Is it best practice to split budgeting, forecasting, and reporting into 3 separate models?

adham1103
adham1103
in Modeling

I am working on a project where budgeting, forecasting and reporting all happen in 3 separate models (and 3 separate apps) within a workspace. Is this best practice? each model is rather large 50-100 modules, so from a visibility standpoint this makes sense. However, it causes a significant amount of re-work and imports to sustainably maintain all three. Thoughts?

Answers

  • rob_marshall
    rob_marshall

    @adham1103

    No, i wouldn't do that from a pure scalability perspective. If you broke them out, there would not be an opportunity to do any variance analysis or reporting amongst the versions.

  • luke_e
    luke_e
    edited January 23

    Would be less concerned with the number of modules and more concerned with the volume of calculations/sizing/performance. Also sounds like you're introducing some significant maintenance overheads, especially if the models are structually identical.

    As a point of reference, we have an FP&A model with ~530 modules for budgeting, forecasting and reporting (plus some).

    Unless you're running into performance or sizing issues (or the use cases are completely different), keeping it within the same model would be preferable.

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