1. How Do I Report on Actuals Against a Forecast?
Most of the time, shared services will want to look at current month’s actuals against the most recent forecast
The best place to do this is within TL-BW as actuals are refreshed every 4 hours
F&P BW is NOT the best place to run this report as actuals are refreshed only once every month AFTER the close process is completed

2. This example shows how to run the Title – Studio P&L Statement for Actuals and a Forecast Select the BW Report called Title-Studio P&L Statement

3. After the report initiates, you will see an Excel screen like the one below (this may take a minute or so) Click on the “Go” button to continue

4. You will be prompted to select the Studio Business Unit for which the P&L is to be run. Click on the drop down menu and select the business unit (BVHEI in this example). Click on the green checkmark to continue

5. Excel will open and a report selection screen will appear
Excel will open and a report selection screen will appear. Enter the appropriate data…company code, fiscal year, etc. Click the green checkmark to run the report NOTE: If unsure of what plan version to use, contact your local Finance staff. They will know what the Plan Version contains the prior forecast information

6. When the report finishes running, you will see the studio P&L in Rows, and Actual data and Plan Data in Columns. Further to the right is are actual/plan variance columns

7. At this point, you can customize the report to meet your needs using the standard BW tools. Suppose I wanted to look at the Net Revenue Actual and Plan amounts by MPM Product- First, select the P&L account(s) that should remain in the report by right clicking on “Studio P&L Row Structure” in the navigational portion of the report. Next remove the accounts not required by clicking on the de-selection arrow. When your Selection list is complete, click on OK

8. The report will reformat and look something like what is shown below
The report will reformat and look something like what is shown below. Only one line appears as I’ve selected ONLY Total Net Revenues in my row structure

9. To see a list of all products that make up the overall Total Net Revenue amounts, right click on Media Product. Select Drilldown and Down to have the list of products appear by row.

10. The report will run for a minute or so and then titles will appear, along with their forecast and variance calculation.

11. You can continue to filter/drilldown as your needs dictate
You can continue to filter/drilldown as your needs dictate. One thing that may be helpful is using Excel functionality to sort the data based on the size of the title variances. This will help you to quickly isolate the products driving the forecast/actual variance.

12. Things to Remember
Forecast versions must be submitted to the Studio within F&P before they are copied into TLBW.
The Budget version is always BFB
You can save your formatted report as a workbook within your favorites. The next time you refresh the report you won’t have to repeat the drilldown and filtering that was done using the navigational characteristics.