fm finances

Continuous cost and budget control is a key success factor in IT controlling. In addition to the recording of actual costs and current liabilities, the plans for future fiscal years have to be regularly updated and adjusted.

Overhead costs are allocated pro-rata to the respective projects and organizational units. High transparency and cost allocation based on the actual use of IT resources help gain wide acceptance for internal prices and cost allocation.

The Financial Module (FM) adds the cost perspective of software license management to the compliance check of SmartTrack. In addition to usage and maintenance costs, SmartTrack can record all payments made in connection with IT master agreements, e.g. for the procurement of hardware or services. FM supports the definition of cost allocation formulae or their import from an ERP or planning system. These formulae determine how costs are allocated to projects and written off. Cost allocation results can be documented in cost reports, exported to other systems via open interfaces or graphically analysed and automatically distributed as a PDF file.

For budget and cost planning purposes, FM breaks down all payments by cost types and budgets. The current status of payments is compared to the IT budget. The inclusion of liabilities improves cost control and permits taking early measures if IT expenses are too high. An Excel sheet with current data for budget management can be produced at the touch of a button.

FM's integrated reporting engine allows the flexible presentation of IT costs. The costs per manufacturer and fiscal year, cost savings made by reusing licenses or estimated costs of purchasing the required number of product licenses ("cost of compliance") can, for example, be graphically displayed. Moreover, FM permits the rapid creation of customer-specific charts and dashboards. Every SmartTrack user has a report directory for convenient management of the analyses produced.
 
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