Intro

General Rules

• The same elements should look the same and have the same name.

• For time, remember that “yesterday is visually to the left of today"
  -> the time-series are always on the x-axis.

• Green means “good” and red means “bad”.

• Tables should have bold sums at the bottom.

• Use fill patterns instead of colors:

  • Actual values - solid
  • Previous year/month - solid with reduced opacity
  • Forecasts - hatched
  • Plan values - outlined

IBCS Color Values

Unified Currencies

• Use consistent currency abbreviations.
• Use three-letter acronyms such as EUR, CHF, USD, and GBP.
  The use of special currency symbols such as €, $, and ₤ is not recommended
  if a report includes many different currencies.
• Use consistent metric prefixes (in lower case).
  Example: “k” for thousand, “m” for million and “b” for billion.

Unified Numbers

• Thousand delimiter: 1 234 (narrow blank space)
• Decimal sign: 1,23 or 1.23 (SI allows both versions)
• Negative values: - 123
• Positive values do not have a plus sign, unless they represent variances.

Titles and Subtitles for Widgets
IBCS proposes three lines in total:

• First Llne: "Who" (example: ABC Corporation)
• Second line: "What"(example: Profit in mUSD, by products)
• Third line: "When" (example: 2024-Q1, Δ 2023-Q1)

Therefore, we recommend formatting widget headers like the following:

• First line: "What" (example: Profit in mUSD, by products)
• Second line: "When" (example: 2024-Q1, Δ 2023-Q1)

Title for Logic Group
Beside the titles and subtitles for the widgets, logic groups also have a logic group title. Because the purpose of a logic group is to show information related to the same topic (such as “Profit”), name the group accordingly.

Date

Use: YYYY-MM-DD, such as “2024-05-14"

Terms and Abbreviations

Stacked Bar Chart

Stacked bar charts are used to display the structure of data in a given time period or at a given point of time.They are most effective when there are no more than five or six data series used, and if 25 or fewer structure elements are presented.

Stacked bars/columns often require a legend.
As SAC offers the option of selecting the individual data points using the legend in the runtime, this should be displayed below the chart and center aligned.

If the relative deviation between the categories is important, set the chart as a 100% stack.

Variance Charts

One of the most important aspects of analytical applications is looking at the data with the question: “How does this compare to [x]?" (Example: This year compared to the previous year.)
IBCS recommends displaying this difference in variances.

General rules when using variance charts:

• Positive variances have a “+”
• Negative variances have a “-”
• Numbers in tables that represent variances are colored based on defined variance colors

Absolute Variances:

Relative Variances (in Percentage):

Variances as Data Label

Integrated Variances

Variance Waterfall Chart

Chart Legend

Only use the legend if it offers additional value.
Legend should be below the visualization and center aligned

Tables
General rules for designing tables:

• Numbers and column headings are right-aligned
• Calculation results are bold
• Calculation results are at the bottom
• Gaps instead of vertical lines