FMX’s Capital Planner empowers organizations to optimize their budget allocation. This optimization enables them to prioritize strategic enhancement and improvement investments. The tool provides clear visibility into future asset replacement costs and upcoming project costs against projected budgets, ensuring financial readiness and long-term sustainability.
Getting started
To start populating the Capital Planner dashboard, a few pieces of data are necessary:
- Assets (also known as "equipment")
- Capital Projects (also known as "project requests")
- Funding Sources
NOTE: Not all data needs to be input from the start. It is recommended to start with the biggest ticket items first and then add smaller items slowly over time.
Adding asset data
Assets (called "equipment") can all be added to Capital Planner with an estimated replacement date and value.
Step 1: Designating equipment types for Capital Planner
First, navigate to Admin settings > General > Capital Planner Settings. Then, select your desired equipment types from the dropdown list. Only the chosen types will display the newly added fields (below) and appear in the Capital Planner dashboard.
Step 2: Adding asset lifespan data
Capital Planner provides a new set of fields on selected equipment in the "Asset lifespan" section for use in Capital Planner.
These fields include:
- Asset category: a dropdown of common categories used in field suggestions (see below)
- Asset condition: a dropdown selection from critical to excellent of the asset's current state
- Capacity: dynamic based on the asset category, also used in field suggestions
- Installation date: the date the asset was first installed
- Estimated replacement date: the date recommended by the manufacturer or industry expert to replace the asset
- Planned replacement date: the date you have budgeted to replace the asset. By default, it is recommended to have this date match the "Estimated replacement date."
- Replacement asset value (RAV): the cost today if you were to replace this asset
- Estimated useful life: calculated by subtracting today's date from the estimated replacement date field
- Lifetime maintenance costs: calculated by summarizing all costs associated with this equipment item (logs, requests, tasks, labor cost, inventory cost, etc.)
- Last 12 months maintenance cost: calculated the same as above, but for the last 12 months
- Average annual maintenance: calculated by summarizing all costs divided by the time range from the earliest cost logged to today
- MC/RAV (%): a percentage calculated by dividing the Average Maintenance Cost(MC) by the Replacement Asset Value (RAV)
These can also be filled out when bulk importing or editing equipment.
NOTE: See these support center articles for information on how to bulk import or bulk edit equipment.
Field suggestions
FMX can recommend select values using uploaded labels to the attachment field and industry averages. These suggestions serve as a starting point for key fields, including:
- Estimated replacement date
- Replacement asset value
If you do not see these fields appear, please contact our team for assistance!
Step 3: Retiring assets
As your assets (also called "equipment") are replaced, the retirement action allows you to update the actual cost and date of replacement.
Adding the specific replacement date and asset value during this step ensures that the Capital Planner report is as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
Adding capital project data
A project can be used for capital expenses that are not considered assets or equipment in FMX.
Step 1: Designating a capital project module
First, navigate to Admin settings > General > Capital Planner Settings. Then, select your desired module from the dropdown list.
NOTE: It is recommended that you use a dedicated module specifically for projects. Merging projects with other requests (such as maintenance requests) can cause requesters to see unnecessary fields and may negatively impact your reporting metrics.
Step 2: Adding capital project data
Once a module has been selected, a new set of fields will appear whenever you create or edit a request in this module.
These fields include:
- Planned project start date: the date a project is expected to start
- Planned project end date: the date a project is expected to end; this can be different than the due date
- Planned project duration: the time between start date and end date
- FY committed funds: for each FY a project runs, an amount of expected or dedicated funds can be entered
- FY costs: costs logged on the project from that fiscal year
- FY balance: costs remaining from the committed funds for that fiscal year
- Total committed funds: total of funds committed (especially when a project spans multiple fiscal years)
- Total costs: all costs logged on that project, including costs that fall outside the start and end dates
- Total fund balance: all remaining funds
Funding sources
To compare your expected or tracked costs against budgeted amounts, you may add "Funding Sources" directly from Capital Planner.
1. Navigate to the Capital Planner feature's second tab called Funding Sources.
2. Select the "Add Funding Source" button. Then, select the fiscal year and enter the amount.
Funding sources can also be bulk-imported. This needs to be turned on by going to the admin settings, then the user type section, select the edit button for the user type you want to have access and then go to "Capital Planner Access". Check the box for "Bulk import funding sources."
