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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Setup Considerations: Plan Hierarchies

Setup Considerations: Plan Hierarchies

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of plan hierarchies. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Workday plan hierarchies enable you to link plans and budgets in a hierarchical structure, making it easier to control and report on multiple plans and budgets simultaneously.
Virtual parent-child plans link multiple child plans to 1 parent plan while true parent-child plans link 1 child to 1 parent.

Business Benefits

  • Parent plans contain their own budget amounts or aggregate amounts from linked child plans. This enables you to view the details for the parent and linked child plans in 1 place.
  • You can use plan hierarchies to run a single budget check for multiple plans simultaneously, reducing the number of exceptions for review.
  • Plan hierarchies improve reporting efficiency by enabling you to consecutively link high-level budgets to subordinate-level budgets that increase in granularity with each level. As you progress through the levels, the budget details become more refined.
  • You can use plan hierarchies to budget check at higher levels than your budget entries. This gives you the flexibility to create budgets with more dimensions and control them at levels that aggregate your budget amounts based on fewer dimensions.
  • You can use virtual plan hierarchies to consolidate budget and plan amounts from different plan types for improved control and reporting.

Use Cases

  • You can use a plan hierarchy to report on summary plan amounts using a parent budget and report on more granular plan amounts using child budgets.
  • You can link child budgets from different companies to a parent budget in a virtual plan hierarchy.
  • You can ensure that child budget amounts don't exceed the budget limits set at the parent in a true plan hierarchy.
  • You can use a virtual plan hierarchy to consolidate multiple budgets into a single parent summary amount to budget check your transactions against.

Questions to Consider

Question
Considerations
How do you create and manage budget amounts?
You can use 1 of these hierarchy types to manage budget amounts:
  • True plan: Use when you need to enter budget amounts at multiple levels with varying levels of granularity. You can create an unlimited number of hierarchy levels.
  • Virtual plan: Use to consolidate individual budget entries virtually at a summary level and link position and financial plan types to the same parent plan structure. You can only create 2 hierarchy levels.
How can you use budget check in a plan hierarchy?
You can budget check at these levels:
  • Child: Workday checks each child configured for budget check, giving you tighter control over your budget and enabling you to identify which child plan fails.
  • Parent: You only need to configure budget check for 1 budget or plan. Since parents contain aggregate amounts and fewer dimensions, you check your transactions against the overall budget summary instead of the more granular child budgets. Example: You create child budgets at the company, ledger account, and cost center levels for reporting purposes. You can enable budget check on the parent plan to control your budgets at the company or ledger account summary level.
  • Both child and parent: Enables you to control budgets and plans at the aggregated parent level and more granular child entry level.
How do you want amendments to update existing plans or budgets?
  • Use a true plan hierarchy to amend the parent and each child plan level individually. Amendments on the parent plan don't impact the child, but amendments on child or grandchild plans can cascade up to the parent.
  • Use a virtual plan hierarchy to make an amendment on a child budget plan that impacts the parent summary. You can make amendments on the child plan or budget but not the parent.
How do you want to report on plans or budgets in a hierarchy?
You can use structured dimensions for reporting. Example: On a child plan, you report at the individual cost center level. On the parent plan, you report at the cost center hierarchy level. The child-level report provides a detailed view, whereas the parent-level report returns a summary view.

Recommendations

To avoid double-counting budget amounts when converting historical transactions into hierarchies, Workday recommends being aware of:
  • Existing budgets you link to your new plan hierarchy.
  • The sources for the amounts in the budgets that you link in your new plan hierarchy.
Run budget check at the parent level when you link many child plans and budgets to the same parent plan.

Requirements

Child plans are a subset of the parent plan so they must have the same summary schedule as or a more granular schedule than the parent plan.
For virtual plan hierarchies, parents must include at least 1 structured dimension from the children.
For true plan hierarchies:
  • Use a Financial plan type for both parent and child plan structures.
  • Children must include all structured dimensions from the parent.

Limitations

  • True parent structures only support 1 child per level.
  • Virtual parent structures don't contain their own plan lines.
  • You can't amend virtual parent budgets or plans.
  • Workday only supports 2 hierarchy levels for virtual plan hierarchies. Virtual child plans can’t be a parent to another child plan.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Users with access to the
Set up: Budget General
 domain in the Budgets functional area can configure plan hierarchies.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
Child Budget Exceptions
  • Use to view child plan line amounts that exceed the parent summary.
  • Supports plans in true plan hierarchies.
Plan Consolidation
  • Use to create aggregated reports based on multiple financial plans.
  • Supports plans in virtual plan hierarchies.
Plan Structure Hierarchy Name
  • Use to compare the structure dimensions and schedules of parent and child plans.
  • Supports plans in true plan or virtual plan hierarchies.
View Plan
  • Use to create reports on individual financial plans.
  • Supports plans in virtual plan hierarchies.

Integrations

No impact.

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.