Use case · Capital expenditure
Every capital dollar planned and traced to the transaction.
Cube puts capex planning in one governed model, from the first request to the depreciation on your P&L. Approvals, project budgets, and committed spend tie to GL actuals your CFO can defend to the board.
IT infrastructure is tracking $130K over plan, driven by the data center refresh POs. Trace to source →
The problem
Capex planning breaks down between the request and the ledger.
The board asks how capital allocation is tracking, and the honest answer lives in nine spreadsheets and an email thread.
Approvals live in email
Requests bounce through threads and side conversations, and nobody can say what was approved or when.
A spreadsheet per department
Every owner keeps a tracker, the versions disagree, and consolidating them eats the reforecast.
The ledger finds out last
Approved spend reaches the P&L months later, so depreciation and cash timing are always catching up.
The mechanism
The whole capital cycle in one picture.
Requests and project budgets meet GL actuals in one governed model, built on the Cube platform, and depreciation flows out the other side.
Cube
One governed capex model. Requests, budgets, and spend tied to the transactions behind them.
Live tracking
Committed, spent, and planned in one view.
Fetch capex actuals and commitments live, hold them against plan, and publish the reforecast back to the same model.
| $K · FY 2026 | FY plan | Committed | Spent to date | Remaining plan | FY forecast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equipment | 3,000 | 1,900 | 1,560 | 1,100 | 3,048 |
| Facilities | 2,100 | 1,300 | 1,070 | 800 | 2,122 |
| IT infrastructure | 1,400 | 1,100 | 890 | 300 | 1,530 |
| Total capex | 6,500 | 4,300 | 3,520 | 2,200 | 6,700 |
Charted
Plan vs forecast, by category.
Where the year is landing against plan. IT infrastructure is running $130K hot, and the bar drills to the committed POs behind it.
Why Cube
Capital plans your board can trust.
One flow, request to ledger
Intake, approvals, and project budgets live in one governed model tied to GL actuals, so the plan and the ledger agree.
Depreciation runs itself
Approve an asset and its schedule posts to the P&L and the cash plan automatically, timing shifts included.
Trace to the transaction
Any capex figure opens to the invoices behind it, and every approval carries an audit trail.
Adoption
Runs alongside the stack you already have.
Your ERP stays the system of record. Cube connects to hundreds of source systems through pre-built connectors for major platforms and governs the planning layer on top.
Finance-led setup
Configured by your team, guided by ours.
Of sources
Hundreds of source systems, with pre-built connectors for major platforms.
Rip-and-replace
Deploys alongside your current stack.
Onboarding
Hands-on setup and a named contact.
Cube in action
FP&Agents keep the capex plan current.
The moment a request is approved, the downstream work starts. FP&Agents carry it while your team reviews.
One request queue
Every capex request lands in one governed intake with the project, amount, and owner attached.
Smart Analysis
FP&Agents flag projects trending over budget and draft the variance note for review.
Committed vs spent
Purchase orders and invoices sync from the GL, so commitment tracking runs itself.
Routed approvals
Sign-offs route to the right approvers and every decision is recorded.
Automatic depreciation
Approved assets generate schedules that post to the P&L and the cash plan.
Timing scenarios
Shift a project a quarter and depreciation and cash recalculate with it.
Where you work
One model, on every surface.
Cube delivers the same governed numbers wherever the work happens. Explore the full story on Where You Work.
Cube Workspace
The browser app where finance builds the model, sets permissions, and publishes.
Excel & Google Sheets
Bi-directional sync: fetch live actuals into the sheet, publish plans back.
AI assistants via MCP
Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini answer from your governed numbers.
Slack & Teams
Ask a question in chat and get the governed figure back, with the trace.
PowerPoint & Google Slides
Decks with figures bound to Cube that refresh to the current numbers.
BI tools
Tableau, Looker, and Power BI read from the same model as the plan.
Where it fits
One capex model, every planning conversation.
Annual capital budgeting
Collect requests, rank them, and lock the plan with owners and amounts attached.
Quarterly reforecasts
Roll actuals and commitments forward and reset the full-year view in the same model.
Board reviews
Show capital allocation against plan with every figure ready to open.
Cash planning
Capex timing flows straight into the cash flow forecast, commitment by commitment.
Capacity planning
Tie equipment and facility spend to the drivers that justify it.
Multi-entity planning
Plan and consolidate capital spend across entities and currencies in one model.
Controls
Governed enough for your auditors.
Capex approvals are controls, and your auditors will treat them that way. The full posture is on the Cube security page.
Read-only connections
Source systems sync into Cube read-only by default.
Role-based permissions
Requesters, approvers, and viewers each see exactly their scope.
Approval audit trail
Every request, sign-off, and change is logged with who and when.
