Planning Lesson #3: Track media expenses and remaining budgets

A key objective of media planning is staying within your allocated budget.

Where to track media expenses and remaining budgets

The planning module provides different ways to track your media expenses and remaining budgets.

Expense summary sidebar

The expense summary sidebar, which is located on the right side of the planning module gives you the total expenses and remaining budgets at a glance.  It also includes total expenses grouped by media category and media.

Click on the “$” icon in the right sidebar menu of the “Planning” module to show/hide the sidebar details.

Note that the expense summary sidebar is contextual to search and filters.  This means that the totals are based on media insertions that matches the current search criteria and filters.

Also, the remaining budget is only displayed when the “Media plan” filter and/or the “Organization” filter are set.  That’s because the budget baselines are configured per organizations in a media plan. As soon as there are other filters in play, the remaining budget will display “N/A” to avoid misleading.

Analysis View

The “Analysis” view summarizes the monthly expense allocations in different angles:

• By media
• By media category
• By organization

Click on the “Analysis” view link.

Exercise: Generate a blocking chart

Follow these steps to track your expenses and remaining budgets:

• Step 1: Go to the “Planning” module.
• Step 2: Click the “Expense Summary” icon (“$”) in the right sidebar menu.  This will open the sidebar details.

Remember that the expense summary is contextual to search and filters.  Try changing the filters and search criteria.

• Step 3: Click on the “Analysis” view.
• Step 4: Click the different angles (e.g. Media, Media categories, Organizations, etc.) of the “Analysis” view.

Step 5: Click the “Export” button to save the current “Analysis” view to PDF or Excel