Change of Financial Year (approaches to manage)

[jed]

So we currently use the 2d approach for time in TM1 where year = financial year and we currently operate on a Jul to Jun Financial Year.
We are being taken over by another company and their financial year is calendar year (Jan to Dec) so something will need to change in TM1. *ugh*

We have all been through the time debate when building things in TM1...
"Time:1d vs 2d" http://forums.olapforums.com/viewtopic. ... 1314#p1224
We did consider this when the system was first setup but the preferance was always to have the separate 2 dimensions given accountants were the key users.

We will need to preserve our historical data in the existing company financial year format but we will need to convert future data (budgets) to the new format
so I'm trying to work through the best approach for this. I figure that once the business agrees on the changeover time we will need to move data in TM1 to make this work.

So far the only logical option I've come up with is to create duplicate year elements for future years including the crossover year with new names (IE. CYxxxx) and move future data to correct year leaving historicals in their old fin year. Once the future data has been moved we can then delete any unrequired future year elements leaving the historicals in their original year element. Obviously we will need to reorder the month dimension as well and there will be some rule changes where we have to look back to prior year in Jul etc.

Can anyone else think of better/other ways to deal with this?

cheers
jed

[Martin Ryan]

Not entirely sure if this would be better, but does fit into the other category.

You could have another dimension, say "FinVersion" with "Jul-Jun version" and "Jan-Dec version" as the elements. Load up your numbers to each of those versions. E.g.

[Jan, 2010] would go to both [Jan, 2011, Jan-Dec version] and [Jan, 2010, Jul-Jun Version]

Bit messy of course. Another option is to have two cubes, one with the old way of doing things, which can eventually be phased out.

Martin

[paulsimon]

Hi

The other option is to use the 1D approach, where you can then have alternate hierarchies that consolidate your months in to the two different financial years. You can then get the 2D approach using a virtual cube.

I have a dimension where I have Calendar Year, Fin Year Starting in April and Fin Year Starting in July, and all the different consolidations work correctly. There is a prefix of CL for Calendar, F4 for April Start, F7 for July Start, so user's know which is which. When dealing with individual months they can either have eg the F4 Alias which will show eg F4_2010/11_P02 for May in 2010, or then can just see the underlying Calendar Month of CL_2010_May. Most prefer the latter view as then they don't have to translate from financial periods to the real months.

Regards

Paul Simon