Configuring Assumptions and Drivers

In Axiom Capital Planning, each year's capital budget contains a set of associated driver files with configuration settings and assumptions referenced by all of the other files associated with that year's budget. Along with their other functions, driver files allow you, as the administrator, to decide which sections to include or exclude from plan files and enter many of the values that display as pre-populated in plan files and reports.

The configuration settings in the driver files can affect the structure of plan files and reports by allowing you to show/hide sections of sheets, columns, and/or rows. Assumptions are used in calculations throughout the entire capital planning process. Examples of assumptions include useful life, volume growth rates, and inflation rates.

You access and update Axiom Capital Planning drivers using the Capital Planning Drivers utility. The drivers are grouped into three main driver file types: Assumptions, Configuration, and Ranking. These driver file types display at the top of the utility as tabs. To update the driver in a particular file, click the tab drop-down, and select the driver to update.

The following table describes each driver file and the drivers associated with it:

Driver File	Description	Drivers
Assumptions	Used primarily for Threshold projects and the calculation of Capital Constraints for your organization, be it Threshold or Non-Threshold.	Useful Life Assumptions Pro Forma defaults Risk Adjusted Discount Rate
Configuration	Used to configure the look, feel, and design of what Axiom Capital Planning displays to a user as they interact with the input of capital projects.	General Setup Templates Project Type Input Table Picklists Text Fields Purchase Input Period Table Business Plan Questions Decision Matrix Input Table Capital Related Questions Summary Financial Capital and Operating Inputs Project Group Input Table Category Input Table
Ranking	Used to set up the Capital Committee scoring sessions for your organization. Syntellis can help facilitate these sessions, if needed.	Capital Committee Voting Criteria Input Table
Constraints	Used to calculate dollars available for capital projects and allocate the capital constraint to different entities, VPs, or other areas of responsibility.	CP Constraints

NOTE: Driver files may reference dimension tables shared with other applications. Check with other application administrators before changing any of these shared dimension tables.

IMPORTANT: Whenever you create a new capital budget, review the assumptions and settings in the driver files to make sure they still apply to the current year. We recommend that you make driver changes between and not during plan cycles.

Cells in driver files are color-coded as follows:

White – Cells that you cannot modify.
Blue – Cells where you can input or modify data.

A Yes/No toggle also displays for some options that you can enable or disable.

NOTE: Depending on a user's security profile settings, certain parts of a driver file may be protected.

IMPORTANT: Any change to the configuration settings and assumptions in driver files can affect the structure and contents of any number of related plan files.