08.11 Planning on Account Nominal by Cost Center

Where an organisation needs to plan by cost centre, division, department, or project — as well as by account — you add more dimensions to the down axis of the input template. This is the most granular approach and gives maximum reporting flexibility, at the cost of greater data-entry effort and more careful template design.

Here is a video, or read below.

When to use this approach

When plan data is needed against individual GL account codes within specific cost centres.
The process is a bottom-up budget where each account and cost centre combination is planned independently.
Your reporting requires actuals vs budget to be broken down by department or division.

Step 1 - Setup the data-entry report

The setup for the data entry sheet is the same as we looked at in 08.05 Account Nominal planning and 08.07 Data Entry, save that the additional dimensions that contain cost centres, must in some way be added to the report.

In Epicor, typical combinations are:

Division + Account: add Segment2 and Account to the down axis.
Division + Department + Account: add Segment2, Segment3, and Account.
Full GL Account dimension: a prebuilt Epicor dimension that combines Segment1, Segment2, and Segment3 into a single composite field. Use this for simplicity over flexibility.

With this in mind, there are two ways a data entry sheet can be configured depending on whether the data entry task is going to be shared amonst cost centre managers, or a single person is going to handle the whole thing.

If the task is being shared between cost centre managers, then the data entry sheet used in 08.07 can be re-used, but with cost centre's specified in the filters. If they prefer to plan against a P&L structure, they could also use the data entry sheet from 8.10
However if the task is being handled by a single person, it is more common to go to the Rows / Columns dialog and add each cost centre dimension to be planned against to the down axis alongside the Account dimension.
eg:
Confirm expected segment code combinations appear in rows, periods across the top, and that actuals are populating where expected.

Now, if you remember from 08.03

When the first figure is submitted to a scenario, FastClose records which dimensions were used. Every subsequent submission to that scenario must use the same dimensions. If the first submission is made at Account code level, a later submission from a template that includes a Department dimension will be rejected.

So if you previously used the current planning scenario for earlier exercises against different levels of granularity (eg 08.05) - create and select a new planning scenario (as discussed in 08.03)

Then verify submission cells are yellow (see 08.06 if they are not).
And save the report with a clear name — for example: Budget FY2026 — Detailed Input.

Step 2 - Entering data in Excel

Follow the same process as described in 08.07

Now try the downloadable exercises below:

LINK HERE

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Move on to 0812 - Balance Sheet Planning (Advanced)