Modeling financial scenarios tutorial available from Microsoft

Kasper de Jonge has recently posted a PowerPivot model, Access database with some financial data and a white paper that provides what I think is the absolutely best way to jump start a BI initiative focused on implementing financial metrics and KPIs. Please find the overview and the download link here.

This is an absolute must read for those who are trying to understand how to implement budget and prior year variance analysis, last known value aggregation scenarios (used for headcount analysis) and many other extremely useful calculations. The dataset is also included with the typical dimensionality for a finance application – Account, Time and Profit Center.