it in the report — it would need to be added manually (section 08.08). Planning at an aggregated hierarchy level sidesteps this initial problem.
What level of granularity is genuinely needed? Full GL Account planning captures everything, but the data-entry burden is significant. Figures entered at that level of detail are not necessarily more accurate than a well-considered P&L-line total.
For most first implementations, Account Nominal or P&L Hierarchy level is recommended. Both are simple to set up and produce clean reporting. Full GL Account planning should only be used where the process genuinely requires it. The course follows this path: sections08.04–08.09 establish the fundamentals using Account Nominal planning, section 08.10 discusses the difference when working with a P&L hierarchy instead, and section 08.11 covers Account Nominal planning by cost center.
Once the level of granularity is chosen, every template feeding a given scenario must use the same dimension combination.
Account Nominal and Full GL Account submissions cannot be mixed in the same scenario. If genuinely different levels need to be supported simultaneously, a separate scenario should be created for each.
However, different templates can feed the same scenario, provided they all use the same dimensions. For example, two Account Nominal templates filtered to different companies both submitting at Account level only — is consistent.
Move on to 0805 - Planning on Account Nominal only - your first planning template