1. Help Center
  2. Getting Started

Glossary of Jirav Terms

There are many terms used in the vernacular of Jirav and the FP&A space. This glossary of terms continues to expand by including definitions aiding in your success.

Term

Definition

Accounts Payable (AP)

Money owed by a company to its creditors for expenses incurred in the ordinary course of business

Accounts Receivable (AR)

Money owed to a company by its customers for sales incurred in the ordinary course of business

Active Plan

A scenario that is available to view in dashboards, reports, and plan areas of Jirav

Actuals

Jirav imports actual historical data for reporting purposes. Jirav integrates accounting actuals for financial results, workforce actual detail for staffing, and key metrics on custom tables,

Amount per Headcount

Multiplies a headcount number by a dollar amount of a number to forecast values that are dependent on headcount. The input can be based on cumulated headcount or new headcount.

Annual Operating Plan

Detailed plan that lays out a company's goals (financial and other) It describes how to define success and the plan to pursue the goals. The 12-month budget is the most visible part of the annual plan. The annual operating plan includes goal setting, model building, forecasting, and budgeting, and tracking actual progress against the set goals.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Income that a company can count on receiving every year. If a three-year contract value is $36,000, then the ARR would be $12,000.

Annual Target

Set an annual budget for an account and allocate it over 12 months. The forecast for the year will automatically adjust by considering amounts actually incurred during the year.

Archive Plan

A scenario that is hidden from view in dashboards, reports, and plan areas or Jirav. An archived plan can be reinstated to be an active plan.

Assets

Property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts, commitments, or legacies.

Assumption

Like global drivers, assumptions can be used in more than plan. They can be used in the place of constants when defining planned and global drivers.

Balance Sheet

A financial statement communicating the book value of an organization in the format of original cost. A classified balance sheet separates current accounts (those easily convertible into cash within 12 months) and long-term accounts (those not easily convertible into cash within 12 months), Accounts are generally noted as Assets, Liabilities, and Equity

The standard accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Equity

Board Reporting

Many companies have a Board of Directors which oversee the company direction. Often, they do have the same operating functions that a CEO may have. Because of this the board needs to be informed on the state of the company through the board report. Often this report contains key financial metrics such as BvA and non-financial metrics.

Budget vs Actual Reporting (BvA)

Compares your budget with the revenue you actually earn and the expenses you are actually incurring during the period.

Chart of Accounts Mapping

In the GL, accounts can often be very granular such cash in each different account. In reporting, there is no need for the detailed account view, so you have multiple accounts roll up into one such as "cash".

Cost of Goods Sold (Cost of Sales)

The total amount paid as a cost directly related to the sale of products or services.

Custom Driver

A custom driver is based on two inputs with a mathematical function. It is applied to an output using the universal addressability picker. It can be rounded and has a start date with an end date

Custom Line

Represents one line on a custom table. A line can be a section, reference, or a new line.   New lines can be imported into a custom table from excel or google sheets.

Custom Table

Custom tables help define elements that are specific to your business but not tracked in the accounting or staffing data. Such data can be used for a key performance indicators allowing us to forecast.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The cost of winning a customer to purchase a product/service. e.g., if you spend $10,000 on marketing and acquire 10 customers, then the CAC would be $1k.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV is based on two components: Lifetime Value (LTV) and Gross Profit Margin (GPM).   Whereas LTV only examines gross sale per customer, CLV examines the profitability per customer.

For example: If the LTV is $18,000 and the GPM is 40%, the CLV is $7,200.

Cutover Date

The date that defines when the actual period of the plan has occurred, and the forecasted period of the plan begins

Dashboard

Groupings of charts and graphs that allow the user to visualize data pictorially.

Departmental Budgeting

Department level planning for spending for the upcoming 1/4 or fiscal year

Driver

A driver represents one or more key factors (inputs) having impact that is applied to an output. The input of a driver can be defined by ranges and reductions. The output of a driver can be controlled by a start date, end date, and rounding.   Drivers can be plan drivers or global drivers.

EBITDA

This is metric that tracks earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is computed by obtaining Net Income from the Income Statement and subtracting interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Element

An individual report in a report template (reporting package) is referred to as an Element.

End Date

When used in a driver, the end date represents the latest date when the driver should be applied to the output. It is the minimum plan date, specific date or cutover date, or maximum plan date.

Fixed Spread

Set a budget for a period that does not change as actual amounts are actually incurred.

Forecasting

You view the outputs of your model to help determine if goals set in the original annual operating plan are still reasonable.   As a company moves into the future, the original plan can roll forward with adjustments made based on updated forecasts.

General Ledger (GL)

Account numbers and/or account descriptions that are used to categorize financial transactions. Most common general ledger account types are Revenue, Expenses, Assets, Liabilities, and Equity.

Expenses are divided into deeper account types referred to as cost of goods sold, operating expenses, and other expenses.

Assets and Liabilities are divided into deeper account types referred to as Current (those that are easily converted into cash within 12 months) and Long-term (those that are not easily converted into cash within 12 months)

Global Driver

Global drivers can be accessed by more than one plan. They are associated with custom tables and must be custom drivers.

Gross Profit

On the Income Statement, this is computed by subtracting Cost of Sales from Revenue. The Gross Profit only includes costs that directly associated with providing its goods or sales for sales

Growth on Historicals

Applies a growth percentage to a historical amount. Requires data from two years prior and one year prior to compute a growth percentage formula.

Income Statement (Profit and Loss Statement)

This is the financial statement that presents Revenue and Expenses. Expenses are typically presented in three steps: Cost of Sales, Operating Expenses, and Other. These steps allow the user to view three important subtotals:

Revenue – Cost of Sales = Gross Profit Margin

Gross Profit Margin – Operating Expenses = Operating Income

Operating +- Other = Net Income

The income statement along with the balance sheet and statement of cash flows helps users understand the financial health of a business.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Demonstrates how well a company is achieving their goals and expectations.

