Understanding Allocation Structure Groupings

When you allocate based on a structural entity's head count, revenue, or other specified value, that value is likely to change on occasion. The combinations of structures that you commonly allocate across, however, will change far less frequently. Structure groupings allow you to define combinations of structures that you frequently use when allocating amounts, to be used with allocation methods whose values are not installed as percentages. The system automatically calculates the percentages based on the method and structure group chosen. If the values for a method ever change (e.g. revenue increases or head count decreases for a particular department), simply update the allocation method, and the percentages will automatically be adjusted accordingly.

In order to pair a structure grouping with an allocation method, every structural combination in the structure grouping must have an exact match in the allocation method. It does not matter if the allocation method contains structures that are not included in the structure grouping. When you select the structure grouping you wish to apply in the general ledger, Applied Epic will ignore all rows in the allocation method that are not included in that particular structure grouping.

For example, if your agency decides to allocate based on head count, you might want to just enter a single allocation method, Headcount, and enter the totals for all possible structure combinations.

In this example, you have a single agency with two branches, each with two departments. Profit centers are not allocated. You have a total of 42 employees.

You could install the following allocation structure grouping to pair with this method when you wanted to allocate between the two branches:

Structure Grouping 1

In this case, Branch 1 would receive 52.35810%; Branch 2 47.6190%.

You could also pair any of the following allocation structure groupings with this method:

Structure Grouping 2

Structure Grouping 3

Structure Grouping 4

Branch 1, Department 1 receives 56.6667%; Branch 2, Department 1 43.3333%.

In the example above, you could set the default method for all four of these structure groupings to Headcount.

It is important to note the following:

1. In this example, if you had not entered values in the allocation method at the branch level, Applied Epic would not automatically calculate the headcount at each branch, and you would not be able to allocate at the branch level using this method. The system cannot assume that each branch only has two departments. This is why every structural entity in the allocation structure grouping must be matched exactly in the allocation method.
2. If there were a change to the values for any of the structural entities, you could simply update the allocation method and the percentages would automatically calculate correctly for any items added in the future. For example, suppose Branch 2, Department 2 gained 10 new employees. You would update the allocation method accordingly:

Notice that in this example you need to update ALL rows affected. If you only updated the value for Branch 2 or the total for Branch 2, Department 2, Applied Epic would not automatically recalculate the other value (see point #1 above), and structure groupings involving that row would not allocate correctly.

3. If the agency added a third branch and entered its head count in the allocation method, the newly added branch would have no effect on existing structure groupings, unless the structure groupings were also updated to include it.
4. Allocation methods with values entered as percentages cannot be paired with structure groupings. This is because percentages will only allocate among the exact structure combinations contained in the allocation method.