Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Nice work Jakob,

Thanks for sharing your Case Study!

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Great work indeed, @Jakob Sebens!
Congratulations.

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

 @Jakob Sebens  Excellent work!!

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens

Nice work!

Finally! Summer! Great weather and holidays! Now for my favorite part: Create the budget plan and the recharge model. This is a thought that crosses my mind every summer, but it was not always like that...

We are a small IT company that is part of a larger holding. We provide IT Services to our companies, but one thing is always hard: Money! More precise: How do we charge our customers for the delivered services? How can we make that transparent? Where does our customer actually pay for? They all seem very obvious questions but it was not like that.

Our controller was in charge of calculating the prices and he was really good at it. The Excel file he used was blowing up very fast and every aspect of pricing and recharging was calculated, up until the tiniest detail. But how do you share this knowledge? How do you explain to people what exactly lead to the costs we are recharging to our customers and how can product owners tell how their prices are calculated? Well.. We can't.. Most of the knowledge is either captured in the Excel file or in the head. So it was then we decided we should do things differently, very differently indeed! Also, the current recharge was based on a P*Q model and since we had trouble tracking our consumption data, it was a very messy recharge.

First off we started with a blueprint of the model. The model we used was very simple, since our only goal was to have EBITA 0 at the end of the year. We went for a model with only 3 layers: The costs, the cost allocation keys and the products. We figured why not make it incredibly simple! Of course you are using a less detailed model, but since we are only recharging internal customers, we didn't mind, and guess what: Our customers didn't either.

A little while before we implemented IT-Planning. This allowed to let the product owners take the first step: Own their budget! This helped the product owners and the TBM office to get the budget in one place, in one format. It also helped us that IT-Planning could be connected to Cost Transparency for very easy analysis.

Afterwards we also used IT-Planning Service Demand to load the consumption data from the customer. The product owner was able to understand what the customers are consuming and it also helped them to forecast the consumption. Up to this point, the product owners where mostly busy with delivering their service instead of understanding the financial side.

Well, we have a budget and we understand who is going to consume what, we are good right? No, not quite.. We are missing the link between them. So we created keys in the budget to identify the budget line items on a granularity level we chose. We took a Sheet in Google Sheets and inserted those keys. We had conversations with every Product owner and asked them: Where do these costs belong to? These conversations turned out to be very valuable. After allocating all the costs we loaded everything in Apptio, and...

....horrible prices! Yes - you read that right.. But this is not a problem at all, it is only time for refinement. You see, the product owners thought certain costs belonged to certain products but on further inspection certain re-allocations should be made. After reallocating and many iterations we finally finished our pricing calculations. This was not the end for the calculations.

You see, we still couldn't answer certain questions, because right after publishing the prices to our customers, were we multiply the consumption by the price, the customer started asking questions. And this time: Finance was not going to answer all those questions, the product owner should do it themselves. It turned out they needed more information on that, so I designed reports to help them answer those questions, the reports can be seen in the slides attached.

After answering all the questions both product owners and customers were satisfied, and so was the finance team, after all: Finance is there for the control part, not the development of a recharge model.

Then for the customer, we agreed with the customer for full clarity that we are going to charge our Budgetted OpEx to them in a fixed matter, our Opex Budget / 12 every month, so the customer knows exactly what they will receive. We on the other hand only have to manage to stay in budget.

So yes - i'm looking forward to every next summer, because i can work on the greatest project of the summer: Recharging to our customers!

A special thanks to It's Value (@Peter van Loon  & @Robert Brilmayer ) for helping out on this project! You both did fantastic jobs!

Also, thank you @Debbie Hagen for your patience and super quick responses!! 

Jakob Sebens