Finance · Fusion · Intermediate
Implementing Project Portfolio Management: From Organization Structure to Recognized Revenue
Twenty modules across two offerings most courses treat as one product
A practical implementation course for PPM functional consultants, project accountants, PMO leads inheriting a system, and finance staff in project-driven businesses. It opens with the distinction that decides everything after it: this domain is not one product. Project Financial Management is bought by Finance and ends at the general ledger; Project Execution Management is bought by the PMO and ends at the schedule and the people. Scoping the wrong one costs a week and a lot of credibility, and the course is built so either audience can take the path that is theirs. It then covers the three decisions you do not get to make twice — the organization structure, the project types, and the resource breakdown structures — the accounting seam where a project transaction becomes a journal line, and the reason invoicing and revenue recognition are two separate events. Every module ends with a failure segment and a diagnostic sequence.
SAR 1,300
198 lessons · 1,507 min
What you will be able to do
- Run the scoping conversation that decides which of the two offerings a client actually needs, and write a scope statement that names applications rather than a product
- Trace any project transaction from a timecard to a journal line, and explain every hop to a controller
- Model a project business as business units, project units and classified organizations — and defend a project unit design you only get to make once
- Design a project type list that expresses behavioural difference, and recognise the far larger set of differences that belong in a classification instead
- Design planning and reporting resource breakdown structures that a project manager can plan with and an executive can report from
- Configure plan types, budgets, forecasts and progress so that a monthly cycle is fast enough that busy people actually complete it
- Build burden structures and cross-charge so that indirect cost and cross-business-unit work land where Finance intends
- Build the transaction account definitions that turn a project cost into an account combination — the most technically demanding setup in the catalogue
- Configure contracts, bill plans and revenue plans, and explain why invoicing and revenue recognition are separate events that produce unbilled and unearned balances
- Reconcile unbilled and unearned to the general ledger, and diagnose a break by naming the failing step
- Configure the execution side — enterprise resources, pools, utilization targets and time entry — for an audience that uses it daily rather than a handful of times
- Build the project templates that package every decision above into something a project manager can use in under two minutes
What you should know first
- Project delivery and basic accounting literacy — you have seen a project budget and know what a journal line is
- No prior experience of this platform is assumed
- Access to a practice environment, or willingness to follow the screenshot guides
- A ledger, legal entity and business unit must exist in that environment. This platform posts project cost to a ledger, so that structure is a hard prerequisite rather than a convenience.
- ENTERPRISE CONTRACTS, for the billing modules. Project billing does not function without it: if your environment does not have it, Modules 14 and 15 are read-only for you. Stated here rather than discovered later — a configured contract ships in the Phase 4 checkpoint pack so the capstone remains completable either way.
- Project costs normally arrive from timecards, expense reports, supplier invoices and procurement — four adjacent applications. The course ships expenditure import files so you can generate costs without implementing any of them, and labels which cost sources are simulated.
What you will cover
1. Module 0 · Orientation
How the course works, how to get an environment, and where each later module sits in a real implementation timeline. It names the two tracks so you can decide early which half of this domain is yours, names the three modules that carry permanent decisions, and explains the checkpoint packs — which matter more here than anywhere else, because PPM configuration is unusually interdependent.
- 1How this course works3 min
- 2Getting an environment2 min
- 3The PPM implementation lifecycle3 min
- 4Your setup checklist1 min
2. Module 1 · The PPM Landscape
The distinction that decides everything after it: this domain is two offerings, not one product, bought by different people to solve different problems. The module covers both application families, the scoping conversation that determines which a client needs, and the cost-to-ledger map that traces a project transaction to a journal line.
- 1Two offerings, not one productFree preview3 min
- 2The Project Financial Management applications2 min
- 3The Project Execution Management applications2 min
- 4Running the scoping conversation3 min
- 5The cost-to-ledger mapFree preview2 min
- 6Offerings, functional areas and navigation13 min
- 7Working on a PPM project2 min
- 8Lab: scope three clients and draw the map2 min
3. Module 2 · Security and Data Access
A fourth security shape. It leans on business unit data access like Financials, adds a project unit dimension, and introduces the object learners misunderstand most consistently: the project role, which governs team membership and is not a job role. Three data dimensions stack here, which means three things to check on every access question.