To change the fiscal year's start date, go to the admin settings. In the "General" section, go to the "Capital Planner Settings." Then, change the "Fiscal year start date" field.
Using the dashboard
Capital Planner combines all your input data into one place through various visualizations.
Cost projection (bar graph)
This first visual shows the costs (anticipated and actuals) over time compared to your available funds. This includes:
- Upcoming asset replacement costs - this blue bar represents the total "Replacement asset value" of all equipment included in Capital Planner that are planned to be replaced in each fiscal year
- Replaced asset costs - this yellow bar represents the same data as above but is limited to retired equipment, and these costs are removed from the Upcoming asset replacement costs
- Capital project spent costs - this orange bar represents tracked costs for all project requests of the designated module in each fiscal year
- Capital project committed funds - this purple bar represents the remaining committed funds for all project requests (FY committed funds - FY costs)
- Available funds - the total of all funding sources for each fiscal year
At the top of the projection are 3 KPIs that change dynamically based on your interactions. The first is the current FY, the second is the highlighted selection (highlighted by clicking the bar chart), and the third is the entire displayed time range.
NOTE: Portions of the bar chart can be highlighted by clicking on different years to set the start and end dates. The highlighted range will filter any following visualizations to just the selected time range.
Cost per year per building (heatmap)
Below the cost projection is a heatmap comparing the costs by year and building. For example, the chart below shows that the Admin Building had $37K in costs in FY 2025.
Cost breakdowns (pie chart)
Next is a series of pie charts to show a breakdown of costs (both anticipated and actual) by type, building, and condition. The larger pie chart can be swapped by clicking on the two smaller pie charts.
Below is an explanation of each pie chart:
- Cost by type: the total anticipated and actual costs categorized by asset equipment types (in blue) and capital project request types (in purple)
- Cost by building: the total anticipated and actual costs categorized by building
- Cost by condition: the total anticipated and actual costs categorized by the 5 condition categories (as well as any costs that do not have a condition assigned)
Clicking on any pie chart slice will filter the following data by just that type, building, or condition. However, only data that follows the pie chart is filtered, not visualizations that came before it.
Asset and project grids
Below the visualizations, you can view each asset and project included in the dashboard's current filters.
Select the checkboxes on the left to change the replacement date on assets individually or in bulk. Then click the "Move replacement date" button to change the fiscal year.
The same can be done with capital projects, and any committed funds will be moved along.
NOTE: Moving a capital project will NOT move the actual tracked costs of that project. Only the committed fundsand the start and end dates, will be moved will be moved.
Using scenarios
The dashboard can be modified with temporary changes using "scenarios," which can then be shared or compared before committing them and making them permanent. The following details can be modified in a scenario:
- Assets > Planned Replacement Date
- Capital Project > Planned Project Start Date
- Capital Project > Planned Project End Date
Creating and deleting a scenario
- To create a scenario, click the "Scenarios" dropdown, then click "New scenario."
- This new scenario can be renamed by clicking the name to bring up the text editor.
- Changes made to this scenario are saved automatically, and you can leave the scenario at any time by clicking "Save and exit scenario."
- These scenarios can also be shared or printed by clicking the printer icon.
- To delete a scenario, click the "Scenarios" dropdown, click the trashcan icon and follow the prompt.
Committing a scenario
If you have a scenario that you would like to make permanent, you can commit it by opening the scenario and clicking "Commit this scenario."
Please note that committing a scenario cannot be easily undone.
User permissions
There are a few different user permissions relevant to Capital Planner.
Dashboard access
First, users can be given access to the dashboard itself. Navigate to Admin settings > User Types > > Edit > Capital Planner Access. From here, change the "Capital planner access" field from "No access" to "View only"(only able to view the report) or "Edit"(can view the report, move dates, and update funding sources).
Asset lifespan data access
Additionally, you can give select users access to add asset lifespan data to equipment items. Navigate to Admin settings > User Types > > Edit > Equipment Access. From here, check the box for "Can access asset lifespan fields". This will give the user access to the asset lifespan field set for included equipment.