Version history
Plan versions are named, kept, and comparable.
Trace to the transaction
Every capex number opens.
The flagged IT line from the top of the page opens to its accounts, and then to the invoices behind them.
| Apr 14 | Dell Technologies | rack servers · DC refresh | NetSuite | $198K |
| May 06 | Arrow Electronics | storage arrays | NetSuite | $141K |
| Jun 19 | CDW | compute expansion | NetSuite | $87K |
| + 9 more transactions · $46K | ||||
Already convinced?
Book a demo and we will run your capex process through Cube. Still researching? The capex planning guide continues below.
The definition
What is capex planning?
Capex planning
Capex planning is the process of planning and controlling spending on long-lived assets such as equipment, facilities, and technology, from the initial request through approval, purchase, and the depreciation that carries the cost onto the income statement. It covers deciding which projects to fund, tracking committed and actual spend against the plan, and keeping depreciation and cash timing current in the financial plan.
Done well, it gives the CFO a capital plan that ties to the general ledger, so board conversations about capital allocation start from numbers everyone can trace.
The capex lifecycle
Flows to the financial plan automatically
The hard parts
Why is capex planning difficult?
Six failure points show up in almost every capital process, and each one has a structural fix.
Approvals scattered in email
Sign-offs disappear into inboxes. Cube gives requests one governed intake with every decision recorded.
Commit-to-cash timing
An order committed in March may pay out in June. Cube tracks committed, spent, and planned as three views of the same project.
Hand-built depreciation
Schedules maintained by hand drift from the ledger. Cube generates them from approved assets and posts them to the plan.
Overruns surface late
By the time invoices land, the money is gone. Cube compares spend to project budgets as it syncs and flags the trend early.
Multi-entity asset registers
Every entity keeps its own asset list. Cube consolidates them into one model with entity as a dimension.
Diverging plan versions
Copies of the plan multiply until none is authoritative. Cube keeps one version of record with named scenarios.
Manual vs automated
How does capex planning work?
The cycle is the same everywhere: request, approve, spend, capitalize, depreciate. What differs is how much of it your team carries by hand.
| Step | Manual capex planning | Capex planning in Cube |
|---|---|---|
| Requests & approvals | ✗Email threads and hallway sign-offs, with no record of who approved what. | ✓One governed intake with routed approvals and a full audit trail. |
| Committed vs spent | ✗Purchase orders tracked in a side spreadsheet and reconciled by hand. | ✓POs and invoices sync from the GL and post against the project automatically. |
| Depreciation | ✗Schedules maintained by hand and re-keyed into the model each cycle. | ✓Generated at approval and posted to the P&L and cash plan. |
| Timing shifts | ✗A slipped project means reworking depreciation and cash rows manually. | ✓Move the project and every downstream number recalculates. |
| Plan versions | ✗Copies of copies, and no one is sure which file is current. | ✓One version of record with named scenarios. |
| Audit | ✗Reconstructed from inboxes when the auditors ask. | ✓Every figure traces to the transaction and every approval is logged. |
Categories
The three types of capital expenditure.
Most capital plans mix all three, and each behaves differently in the forecast.
Growth capex
New capacity: sites, lines, and systems that expand what the business can do, paced by the revenue plan.
Maintenance capex
Spend that keeps existing assets producing, planned on asset age and condition rather than ambition.
Replacement capex
End-of-life swaps and refresh cycles, like the server refresh that moves a quarter and shifts depreciation with it.
Fundamentals
Capex planning best practices.
Whatever tools you use, these five habits separate controlled capital processes from chaotic ones.
Run every request through one intake
A single front door makes approval status a fact rather than a memory.
Plan at the project level
Tie each project to its GL accounts so actuals land against the right budget.
Track committed spend
A signed purchase order is a decision made. Hold it against the plan before the invoice arrives.
Reforecast timing every quarter
When projects move, move the depreciation and cash plan with them.
Review variances with owners
Put project owners in front of plan vs actual regularly, while course corrections are still cheap.
The checklist
What to look for in capex planning software.
Six capabilities decide whether a tool governs the capital process or just stores it.
Native GL integration
Actuals and purchase orders should sync from the ERP without manual exports.
Governed request workflow
Intake, routing, and sign-off with a recorded audit trail.
Committed, spent, and planned
All three views of a project in one place, always current.
Automatic depreciation
Schedules generated at approval and posted to the P&L and cash plan.
Multi-entity support
One consolidated capital plan across entities and currencies.
Trace to the transaction
Any figure should open to the source transactions behind it.
Every capital dollar, planned and traced.
See your capex process in Cube: requests, approvals, committed spend, and the depreciation that follows.
Book a demoBring one capital project. We will model it live on the call.
