Setup Considerations: Allocation Plans
You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of allocation plans. It explains:
- Why to set it up.
- How it fits 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 It Is
Allocation plans support a financial process that allocates shared costs or revenue across various dimensions based on a top-down, customer-configured structured plan.
Business Benefits
You can use allocation plans to comply with legislative requirements surrounding managing and reporting of shared costs across companies, cost centers, grants, and programs.
Allocation plans support:
- Cost and revenue allocations at the transaction level.
- Incremental allocations.
- Traceability of transactions through multiple allocation tiers.
- Routing transactions that have accounting validation errors to exception pools for review and resolution.
For state and local governments, allocation plans can help to comply with federally approved cost allocation plans, such as a Public Assistance Cost Allocation Plan (PACAP).
Use Cases
Examples for how an allocation plan manager or allocation pool accountant could use allocation plans:
- To allocate the costs associated with the time for hospice care visits.
- To distribute office building costs for Administrative Support when working on food nutrition programs.
- To distribute case worker costs based on case type.
Questions to Consider
Questions | Considerations |
|---|---|
How do you want to allocate costs or revenue from 1 allocation pool to another? | You can allocate costs or revenue by a fixed percentage or statistic definition. Allocate by fixed percentage to 1 or more target allocation pools. Your percentages must sum to 100. Allocate by a statistic definition to share amounts by more granular dimensions. You can use the same type of statistic definitions as when you do ledger activity or balance allocations. The definitions can be for any fiscal schedule, but must be for actuals ledger type and include Allocation Pool as either a required or optional dimension. |
How do you want to apply the Allocation Pool worktag when creating journals? | You can apply the Allocation Pool worktag manually, but you can also apply the worktag automatically when you include it:
|
How do you want to handle allocation transactions that result in accounting validation errors? | You can:
Exception pools act as suspense accounts, preventing transactions with errors from posting to the ledger and making it easier for you to review and resolve them. You can set up separate exception pools for different error types. You can also set up an exception pool to catch transactions that have multiple types of validation errors. |
Recommendations
For optimal performance, Workday recommends limiting:
- The worktags and accounts on an allocation pool configuration that come from source lines.
- The number of tiers in your allocation plan to 10 or fewer.
Requirements
No impact.
Limitations
Allocation plans support:
- Ledger currency only, and not transaction or alternate ledger currencies.
- Summary journals only, and not detailed journals.
- Summarized payroll journals only, and not detailed payroll journals.
You can only process allocation plan runs for a specific fiscal period. You'll need to reschedule each period separately.
When you process an allocation plan and create allocation transactions, you can't modify the
Allocation Pool
journal source name on the Maintain Journal Sources
task.Tenant Setup
To customize the format of allocation pool transaction numbers, configure the
ID Generator for Allocation Pool Transactions
by accessing the Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
task. Otherwise, Workday assigns an allocation pool transaction number consisting of the allocation pool ID and a sequential number starting with 1.Security
Configure these domains in the Financial Accounting functional area:
Domains | Considerations |
|---|---|
Access Allocation Plan for Pool Creation
| Enables you to select specific plans when creating allocation pools. |
Process: Allocation Plans
| Enables you to secure processing and reporting at the allocation plan level. |
Process: Allocation Plans - Cancel
| Manage who can cancel an allocation plan run. |
Process: Allocation Plans - Process
| Manage who can process an allocation plan run. |
Process: Allocation Plans - Reporting
| View reports at the allocation plan level. |
Process: Allocation Plans - Reprocessing
| Manage who can reprocess an allocation plan run. |
Process: Allocation Plans - View
| View allocation transactions at the plan level. |
Reports: Allocation Pool Transactions
| View reporting on the transactions for an allocation pool. |
Reports: Allocation Pools
| Enables you to secure allocation pool reporting by allocation pool. |
Reports: Summarized Allocation Pool Transactions
| View summarized reporting on the transactions for an allocation pool. |
Set Up: Allocation Plan
| Create a structure for allocation pools and manage the costs that allocate to them. |
Set Up: Allocation Pool
| Create a pool for managing allocated costs. |
Set Up: Allocation Pool Hierarchy
| Create a hierarchy for managing allocation pools. |
Set Up: Allocation Pool Worktag Override Rule
| Create a rule to override or replace worktags on allocation pool transactions. |
View: Allocation Pool Transactions
| View transactions for an allocation pool. |
As you enable security groups, consider:
Security Groups | Considerations |
|---|---|
Allocation plan process administrator | Process and view reporting for allocation plan runs. This security group is user-based and unconstrained. |
Allocation plan setup administrator | Create, maintain, and view allocation plans. View allocation transactions for allocation plans to which they have access. This security group is user-based and unconstrained. |
Allocation pool accountant | Create, maintain, and view allocation pools, and view allocation transactions for those pools. |
Allocation pool company accountant | View allocation transactions for allocation pools to which they have access. |
Allocation pool hierarchy administrator | Create, maintain, and view allocation pool hierarchies. |
As you assign security roles, consider:
Security Roles | Considerations |
|---|---|
Assign roles to workers at the allocation plan level. | You can assign roles at the allocation plan level. Workers with plan level access can configure and process allocation plans. |
Assign roles to workers at the allocation pool and allocation pool hierarchy level. | You can assign roles at the allocation pool or pool hierarchy level. Workers with pool level access can configure and view reports on allocation pools. Workers with pool hierarchy level access can manage allocation pools without needing to assign the worker each pool within the hierarchy. |
Assign roles to workers at the company and company hierarchy level. | You can assign roles at the company or company hierarchy level. Workers with company or company hierarchy level access can view allocation pool transactions for that company or company hierarchy. |
Business Processes
Configure these business processes in the Financial Accounting functional area to process and approve allocation pool transactions for an allocation plan run:
- Allocation Plan Event
- Allocation Plan Reprocess Event
Reporting
Reports | Considerations |
|---|---|
Allocation Plan Summary | Enables you to trace source journal lines to final allocation pool transactions after you process an allocation plan. Workday recommends you use this report to create a custom report and configure dimensions as needed for your organization. |
Find Allocation Plan Runs | Enables you to find processing runs for an allocation plan, regardless of completion. |
Find Allocation Pool Transaction Lines | Enables you to find allocation transaction lines created by processing an allocation plan run. |
Find Allocation Pool Transactions | Enables you to find allocation transactions created by processing an allocation plan run. |
Find Allocation Pool Versions | Enables you to find versions of allocation pools assigned to an allocation plan. |
View Allocation Plan Structure | View a hierarchical structure of allocation pools assigned to an allocation plan. |
Integrations
Web Services | Considerations |
|---|---|
Get Allocation Plans
Put Allocation Plan | Enables you to retrieve and create allocation plans. |
Get Allocation Pool Worktag Override Rules
Put Allocation Pool Worktag Override Rule | Enables you to retrieve or create an override rule for worktags that you can use when configuring an allocation pool. |
Get Allocation Pools
Put Allocation Pool | Enables you to retrieve and create allocation pools.
You must use v44.0 or later of these web service operations. If you created allocation pools using these web services with the initial functionality delivered in 22R2, you must upgrade your pools by accessing the Upgrade Allocation Pool user interface (UI) task.
Security: Set Up: Allocation Pool domain in the Financial Accounting functional area. |
Get Allocation Pool Hierarchies
Put Allocation Pool Hierarchy | Enables you to retrieve and create allocation pool hierarchies. |
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.