Part 3: Spreading, Distributing, and Assigning - Core Planning

Functions in SAP Analytics Cloud

Whether you’re planning your sales forecast, distributing funds for R&D, or reallocating
your marketing spend, SAP Analytics Cloud makes spreading, distributing, and assigning
budgets a straightforward task. What would be a tedious and complex formula in other
accounting tools, can now be done with a click of a button.

As standard planning functions in SAP Analytics Cloud, we’ll show you how you can save
time with:
o Spreading
o Distributing
o Assigning

Spreading
Spreading is the process of taking funds from a higher level in a hierarchy and assigning
it to lower levels. For example, resources available at the global level can be assigned to
individual regions, or at the year level and spread out to individual quarters. This is a
crucial function when planning budgets and sales forecasting. By looking at previous
years’ trends, you can estimate how much resources to devote toward a particular area
of your business.
When automatic spreading is applied, the funds are split equally between the regions
and the available product groups within those regions. Spreading can also be done
manually so you can spread funds however you like.

Distributing
Distribution enables you to move some or all the funds from one cell to other cells at
the same hierarchical level, or members of the different branch of the same hierarchy.
For example, suppose you run a clothing company with different product categories
such as:
o Apparel
o Outerwear
o Active wear
o Footwear
o Backpacks
For the upcoming summer season, you want to cut back your resource allocation from
your winter line to your summer line. You could take funds from your outerwear budget
and then distribute those funds to footwear, active wear, and backpacks. This is easily
done with just a few clicks.

Assigning
Assigning adds new values or replaces values in one or more cell. For example, suppose
you want to increase your marketing spend for an upcoming campaign. Simply enter the
amount you wish to assign and tell SAP Analytics Cloud where you want to assign those
funds. Whatever you enter will cascade down, impacting any connected areas of your
planning model.
SAP Analytics Cloud is an all-in-one analytics cloud platform that integrates business
intelligence, planning, and predictive analytics. Planning your budgets has never been
easier.