- 1The PPM security shape2 min
- 2Project role versus job roleFree preview2 min
- 3The roles a PPM project needs1 min
- 4Provisioning users12 min
- 5Business unit data access12 min
- 6Project unit and project-level access12 min
- 7Segregation of duties in project accounting2 min
- 8What breaks3 min
- 9Lab: build the access matrix, then build to it2 min
4. Module 3 · Organization Structures
THE FIRST FLAGSHIP, and the first of three decisions you do not get to make twice. The project unit owns project numbering and the options that govern how projects behave, and moving projects between units after transactions exist is a migration rather than a change. The module's argument in two sentences: the project unit is not the business unit, and the organization that owns a project is not necessarily the one that spends money on it. Design longer than you build — the build is under two hours and the design is a week.
- 1What we are building1 min
- 2The decision you cannot undo2 min
- 3The organization object model2 min
- 4The project unit3 min
- 5Owning versus expenditure organizations2 min
- 6Running the structure design workshop2 min
- 7Four worked structures2 min
- 8Business units and the project accounting function12 min
- 9Creating organizations11 min
- 10Classifying organizations12 min
- 11Organization hierarchies12 min
- 12Creating project units13 min
- 13Project unit options14 min
- 14Reference data set assignments11 min
- 15Associating project units with business units9 min
- 16Proving the structure works10 min
- 17What breaks3 min
- 18Lab briefing: Meridian Consulting3 min
- 19Lab solution walkthrough20 min
5. Module 4 · Calendars, Schedules and Workday Patterns
The calendars that drive project scheduling and resource availability, and why there are two calendar concepts rather than one. This module looks trivial and is not: every duration and every availability figure in the system derives from these objects, and getting them wrong makes every date wrong in a way that looks like a scheduling bug.
- 1Two calendar concepts2 min
- 2Shifts9 min
- 3Workday patterns10 min
- 4Schedules and exceptions13 min
- 5Project and resource calendars11 min
- 6What breaks2 min
- 7Lab: build the calendars and prove they differ1 min
6. Module 5 · Expenditure Types, Nonlabor Resources and Project Roles
The taxonomy every other module references — expenditure categories, types, classes, nonlabor resources and project roles. It has no glamour and enormous reach: expenditure types are stamped on every transaction and referenced by costing, billing, burdening, rates, accounting rules, budgets, forecasts and every report. Restructuring after two years of history means a mass update or a permanently split reporting history.
- 1The taxonomy everything references2 min
- 2Expenditure categories and revenue categories1 min
- 3Expenditure type classes2 min
- 4Creating expenditure types15 min
- 5Nonlabor resources13 min
- 6Project roles12 min
- 7Designing the taxonomy2 min
- 8What breaks2 min
- 9Lab: design the taxonomy from a stated P&L2 min
7. Module 6 · Rate Schedules and Pricing
The rate schedules that price every hour and every expense, and the derivation hierarchy that explains why a specific transaction priced the way it did — which is the question a PPM consultant is asked most often. The module also treats rate confidentiality as a design topic rather than an afterthought: cost rates reveal salaries, bill rates reveal commercial terms, and together they reveal margin.
- 1Cost rates and bill rates2 min
- 2The four schedule types1 min
- 3Creating person and job rate schedules14 min
- 4Nonlabor and resource class rate schedules11 min
- 5Rate sources and the derivation hierarchy16 min
- 6Currency and effective dating11 min
- 7The annual rate cycle1 min
- 8What breaks2 min
- 9Lab: rate the business and explain three transactions2 min
8. Module 7 · Project Types
THE SECOND FLAGSHIP. The project type is the behavioural template every project inherits at creation — burdening, capitalization, billing enablement, permitted transaction classes and classifications. Changing a project's type after costs exist is not practical, because it would retrospectively change how those costs should have been treated. The module's argument: project types express behavioural difference, and most of what clients want to put in one belongs in a classification or a report.
- 1What a project type governs2 min
- 2Project type classes2 min
- 3Designing the type listFree preview2 min
- 4Creating a project type12 min
- 5Burdening options12 min
- 6Capitalization options13 min
- 7Classifications11 min
- 8Expenditure type class controls10 min
- 9Billing and other options12 min
- 10Proving the type works9 min
- 11What breaks2 min
- 12Lab: five behavioural patterns and a stakeholder to answer2 min
9. Module 8 · Resource Breakdown Structures
THE THIRD FLAGSHIP, and the least understood object in the domain. The planning structure is embedded in plan types, and through them in project templates and every project ever created from one — restructuring after plans exist invalidates them. The module's argument: design the structure from the report the executive wants, then check that a project manager can actually plan against it. Both constraints matter and they pull in different directions.
