Platform · business logic
Your rules, defined once. Applied to every number, everywhere.
Financial business logic is the context, rules, calculations, and consolidations behind your numbers. Cube runs them in one governed model.
| $K | Mar 2026 |
|---|---|
| US entity | 1,842 |
| UK entity · £728K × 1.261 | 918 |
| Management fee elimination | (86) |
| Royalty elimination | (60) |
| Consolidated revenue | 2,614 |
The hidden machinery
Where does your logic live today?
In cell formulas
One broken reference and the allocation is quietly wrong for a quarter.
In someone's head
The analyst who built the FX workbook left in March, and nobody can explain row 47.
Rebuilt every close
Eliminations and allocations get reassembled by hand, month after month.
Defined once, applied everywhere
How financial business logic works in Cube
Four kinds of logic live in the governed model, on top of your unified data, and run wherever the numbers show up.
Context
Dimensions, hierarchies, and metric definitions. What each number means, agreed once.
Rules
Mappings, validations, and permissions. What is allowed, and who sees what.
Calculations
Allocations, currency conversion, KPIs, and driver formulas, computed in the model instead of the cell.
Consolidations
Entity rollups, intercompany eliminations, and FX translation, run automatically as actuals land.
Context, governed
One definition of margin, everywhere
Metric definitions and hierarchies live in the model, so a change made once shows up in every report, plan, and answer.
- Gross margin
- Revenue
- Product revenue NS 4000
- Services revenue NS 4100
- Cost of revenue
- Hosting NS 5000
- Support & delivery NS 5100 · WD 5010
- Revenue
Margin means this, in every report. Change the definition once and every surface inherits it.
Calculations, live
The model does the math
Direct spend fetches live, and the allocation rule distributes corporate costs by headcount. The totals never move.
| $K · Mar 2026 | Engineering | S&M | G&A | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct spend | 812 | 664 | 486 | 1,962 |
| Corporate allocation · by headcount | +292 | +146 | (438) | 0 |
| After allocation | 1,104 | 810 | 48 | 1,962 |
Many entities, one close
Watch a consolidation run
Two entities, governed FX, and intercompany eliminations, consolidated as the actuals land. Every step opens to its rows.
| Intercompany eliminations | $K |
|---|---|
| US → UK management fee | (86) |
| UK → US royalty | (60) |
| Eliminations | (146) |
| Currency translation | Value |
|---|---|
| UK entity ledger | £728K |
| Governed avg rate · Mar | 1.261 |
| Translated | $918K |
Why move the logic
What changes when logic lives in the model
The close math runs itself
Allocations, FX, and eliminations execute as actuals land. The rebuilt-workbook ritual ends.
Logic you can read
Rules are explicit, versioned, and owned by finance, instead of buried in cell references.
Every calculation traces
A calculated figure opens to its rule, and the rule opens to the source rows it ran on.
Finance-owned
Your logic, without a rebuild
The rules move into the model; the tools you work in stay put.
Rules finance can read
Written and changed by your team, guided by ours.
Of sources feed it
Hundreds of source systems land in the model your logic runs on.
Rip-and-replace
Keep the spreadsheets. Move the logic.
Onboarding
Hands-on setup with a named contact.
FP&Agents · rule-aware
Agents that respect your rules
FP&Agents compute with your definitions and your permissions, so an AI answer is the official answer.
Analyst
Answers use your metric definitions. Margin means your margin, in chat and in the deck.
Planner
Scenario changes recalculate through allocations, FX, and consolidation automatically.
Data Manager
Flags rule conflicts and unmapped accounts before they reach a report.
New hires in Q2: 4
New hires in Q2: 12
New hires in Q2: 20
One driver changed. Allocations, FX, and consolidation recalculated downstream.
Where rules pay off
The workflows that stop hurting
Multi-entity consolidation
Entities, currencies, and eliminations run as rules, and the close stops depending on heroics.
Cost allocations
Corporate costs distribute by the driver you choose, the same way every month.
FX translation
Governed rates by account type and period, applied consistently and traced.
Scenario planning
Change a driver and every downstream calculation follows.
Board reporting
Calculated figures in the deck survive the follow-up question.
