Turning approval effort into a transparent cost view

Whenever the Front Office requested approval for a new exchange-traded product, multiple support functions spent time reviewing, validating and approving the request. RWE maintained a reporting framework that measured that effort and translated it into operational costs using standardized hourly rates provided annually by Accounting.

My responsibilities were to maintain the monthly reporting process, validate the operational effort data, apply the annual cost rates, and extend the reporting framework to RWE Supply & Trading Americas while keeping the reporting consistent.

The business needed visibility into the operational investment required to introduce new products. The resulting reports helped management understand approval costs across support functions and supported profitability assessments and resource planning.

• Extracted operational effort data recorded in Jira for monthly reporting.
• Validated completeness, consistency, support-function mapping and reporting periods.
• Cleaned exported datasets, restructured report layouts, standardized reporting formats and consolidated monthly records.
• Applied Accounting-approved hourly cost rates to calculate cost per support function, total approval cost and monthly operational expenditure.
• Generated monthly management reports showing operational effort, departmental costs, approval cost trends and total investment required for product approvals.
• Extended the existing reporting solution to support RWE Supply & Trading Americas while maintaining consistency with the existing framework.

Business rule: Operational Cost = Hours Recorded × Hourly Rate.

Jira captured: product approval requests, support function, hours spent, approval activities and workflow information.

Accounting provided: annual hourly rates, cost allocation rates and yearly updates.

Existing framework: VBA automation, cost-calculation logic and reporting templates.

The reporting was produced monthly, with the same cost rule applied consistently across calculations.

The exported Jira data could not simply be used as a final report. I prepared it by cleaning the datasets, restructuring report layouts, standardizing formats and consolidating monthly operational records. After validation, the data was grouped into the reporting views needed for management.

The result connected operational workload to a financial measure that management could compare across support functions and reporting periods.

• Provided transparent operational cost reporting for product approvals.
• Supported profitability analysis by showing the operational investment required to introduce products.
• Supported resource planning by making effort and cost visible across support functions.
• Maintained consistent monthly reporting while extending the framework to an additional regional business.