Liability

The future sacrifices of economic benefits that the entity is obliged to make to other entities because of past transactions or other past events,[1] the settlement of which may result in the transfer or use of assets, provision of services or other yielding of economic benefits in the future.

Lifetime Value (LTV)

LTV is a component of total Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). There are three sub-components of LTV: average value of sales, number of transactions, and retention time period.

For example: If the average monthly subscription is $500, and the average customer purchases a 12-month contract and renews the 12-month contract for two more years, then the LTV is $18,000.

Linking to the GL

The GL is where all the transactional accounting data is recorded in accounting systems that feed trial balances and chart of accounts into Jirav. When companies have rolling forecasts in excel - the process of manually exporting the data, reformatting, and entering it into the excel sheet can be very manual and take lots of hours. It can also lead to mistakes and errors. When there is direct linkage to the GL the forecast can update in real time with the new data and have no risk of manual error.

Maximum Date

The end date of a plan

Minimum Date

The start date of a plan

Model Building

Allows users to incorporate decisions that have financial impact on the company’s business operations. Also referred to as a driver-based model whereby a company can incorporate decisions (that act as levers) impacting different parts of a business

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Income that a business can count on receiving every single month. If a three-year contract value is $36,000, then the MRR would be $1,000

Net Income

On the Income Statement, this is computed by subtracting all expenses (cost of sales, operating expenses, and other) from Revenue.   The Net Income measures the profit realized after considering all sources revenue and expenses.

Operating Expenses (OpEx)

Any expenses that a business incurred that is not capitalized. Examples: Salaries, bonus, marketing, insurance, R&D

Operating Income

On the Income Statement, this is computed by subtracting both Cost of Sales and Operating Expenses from Revenue. The Operating Income measures the profit realized from a business operation

Percent of Another Account

Allows you to apply a driver based on a percentage of another account or input from the staffing table, custom table, goals, or KPI library.

Periodic Growth

Applies a growth percentage or number on a periodic basis to a calculated amount.

Plan

A plan represents a specific source scenario based on actual and forecasted amounts. Jirav allows you to have multiple plans.   For instance, a company can have a “Annual Base Operating Plan”, a “Best Case Scenario Plan” and a “Worst Case Scenario Plan”. Plans can be active plans, archived plans, or plans of record

Plan Driver

Plan drivers can only be used within one plan.   They can be standard drivers or custom drivers

Plan Management

A plan represents a specific scenario. It has a start date known as the minimum date and an end date known as the maximum date. Included in between minimum date and the maximum date is the cutover date; the cutover date dictates when the actual period end and the forecasting period begins.

Plan of Record

An active plan can become a plan of record making it uneditable. Making a plan of record permanently locks down the plan making it read only and permanently saved for auditability. An active plan of record can be viewed in reports, dashboards, and plans. Once made a plan of record, it cannot be reversed; however, a plan of record can be cloned into an editable plan

Pro-Forma

Typically, Financial Statements such as the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement Cash Flows are based on historical, actual amounts. However, when the Financial Statements are based on forecasted plans, they are often referred to as Proforma.

Range

Ranges provide the ability to select varying lengths of time. This is used to gather inputs and/or present outputs in a dashboard tile, report element, and perform mathematical calculations within drivers. Jirav delivers default ranges and users can also create custom ranges.

Reduction

When a selected range encompasses more than one period, the reduction determines how to aggregate the selected value. Examples include sum, average, maximum, and minimum.

Report Template

Jirav allows you to create reporting packages containing standard financial reports like the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement. Users can also create supporting schedules and operating reports. Reports can be based on a variety of sources including actual and planned amounts. It is possible to include dashboards in a report template.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investments (ROI)- Performance measurement on the efficiency of an investment

Rolling Forecast

Managing tool that allows org. to cont. plan over a set time frame and once that timeframe has expired the tool will re-forecast for the next upcoming time frame.

Setup

You define the values in the Setup area of Jirav that are used in plans, reports, and dashboards. Common values defined in the Setup area include: Actuals, Company, Chart of Accounts, Departments, Users, Custom Tables, Global Drivers, and Assumptions.

Standard Drivers

Standard drivers include Annual Target, Fixed Spread, Growth on Historicals, Amount per Headcount, Percent of Another Account, and Custom Driver

Start Date

When used in a driver, the start date represents the earliest date when the driver should be applied to the output. It is the minimum plan date, specific date, cutover date, or maximum plan date.

Statement of Cash Flows

The Statement of Cash Flows aggregates data related to sources of cash received and uses of cash disbursed. All receipts and disbursements are divided into three activities: Operating Activities, Investing Activities, and Financing Activities.

Subitem

Useful for fixed expenses that are specific to a month and an account. For example, contractor expense planned by individual contractor.

Tile

An individual chart or graph included in a dashboard is referred to as a tile. Jirav uses several tile types including column charts, line charts, horizontal row charts, tables, stacked column charts, and donut charts.

Trial Balance

A trial balance contains all the general accounts and their totals for a respective period of time. It is the report where debits and credits are proven to be in balance before preparing the financial statements referred to the as the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows

Universal Addressability Picker (UA)

To simplify selections of data for users, Jirav utilizes an engine to point at any data line within the model using a filter. The UA Picker is used throughout Jirav – you will find it on dashboard tiles, report elements, and drivers.

For example: the field of Category on a driver points to the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Staffing, Custom Tables, and Key Assumptions. If you select the Category of Balance Sheet, the UA Picker filters out all information except Assets, Liabilities, and Equity

Workforce Planning

Methodology for making sure the right people with the right skills are where they need to be in the organization.