Variance analysis
Variances decompose through the rules that produced them.
See your rules run.
Bring a real allocation, elimination, or metric definition to the demo.
Rules about the rules
Who can change the logic?
Governance is part of the logic itself. The full posture lives on our security page.
Versioned changes
Every rule edit is recorded, with who, when, and what changed.
Approval workflow
Cube proposes and finance approves. Nothing changes silently.
Entity-level permissions
Who sees which entity, account, and scenario is itself a rule.
Read-only by default
Connections read from your sources; write-back is explicit.
Already convinced? Book a demo. Still researching? The rest of this page is for you.
The definition
What is financial business logic?
Financial business logic
Financial business logic is the set of definitions, rules, calculations, and consolidation methods a finance team applies to raw data to produce its official numbers: the context that says what each metric means, the rules that govern mappings and access, the calculations that run allocations, currency conversion, and KPIs, and the consolidations that roll multiple entities into one set of statements.
When it lives in a governed model instead of spreadsheet formulas, it is defined once, applied everywhere, and traceable. The data those rules run on has its own page: unified financial data.
What goes in
Reports · plans · answers
The hard part
Why is business logic hard to manage?
It is invisible
Formulas nobody documented run the official numbers. In Cube the logic is explicit and readable.
It changes constantly
Reorgs, new entities, and new products rewrite the rules. Versioned changes keep the history.
It outgrows spreadsheets
Logic that survives three entities collapses at ten. The model computes it at any size.
Nobody agrees on definitions
Two analysts can produce two margins from the same data. One governed dictionary settles it.
Consolidation edge cases
Partial ownership and mid-year acquisitions become rules to configure instead of heroics to perform.
Audit pressure
"How was this calculated?" gets a real answer: the rule, its version, and the rows it ran on.
Honest comparison
Spreadsheet logic vs governed logic
| The workflow | Logic in spreadsheets | Logic in the governed model |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | ×Cell formulas, tabs, and one person's memory | ✓Explicit rules in one model |
| Changing it | ×Edit the workbook and hope | ✓Proposed, approved, versioned |
| Consolidation | ×Rebuilt each close | ✓Runs as actuals land |
| Scale | ×Each new entity multiplies the tabs | ✓New entities inherit the rules |
| Auditing it | ×Reverse-engineer the workbook | ✓Trace the figure to its rule and rows |
Both columns are honest. Spreadsheet logic works; it just concentrates risk in files and people.
A closer look
What are the four kinds of business logic in FP&A?
What is financial context?
The dimensions, hierarchies, and metric definitions a company plans by. Context decides what margin and headcount mean, so every downstream number inherits one meaning.
What are financial rules?
Mappings, validations, and permissions. Rules govern how source accounts land in the model, what data is valid, and who can see or change each slice.
What are financial calculations?
Allocations, currency conversion, KPIs, and driver formulas. In a governed model they compute centrally, so every surface shows the same result.
What are consolidation rules?
The methods that roll multiple entities into one set of statements: intercompany eliminations, FX translation, and ownership treatment, applied the same way every period.
Before you buy
What should you look for in FP&A software with advanced business logic?
Ground rules first, vendor checklist second. The ground rules hold no matter whose software you choose.
Ground rules that hold for any vendor
Write the definitions down first
A metric dictionary on paper beats one implied by formulas.
Keep one owner per rule
Every allocation, mapping, and definition needs a name attached.
Version everything
You should be able to say what the rule was in any prior period.
Test on last close first
Run new logic against a period you already trust before trusting it forward.
The buyer's checklist
Logic finance can read
No code, in language your team can review and own.
Versioning and approval
Every change proposed, approved, and recorded.
Full consolidation
Eliminations, FX translation, and multi-entity rollups as rules.
Computed once, shown everywhere
The same calculation behind the spreadsheet, the deck, and the chat answer.
Trace from figure to rule to rows
An audit chain that survives the follow-up question.
Runs on unified data
Logic is only as good as its inputs. See unified financial data.
Define your logic once.
See a real allocation, elimination, or metric definition running in a governed model, on a demo personalized to how your team calculates.
No prep needed. One real rule from your close is plenty.
