Where Actual Figures Come From
Every plan type reads its actuals from a different producer. This is the map — and the rules that apply to all of them.
The Planner never stores an actual. Each time you open a plan, the server takes every target line — one row, one metric, one period — and asks the producer that owns those numbers what really happened.
The Map
| Plan type | Metric | Read from | Which activity falls in the period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | Value | Posted invoices, sales receipts, and credit notes for that item | By each document’s own business date |
| Sales | Units | The quantity on those same documents | By each document’s own business date |
| Purchases | Value and units | Posted purchase documents recorded against vendors for that item | By each document’s own business date |
| Expenses | Amount | The account’s posted ledger activity, taken as a positive figure | By the ledger date |
| Cash Flow | Amount | The account’s net posted movement, taken as a positive figure | By the ledger date |
| Production | Units | Production output recorded for that product; by-products and waste excluded | By the run’s start date |
| Production | Cost | The total cost of every production run in the period | By the run’s start date |
| Payroll | Amount | Net pay — compensation and allowances, less deductions and taxes — from pay schedules with status Approved | By the schedule’s pay date |
| P&L | Everything | The linked sub-plans’ own actuals, summed | — |
Rules That Apply Everywhere
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Only posted documents count | Drafts, unapproved documents, and unposted journals are invisible to the Planner. So are pay schedules that are Draft, Pending, or Voided. |
| Each cell is read for its own window | A target is read for the exact period start and end of its own column, not for the plan’s whole span. |
| Recomputed on every visit | There is no snapshot and no cached actual. A completed period changes if a document is posted into it late. |
| A figure that cannot be read reads zero | If the producer cannot answer for a row — the item was deleted, the account was archived — the actual reads 0 rather than erroring the page. A row you know had activity showing 0 is worth investigating rather than accepting. |
| Quantity does not add to the value total | Plan totals and attainment come from the value metric only. Units are reported alongside, never folded in. |
Center Scope
| Plan type | Does a center-scoped plan narrow its actuals? |
|---|---|
| Sales | Yes — that center’s documents only. |
| Purchases | Yes — that center’s documents only. |
| Production | Yes — runs at that production center only. |
| Payroll | Yes — employees at that center only. |
| Expenses | No — the account is read company-wide. |
| Cash Flow | No — the account is read company-wide. |
Two Figures That Are Not What They Look Like
The units on a Production plan are read per product. The cost is not — it is the total cost of every production run in the period. On a plan with several products, every product row therefore shows the same actual cost, and the plan's cost total counts it once per row.
Both read the account's activity for the business as a whole. A center-scoped Expenses plan compares one branch's budget against the company's spend. Use the Finance reports, which do filter by center, when the split matters.