Glossary
Finance & EPM/CPM Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Consolidation | Combining financial statements of multiple legal entities into a single group report, including FX translation and intercompany elimination |
| CTA (Currency Translation Adjustment) | The difference arising when P&L is translated at average rate but the balance sheet at closing rate; posted as an equity adjustment |
| Closing Rate | The exchange rate on the last day of the reporting period; used for balance sheet translation |
| Average Rate | The mean exchange rate over the reporting period; used for P&L translation |
| Historical Rate | The exchange rate at the date of the original transaction; used for equity accounts |
| NCI (Non-Controlling Interest) | The portion of a subsidiary's equity not owned by the parent; calculated as translated_amount × (1 − ownership_pct) |
| Group Amount | The parent's share of a subsidiary's translated balance: translated_amount × ownership_pct |
| Intercompany (IC) Elimination | Removing transactions between entities within the same consolidation group so they don't double-count |
| Topside Journal / Consolidation Adjustment | Manual journal entries posted at the group level (e.g., goodwill, fair-value adjustments) |
| Trial Balance | A listing of all accounts and their balances for a given period, where total debits must equal total credits |
| Fully Consolidated Trial Balance (FCTB) | The final 6-layer union: entity amounts + IC eliminations + CTA + topside adjustments + equity-method + acquisition/disposal |
| Chart of Accounts | The master list of all general ledger account codes and their types (Revenue, Expense, Asset, Liability, Equity) |
| Cost Center | An organizational unit used to track where costs are incurred (e.g., IT, Sales, Facility) |
| Driver-Based Allocation | Distributing a cost pool across recipients based on a measurable driver (headcount, square meters, revenue) |
| Spread Profile | A set of 12 monthly weights that determine how an annual budget amount is distributed across fiscal periods |
| Variance | The difference between actual and budget amounts; can be expressed as absolute, percentage, or favorable/unfavorable |
| Favorable Variance | Revenue: actual > budget. Expense: actual < budget. |
| YTD (Year-to-Date) | Cumulative total from period 1 through the current period |
| Fiscal Period | A numbered month (1–12) within a fiscal year, plus optional special periods (0 = Opening, 13 = Closing) |
| Scenario | A named version of financial data: actuals, budget, or forecast |
Technical Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Medallion Architecture | A data layering pattern: Bronze (raw) → Silver (cleaned) → Gold (business logic) |
| Bronze Layer | Raw data from source systems, type-cast and snake_cased but otherwise unmodified. Schema: epm_bronze |
| Silver Layer | Deduplicated, standardized, joined data ready for business logic. Schema: epm_silver |
| Gold Layer | Business-ready models consumed by reports and APIs. Schema: epm_gold |
| Staging Layer | Intermediate views for field renames and joins. Schema: epm_staging |
| dbt (data build tool) | An open-source SQL transformation framework that compiles Jinja-SQL into executable queries |
| Seed | A CSV file managed by dbt, loaded into the warehouse as a table (used for reference data like allocation rules) |
| Macro | A reusable Jinja template in dbt that generates SQL fragments |
| Materialization | How dbt persists a model: table (full rebuild), view (virtual), or incremental (append/merge) |
| ClickHouse | A columnar OLAP database optimized for analytical queries; used as the data warehouse |
| MergeTree | ClickHouse's primary table engine; supports sorting keys for fast range queries |
| Frappe | A Python web framework with built-in auth, roles, DocTypes, and REST API; hosts the Konsol app |
| DocType | A Frappe data model definition (schema + UI + permissions + workflow) |
| Konsol | The Frappe app that provides EPM Settings, pipeline control, and the =EPM() API |
| EPM Settings | A Frappe Single DocType storing ClickHouse connection details, Airbyte config, and dbt project path |
| Airbyte | An open-source ELT platform; extracts D365 OData entities into ClickHouse |
| abctl | Airbyte's CLI tool for self-hosted deployment |
| OData | A REST protocol used by D365 F&O to expose data entities |
| VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) | The macro language in Excel used to implement the =EPM() custom functions |
| Office.js | Microsoft's JavaScript API for building Office Add-ins (task panes, custom functions) |
| Custom Document Property | An Excel workbook-level metadata field; used to store EPM_API_URL |
Abbreviations
| Abbrev. | Expansion |
|---|---|
| BS | Balance Sheet |
| P&L | Profit and Loss (Income Statement) |
| CF | Cash Flow |
| FX | Foreign Exchange |
| IC | Intercompany |
| TB | Trial Balance |
| GL | General Ledger |
| FCTB | Fully Consolidated Trial Balance |
| EPM/CPM | Corporate Performance Management |
| EPM | Enterprise Performance Management |
| ELT | Extract, Load, Transform |
| OLAP | Online Analytical Processing |
| RBAC | Role-Based Access Control |
| SSO | Single Sign-On |
| TCO | Total Cost of Ownership |