Planning directly in the Power BI using accoTOOL

accoTOOL consists of three main components (visuals in Power BI):

• accoPLANNING – planning and editing values with writeback
• AccoMASTERDATA – management of code lists (planning structures and dimensions)
• AccoCOMMENT – advanced work with comments

In this first article, we will focus on the general benefits of the accoTOOL solution and why it makes sense to plan directly in the Power BI environment.

Why plan directly in Power BI

In reporting today, we typically work with linked data from various primary systems—such as ERP (SAP, Helios, Dynamics), CRM (Salesforce), accounting, HR systems, manufacturing applications, or specialized operational databases.

One of the most common reporting tasks is comparing actuals with the plan:

actual costs vs. budget, actual sales vs. forecast, capacity vs. utilization plan.

While data describing “what actually happened” comes automatically from primary systems into reporting, the plan is often created and edited outside of it — typically in Excel or another separate tool. This creates the need for exports, consolidation, and repeated uploading of data back to the central database.

This is where accoTOOL comes in. Thanks to the accoPLANNING component, it allows you to create and edit plans directly in the Power BI environment — and in addition to the ability to “change numbers,” it offers advantages that you will appreciate if a larger team is involved in creating the plan:

• Advanced change allocation options, including links to other data (e.g., last year)
• The ability to display additional data for plans (e.g., the same period last year)
• Security (each organizational unit sees only its own data)
• Audit of all changes (when, who, what, and how changes were made)
• Comments (including audit trail and hard links to data)
• Simple plan versioning, combination of plan and reality (11+1, 10+2…)
• Planning process workflow management (locking, status indication by department)

How it works in practice

When you change a value in your plan and add a comment, several important steps take place in the background:

1. Authorization check
   The fact that you saw the cell and were able to edit it means that the system verified your identity and access rights. Users from other departments or with different roles may not have access to this part of the plan.
2. Immediate entry into the database
   The change is immediately saved to the database along with information about who made it and when it occurred. This is not a local edit in the report, but an actual writeback to the data store.
3. Immediate availability in other reports
   All reports that compare the plan with actuals or with another version of the plan can immediately reflect the change. There is no need to wait for data to be transferred from Excel through several intermediate steps back to Power BI.
4. Linking comments to data
   If you have attached a comment to the change, that comment can be displayed in any report where the plan is used. The comment is tightly linked to a specific combination of dimensions (e.g., account, month, plan version) and is not dependent on a specific report view.The result is a controlled and fully auditable plan editing process that takes place directly on the company database and is immediately reflected in all related reports.

Other topics in the series

accoTOOL offers a wide range of features that deserve more detailed coverage. In the following articles, we will therefore focus on practical work with the accoPLANNING component—specifically, editing values in the plan and commenting on them—and gradually on other parts of the solution.

Author: Tomáš Kasl