ABSTRACT
When starting to build Activity Based Management (ABM) models, there are a number of issues to consider before plunging into the detail, which risks never surfacing with a completed model or one that can be refreshed and used continually as a decision support tool. ABM models are very flexible. An ABM model is a large assignment engine. It moves costs from one entity to another, based on a cascade of assignments. Accommodation costs may be treated as one grand total to be assigned, or it may be necessary to take the actual costs of each building where there are significant differences between types of buildings. The key requirement is to be able to extract costs from the ledger in a way that facilitates making the links between the activities and the ledger costs. The general ledger is the source of all the costs that go into the ABM model.
