Workforce Planning Concepts & Terminology

Why concepts matter before setup

Before entering headcount, it is important to understand how roles, rates, accounts, cost centers, entities, expense types, and workforce dimensions work together.

A simple way to understand the model is:

Each concept controls a different part of the calculation or reporting output.

Role-based planning

Yarken uses role-based planning. This means users plan workforce cost by role instead of manually entering the cost for every person or vendor resource.

A role is a standardized job or resource type with a defined annual rate. Examples include:

• Software Engineer

• Senior Software Developer

• Business Analyst

• Cloud Architect

• Contractor

• Vendor Developer

• Support Analyst

Role-based planning improves consistency because every user planning the same role uses the same configured rate. This reduces manual interpretation and keeps budget assumptions aligned across cost centers.

Example

If the role “Senior Software Developer” has an annual rate of 1,200,000 in the base currency, every plan that uses that role starts from the same annual rate. Yarken then converts that rate into monthly cost and applies the entered headcount.

Headcount

Headcount is the number of workforce resources planned for a specific month.

Headcount can represent:

• One full-time employee.

• A partial allocation such as 0.5.

• Multiple vendor resources such as 2, 3, or 4 resources in a month.

Example

A vendor role may be planned as:

The total planned headcount volume for the period is 8. Yarken uses this total monthly volume to calculate cost.

Headcount vs workforce cost

Headcount is the planning input. Workforce cost is the calculated output.

Users enter headcount and related planning dimensions. Yarken calculates cost based on the selected role rate and account mapping.

User enters

• Role

• Employee or vendor, where applicable

• Cost center

• Entity

• Expense type

• Monthly headcount

Yarken calculates

• Monthly workforce cost

• Total expense

• Account-level distribution

• Budget or forecast entries

This keeps users focused on operational planning while Yarken handles financial calculation and posting logic.

Base compensation and rate logic

Base compensation is the annual rate configured for a role. It is the starting point for workforce cost calculation.

The role rate is configured by an Admin. During planning, the selected role brings its rate into the workforce entry as base compensation.

Yarken calculates monthly cost using this formula:

Example

If annual base compensation is 1,200,000:

• Monthly cost = 1,200,000 ÷ 12

• Monthly cost = 100,000

If the user enters a total monthly headcount volume of 3 across selected months:

• Total expense = 100,000 × 3

• Total expense = 300,000

Account distribution

Account distribution defines how workforce cost is allocated to financial accounts.

Each role can be mapped to one or more accounts. Each mapped account has a distribution percentage. When workforce cost is calculated, Yarken applies the percentage to generate account-level budget or forecast entries.

Example

A role has total workforce cost of 300,000 and the following account mapping:

Yarken generates:

Cost centers

A cost center identifies the organizational unit responsible for the workforce cost. Cost centers are used for ownership, review, approval, and reporting.

Examples may include:

• Cloud Center of Excellence

• Workforce Enablement

• Infrastructure Operations

• Application Delivery

• Finance Technology

Entities

An entity represents a legal, reporting, regional, or organizational structure used in financial planning and reporting.

When a workforce entry is assigned to an entity, Yarken aligns the generated budget or forecast values with that entity.

Expense type

Expense type identifies whether the workforce cost should be treated as CapEx or OpEx.

• CapEx is used when the cost should be capitalized according to the organization’s accounting policy.

• OpEx is used when the cost should be treated as an operating expense.

Planning type

Employee planning

Employee planning is used for internal workforce resources.

In employee planning, the system restricts monthly headcount for an employee to a maximum of 1. This prevents the same employee from being over-counted in the same month.

Employee planning is useful when the plan needs to track known employees, partial allocation, or internal staffing costs.

Example

An internal employee may be planned as:

This indicates partial allocation in January and February, then full allocation in March and April.

Vendor planning

Vendor planning is used for external workforce such as contractors, vendor teams, consultants, or outsourced capacity.

Vendor headcount can scale across months. This supports project ramps, temporary staffing, or vendor resource pools.

Example

A vendor team may be planned as:

This represents multiple external resources assigned during the planning period.

Workforce Planning dimensions and extended attributes

Workforce Planning can support additional dimensions beyond the standard financial fields. These may include:

• Projects

• SKUs

• Value streams

• Teams

• Services

• Products

• Internal programs

These dimensions help organizations plan workforce cost in the way work is actually delivered. For example, a cost may belong to a cost center for financial ownership, while also being linked to a project or value stream for operational analysis.

Next step

Workforce Planning Process and Workflow in Yarken

Related articles

Workforce Planning Overview

Configure Workforce Planning roles and account mappings

Workforce Planning cost calculations

Automatic Budget Integration