a question regarding Budget plugin made by red1

[Andrei Miron]

Hi Community,

First of all I want to thank you for your work on iDempiere. I'm learning now how to implement iDempiere for my service company (a call center) and I'm a novice in ERP world.
Reading a lot of stuff related to iDempiere in order to:
- find out if we can do everything we are doing now in various systems and Excel with iDempiere
- prepare me for http://erp-academy.chuckboecking.com in order to deeply understand iDempiere
I find this plug-in (Budget plyhin made by Red1).
I think it is very useful for my company because it will allow us to generate cash flow forecast from iDempiere (which is a must) so many thanks to Red1 for creating this.

Now, after this long introduction (I'm sorry but it is my first post) the question: I saw that the revenue based budget can be build on history or on imported fixed figures. I think this is great for some companies like webstores, store, distribution companies etc. My question is: why the budget cannot be build from CRM information also? For companies with direct sales force (for example) it will be an incentive to use also the CRM from iDempiere and it will show the power of using one integrated software.

Thanks,
Andrei

[redhuan d. oon]

Thank you for your thank you. Credit most also go to my main sponsor, Zeeshan of Sysnova for supporting this all the way.
About your question, or suggestion, indeed that is good but can you provide some use case? For example, what data is referred to in that CRM? If that CRM can export its data into a spreadsheet, then you can already import it as you mentioned referring to my PDF on Budget. I welcome some more ideas.
Besides that i have another feature that i am toying with and still needing some time to do it:
1. Direct integration of budget rule amount to live Excel, since Java provides integration to excel sheet/field directly.
Rationale: When i was in South Africa, i saw the largest Chrome mine operational budget on a single Excel set, and there is no way that can be reversed into an ERP. After some weeks later, i realised that I need not even think about that. Just link the Budget rule field to lookup exactly the resulting budget control field in that Excel. In this way, accountants will remain excel based and the ERP will do the rest. Not even the need to import. Now, that is what Edward de Bono call 'the greatest solution is the simplest' or Sun Tze, 'The greatest battle is won without a single soldier'. :)

[Andrei Miron]

Hi Redhuan,

I'm glad that you are considering my suggestion.
I'll try to explain you the case because I'm thinking at a solution which in the same case is simple for the company and accurate in the same time.
The main objective is to have a cash flow forecast report based on budgeted revenue and payments. For a company who is selling through direct sales people the easiest way and accurate for budgeting revenue is to take in consideration:
- on-going contracts
- potential customers who are in the sales pipeline
I saw this movie http://erp-academy.chuckboecking.com/?page_id=1228 from Chuck Boecking presenting the CRM of iDempiere. So if the sales team is using iDempiere as CRM and the budget plugin is using the data from it then we can have a revenue budget based on real sales data. In my opinion this eliminate the need for importing data from other software (CRM or Excel) and provide with accurate data (more accurate then a % reference to the past for example). In the same time it is an incentive for management to enforce the spread of iDempiere to the sales department (not only finance).
If the expenses can also be linked with the sales forecast then we can have also a more accurate budget forecast.

I hope know it is more clear what is my suggestion.

Best regards,
Andrei

[redhuan d. oon]

This can mean a budget module that is also based on Document amt besides Fact-Acct and Excel imported rules as at present. Are there others who support such an idea? For those who need to read further can refer to PDF here.
The idea would be to be able to select any amt field in any set of documents in the rule table configuration. This probably can be done in the advance look up feature already there. Have to extend to cover also DocType+TableName>MatchCriteria of Sales/Purchase process.