What's new?

You can now customize how variances are displayed on each KPI card — choose between percentage or absolute variance based on what makes more sense for your metric.

Why?

Not all metrics are best understood as a percentage change. For some KPIs, the absolute difference provides more context and is easier to interpret. This new option gives you flexibility to choose the format that works best for each card.

How does it work?

• In the KPI settings modal, you’ll find a new option to select how you want the variance displayed:

  • Percentage (default and existing behavior)
  • Absolute

  • The variance is calculated as the difference between the selected version and the comparison:

    • For example, if Actuals = 500 and Budget = 400, the absolute variance is 100.
    • If the KPI is a percentage—e.g. Gross Margin is 45.2% vs. 43.0%—the absolute variance is shown as 2.2 pp (percentage points). No % symbol is displayed.

We are excited to announce that you can now effortlessly connect your Light data with Abacum for seamless financial planning and analysis!

How does it work?

To set up a Light connection, reach out to your Light representative, who will share the necessary credentials. Then, go to the Integrations section in Abacum, and click on the Light via S3 card under available connections, to complete the connection setup.

We will create a connection to your Light data via S3 Bucket (you do not need a S3 Bucket account, your Light representative will take care of it). Learn more about this connection here.

Updating variable settings one by one used to be time-consuming, especially when working with large models. That’s why we’re excited to roll out a new way to manage settings for multiple variables at once.

What’s new

You can now adjust key settings (like number format, variance type, time aggregation, anomaly detection, and percentage of setting) for multiple variables in a single step.

If selected variables have different current settings, you’ll see a “Mixed” indicator to let you know. From there, any changes you make will apply to the whole group.

This also includes smart handling of currency formats, clear feedback for global variables (which can't be edited in bulk), and a smoother overall experience.

Learn more about this here ↗️.

We’ve added a new way to make your data even easier to understand at a glance. You can now display currency symbols next to your values across models, tables, and charts.

How it works

• In the Model Builder, you can now choose a currency format from a list of global currencies (€, $, £, etc.)
• Once selected, that currency symbol will automatically appear next to values wherever the model is used (in tables, charts, and more).
• Need to use a different currency in a specific table? You can change the model’s default number format at the table level to show a different currency or switch back to a plain number format.

Why this matters

This small change helps reduce ambiguity and brings consistency to how your financial data is displayed across the platform.

• Tables & charts: you can choose to copy or download as PNG
• Callouts & KPI cards: you can copy them individually as PNG

What’s new?

You can now schedule your datasets to automatically sync on any day of the month, providing more flexibility to align with your financial processes and giving you greater control over your data synchronization!

Key Benefits

• Greater Flexibility. You now have the freedom to set your data syncs on the exact day that works best for your team's schedule, especially around financial closing.
• Streamlined Workflows. Automate your data refreshes to occur precisely when you need them, reducing manual work and ensuring you're always working with the latest information.
• Improved Accuracy. By syncing data on your schedule, you can ensure reports and analyses are based on the most up-to-date figures, leading to more reliable insights.

How It Works

1. Navigate to the dataset you wish to schedule and open the Scheduler.
2. Click the ‘+’ button to create a new auto sync schedule. Select the Month tab.
3. In the ‘Sync on’ menu, choose Custom day. Previously, this was limited to the 1st, 15th, or last day of the month.
4. Enter the desired day of the month, and click Continue to save.

For more information about auto syncing your data, visit the Abacum Academy.

Exciting news! We're starting to activate a few powerful updates to give you more control and flexibility when working with dimensions in your models! 

Here’s what’s new:

Dimensions by version

You can now define different dimensions for each version of a variable (e.g., Actuals, Forecast).

By default, versions share the same dimensionality that actuals, but now you can unlink a version and customize its dimensions independently.

👉 For example, you might want “New Joiners” in Actuals broken down by employee, job title, and department — but only track by department (or add location) in Forecast.

This gives you the freedom to:

• Add more or less granularity where needed
• Avoid duplicating variables
• Keep your models clean and tailored as your company scales

Bulk changes on variables

Working with large models just got a whole lot easier. You can now:

• Select multiple variables at once
• Apply dimension updates in bulk — perfect for aligning dimensions, activating suggestions, or cleaning up unused ones
• Delete or show empty values across multiple variables in one go

These changes make it faster to manage your model at scale — no more one-by-one updates.

More flexible dimension activation

You’re no longer limited to activating only the dimensions used in a variable’s formula. Now, any dimension can be activated, even if the formula doesn’t return values for it.

• You’ll see a warning icon if a dimension is not compatible (values will be stored as unallocated)
• This makes your model more robust and less prone to breaking when things change

These updates are all about making modeling easier, faster, and more adaptable to your needs.

📘 Learn more

• Dimensions by version | Abacum Academy
• Working with multiple variables | Abacum Academy

To help keep things running smoothly, we're adding a new warning on the Dimensions page.

Here’s what’s changing:

• If a dimension level has more than 10,000 unique items, you’ll now see a warning next to it in the Dimensions table.
• This is just a heads-up — large dimensions like these can slow things down in the platform.
• Your existing setup will still work as usual — this won’t block anything, just a friendly reminder.

Need a smoother option?

• If you’re hitting the limit often, we recommend trying out Auto-map to default option for single dimensions as a more scalable approach.

To ensure a safer and more consistent experience across our platform, we’ve made a small change to how you access the Academy.

From now on, you’ll need to be logged into the platform to view Academy content.

• If you're already logged in, you won’t need to do anything extra — you’ll go straight to the content.
• If you're not logged in yet, you’ll be asked to enter your credentials before accessing the Academy.

This helps us keep your experience secure and personalized.

💡 Need to share Academy content with someone who doesn’t have access?
No problem — you can download any Academy content as a PDF and share it directly.

We’ve made a small but important change to how percentage values are handled in Abacum, to make formatting clearer and more intuitive for everyone.

What’s changing?

Previously, Abacum offered two different formatting options for percentage-like values:

• Rate (which correctly displayed 60% if the value was 0.6)
• Percentage (which incorrectly displayed 0.6% when the value was 0.6)

As this was confusing, we’ve simplified things:

• The old "Percentage" format is being removed
• The "Rate" format has been renamed to "Percentage", as this is the behavior users expect

Now, when you choose "Percentage", it will correctly show 60% for a value of 0.6 — just like in Excel or Google Sheets.

What have we done on our side?

To make this transition smooth:

• We’ve updated existing formats where possible. If you were using the old "Percentage" format, we’ve migrated those values to the new "Percentage" (formerly called "Rate").
• In some cases, if the formatting wasn’t clearly a percentage, we’ve migrated the value to plain "Number" format to avoid assumptions.

What do you need to do?

Nothing! Your values should appear exactly the same as before.But if you notice anything that looks off, feel free to reach out to suppor team, and we’ll take a look.