...cash flow: accounts vs movements design

Hi all,

Building a cash flow report within HFM is always a challenge.

Up to today, I have seen two main approaches of building a cash flow report:

• Use account dimension to build calculated accounts that will retrieve data from balance sheet.
• Use the custom dimension that is used to maintain the balance sheet movements and build an alternative hierarchy for balance sheet movements to simulate the cash flow.

The first set of questions that I will try to answer is:

1. Is the quality of the data appropriate for a "movement" approach?
2. Is the granularity of the data appropriate for the "movement" approach?
3. Do you actually require to report all the additional movements?
4. Does the structure of the metadata and the reporting requirements support the "movement" approach?

In both approaches there is alway a big chance to build also input accounts or movements in order to allow users to "correct" any variances on the data.

As usual, there is not a best approach since in every application has different input and the requirements.

Let me know about your thoughts...

Have a great day!