Record Actual Costs incurred on an initiative during the Project stage for monitoring purposes.
Once the Business Case for an initiative has been approved, it is transitioned into the project stage and a Project ID assigned. Once a project ID has been assigned, procurement activities can generally commence, with all project costs recorded against this Project ID in the financial system. Actual costs can be updated in Stratex Online via automated API interface , or manually recorded as explained here.
The uploading of actuals can be restricted to admins only by enabling the checkbox.
Key Concepts
Updating actual and forecast costs in Stratex Online allows for effective analysis of planned, budgeted, and actual expenditure in order to take mitigating action where variances are observed.
Actual Costs can only be updated when an Initiative is in the Project Stage.
Actual Costs can be manually entered, uploaded via spreadsheet or integrated from a source system.
Actual Costs are recorded for both CapEx and OpEx classifications.
Actual Costs can be updated in either local currency of the legal entity assigned to the selected area or the group currency.
Administrators can control which months are open for update. Once all costs are updated, the administrator can close the current financial period.
Actual Costs are combined with Forecasts to Go to produce an expenditure Forecast.
If a higher-level area is selected from the org structure, enabling ‘Include Subordinates’ will make initiatives in the lower areas visible.
Users can filter initiative by entering an Initiative ID or Project ID in the search box to view actuals for a specific initiative.
Users can toggle the Totalling Type to view Overall or Current FY totals for Actuals, Forecast to Go, Forecast, Planning, and Budgeted.
Users can view initiatives associated with a Company Code by selecting the desired company.
Instructions
Follow the Manage>Progress>Actuals menu path.
Select your focus Area, and a list of Initiatives in the Project Stage that you are authorized to access is displayed, with 2 rows for CapEx and OpEx costs splits. A subtotal is automatically calculated for each Initiative.
Actual Costs are maintained by Fiscal Year. Select the relevant fiscal year for actual cost maintenance.
The following informational columns are displayed per initiative:
Capex/Opex
Project ID (if applicable)
Currency (the currency of the initiative)
Actual (Cost To Date for the Year)
Forecast To Go (the best estimate of future costs for the year)
Forecast (the sum of Actual and Forecast To Go)
Plan (the latest estimate of the initiative cost)
Approved (the total amount that was approved in the business case submission)
Budget (the amount that was allocated during the portfolio planning and approval process)
Update actual costs in the column corresponding to the month the costs were incurred. Only open months can be updated.
If required, click Export button to generate an Excel version of the Actual Cost entry template.
Update costs by Initiative ID, Description, capex/opex, and Month (column e.g Nov-24, Dec-24) in the spreadsheet, and click Upload in Stratex to update actual accordingly.
Once the projects have been updated, click Save.
You can filter the list of initiatives based on whether the selected area is the benefiting area or the sponsoring area, by toggling between the two options.
You can filter to view only CapEx lines, OpEx lines, or both by selecting the desired options from the dropdown below the Area dropdown.
You can filter the list of initiatives based on whether the selected area is the benefiting area or the sponsoring area, by toggling between the two options.
To view the sum of the columns, toggle to Group Currency.
The forecast value excludes the actuals for the current month.
Actuals can only be entered if a monthly template is selected; other templates will be available in view-only mode.
For example, the actual cost upload spreadsheet may be prepared as follows:
