How to model annual inflation in Anaplan?

Hi Anaplan Modeling Experts,

I found it is not that straightforward to play with timeseries data in Anaplan, when the calculation logic for a specific item is referring to the values of itself from the previous period.

In this example, I am trying to model the annual inflation rates.

In Excel, it is quite easy, just type the formula once and drag and drop for the rest of the cells in column D (see attachement or below):

Forum 1.png

What would be the recommended option to model this in Anaplan?

Kind regards,

Ding

Forum_1_57969.png

Accepted answers

JaredDolich

@DingZ

@Noemi.andres suggestion is a good one.

Additionally, you can create what's called a system module, a separate module that only contains the annual inflation rates.

Then you can just look it up from you calculation module.

Check out DISCO method.

All comments

Noemi.andres

Hi @DingZ

Assuming your module in Anaplan has Years as the Time dimension and your columns headers as line items, then the formula would work if you use functions such as PREVIOUS(), OFFSET(), POST() to refer to the previous time periods and retrieve these values into the designed period

I would personally build it as: PREVIOUS(Effective Rates)*(1+Inflation Rate)

Hope this helps!

Noemi.andres

In this forum you can find some interesting facts about which one of the functions (PREVIOUS, OFFSET, LAG) is better to use in terms of performance. Hope you find it useful!

https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Anaplan-Platform-Discussions/Performance-Comparison-OFFSET-LAG-PREVIOUS-LOOKUP/m-p/51140#M7603

rob_marshall

@DingZ ,

@Noemi.andres is absolutely correct. In this instance, PREVIOUS() would be the preferred function for performance reasons.

Rob

JaredDolich

@DingZ

@Noemi.andres suggestion is a good one.

Additionally, you can create what's called a system module, a separate module that only contains the annual inflation rates.

Then you can just look it up from you calculation module.

Check out DISCO method.

DingZ

Thanks Jared, I think eventually I'll go for this suggestion since it is more sustainable.

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