- 1What we are building1 min
- 2Why the RBS is permanent2 min
- 3Resource classes and resource formats2 min
- 4Planning versus reporting structures2 min
- 5Designing the hierarchyFree preview2 min
- 6Running the RBS design workshop2 min
- 7Creating a planning RBS14 min
- 8Adding planning resources13 min
- 9Centralized versus project-level maintenance12 min
- 10Creating a reporting RBS12 min
- 11Proving the structure works10 min
- 12What breaksFree preview3 min
- 13Lab briefing: plan for a CFO and a bid team at once2 min
- 14Lab solution walkthrough18 min
10. Module 9 · Project Plan Types and Financial Plan Types
The plan types that turn resource breakdown structures into working budgets, forecasts and project plans. The design question underneath the whole module is how tightly the schedule-and-effort view and the money view are linked: tight linkage means the forecast updates from the schedule, loose linkage means two things to maintain and two versions of the truth.
- 1Two kinds of plan1 min
- 2Project plan types14 min
- 3Financial plan types: the plan class2 min
- 4Creating a financial plan type13 min
- 5Generation options13 min
- 6Currency and rate settings12 min
- 7Budgetary control settings11 min
- 8Plan version approval workflow12 min
- 9What breaks2 min
- 10Lab: two plan types, generated not retyped2 min
11. Module 10 · Budgeting, Forecasting and Progress
The planning cycle as a project business actually runs it — baseline, progress, forecast, variance — and the exception thresholds that tell a programme director where to look. The honest framing the module opens with: you are not configuring a planning system, you are configuring a monthly routine that thirty busy people have to complete in three days. Judge every decision here against that.
- 1The planning cycle2 min
- 2Creating and baselining a budget13 min
- 3Progress collection15 min
- 4Physical percent complete methodsFree preview2 min
- 5Generating a forecast13 min
- 6Progress exception thresholds12 min
- 7Variance analysis12 min
- 8Earned value basics1 min
- 9What breaks2 min
- 10Lab: run one full cycle and time it2 min
12. Module 11 · Burdening and Cross-Charge
Burden structures that load indirect cost onto projects so that project cost reflects the true cost of delivery, and cross-charge so that work delivered across business units lands in the right place. Both are Finance decisions you configure rather than decide: a wrong burden rate means the business bids badly for a year, and the cross-charge model has tax implications where legal entities differ.
- 1Why burdening exists2 min
- 2Burden structures and cost codes13 min
- 3Burden schedules and rates13 min
- 4Burden in the accounting1 min
- 5Cross-charge: the two models2 min
- 6Configuring borrowed and lent13 min
- 7Transfer price rules and schedules12 min
- 8What breaks2 min
- 9Lab: three burden treatments and a cross-charge2 min
13. Module 12 · Project Costing: the Accounting Setup
The most technically demanding configuration in this course, and the one most often handed to someone else. A consultant records eight hours on a project; which account does the resulting cost hit, given that nobody typed one? The answer is rules that build an account combination from attributes of the transaction — abstract, dependent on the client's chart of accounts, and with failures that are silent until someone reconciles. The phase this module opens has a different audience: everything before it was a project conversation, and this is a finance conversation held in a project system.
- 1The accounting problem2 min
- 2The project costing details flexfield13 min
- 3Cost collection and the additional segment12 min
- 4Value sets for the flexfield11 min
- 5Transaction account definitions explained2 min
- 6Mapping sets13 min
- 7Building a transaction account definition15 min
- 8Associating the definition to a ledger10 min
- 9Proving the accounting works12 min
- 10What breaks3 min
- 11Lab: a mapping a controller could sign2 min
14. Module 13 · Project Costing: Capture and Processing
Costs from every source, processed, adjusted and where relevant capitalized — the full cost side of a project's life. The scoping fact this module makes concrete: every cost source is a separate integration and often a separate implementation, so a client wanting all of them is running several projects rather than one.
- 1Where project costs come from2 min
- 2Timecards and labour cost12 min
- 3Expense reports and supplier invoices13 min
- 4Expenditure import14 min
- 5Validation and adjustment13 min
- 6Commitments11 min
- 7Capitalization and asset creation15 min
- 8Cost processing and period close12 min
- 9What breaks3 min
- 10Lab: every source, every error, one closed period2 min
15. Module 14 · Project Billing: Contracts, Invoice and Revenue Methods
The contract structures that turn project costs into invoices and revenue. The fact clients routinely do not know until you tell them: project billing runs through Enterprise Contracts, so no contract means no invoice and no revenue. And the concept this module exists to correct — invoicing and revenue recognition are two separate events, and the gap between them is unbilled and unearned.
- 1The contract dependency2 min
- 2Contracts, lines and projects2 min
- 3Bill plans and revenue plansFree preview2 min
- 4Invoice methods14 min
- 5Revenue methods13 min
- 6Creating a contract14 min
- 7Associating projects and tasks11 min
- 8Contract types and approval11 min
- 9Proving the association works10 min
- 10What breaks2 min
- 11Lab: a master agreement, a fixed price, and one task that must not bill2 min
16. Module 15 · Project Billing: Formats, Events and Processing
The invoice a client actually receives, revenue recognized and accounted, and a billing period that closes and reconciles. The culminating deliverable is the reconciliation: unbilled and unearned are balance sheet accounts, the auditors will test them, and agreeing them to the ledger is the working paper every project accountant wants and few consultants provide.
- 1Invoice formats14 min
- 2Event types13 min
- 3Billing extensions1 min
- 4Billing cycles and generation13 min
- 5Invoice review and approval13 min
- 6Transfer to Receivables11 min
- 7Revenue recognition and accounting13 min
- 8Billing period close and reconciliation14 min
- 9What breaks2 min
- 10Lab: close a billing period that reconciles2 min
17. Module 16 · Project Performance Reporting
The reporting layer for a different audience from every other module: the person who oversees forty projects and has an hour a week, whose only question is which projects need their attention. The dependency is worth stating plainly — performance reporting is only as good as everything before it, and a wrong resource breakdown structure, unreliable progress or stale forecasts all surface here as confident nonsense.
- 1What performance reporting is for2 min
- 2Performance measures11 min
- 3Creating key performance indicators14 min
- 4Thresholds and status11 min
- 5Summarization11 min
- 6Dashboards and the executive view11 min
- 7What breaks1 min
- 8Lab: five questions, six KPIs at most2 min
18. Module 17 · Project Execution Management
The delivery side — enterprise resources, resource pools, utilization targets, the enterprise project structure and time entry. This is the execution track's core module and can be taken directly after the foundations plus the calendars module. It also changes what "good" means: execution tools are used daily by dozens or hundreds of people, where financial configuration is used by a handful, so usability matters more here than anywhere else in the course.
- 1The execution side2 min
- 2Common project execution options13 min
- 3Project enterprise resources15 min
- 4Labour and expense resources12 min
- 5Resource pools13 min
- 6Target utilization11 min
- 7Maintenance conditions10 min
- 8The enterprise project structure12 min
- 9User groups and roles10 min
- 10Time entry and processing profiles13 min
- 11What breaks2 min
- 12Lab: staff a practice and minimize a time sheet2 min
19. Module 18 · Project Templates and Workflows
The module that assembles the whole course. Almost everything configured in the preceding modules exists so that a project template can carry it — the template is what a project manager touches, and everything else is plumbing. It also covers the workflows and scheduled processes that keep the system running, and the operational runbook, which is the most valuable single deliverable you leave behind.
- 1The template is the deliverableFree preview2 min
- 2Designing the template set2 min
- 3Creating a project template15 min
- 4Template plan structure and RBS12 min
- 5Financial plan types and billing on the template12 min
- 6Team, classifications and defaults11 min
- 7Approval workflows13 min
- 8Profile options and scheduled processes13 min
- 9What breaks2 min
- 10Lab: four templates, timed, and a runbook2 min
20. Module 19 · Full PPM Capstone
A brief and an empty environment. A 700-person professional services and engineering group with two business units, cross-unit working, capital and internal projects, confidential rates, and a PMO director asking for eight project units. Nine deliberate ambiguities you must resolve and justify. The graded centrepiece is the cost-to-revenue trace: one hour of a consultant's time followed from timecard to journal line and to recognized revenue, explained in plain language.
- 1How the capstone works2 min
- 2The client brief5 min
- 3Building your project plan14 min
- 4Submission and grading1 min
- 5Solution walkthrough60 min
- 6Common submission mistakes3 min