Overview:

Revenue Forecasting provides a process for forecasting the spread of expected revenue for an unlimited number of periods into the future.

The forecast is a snapshot for a particular Revenue Forecasting Period, which can be updated as required until the period is closed (based on Control Parameters defined below).

Typically, at the beginning of the Period Project Managers would forecast the future revenue they expect on their jobs. At the end of the month, once all invoicing has been done, they can check if what was invoiced actually matches the forecasted revenue and make amendments on the next Revenue Forecast Period if necessary.

The forecast can be at the header job level (which will display only the header jobs flagged for forecasting in Job Maintenance), which rolls all the related subjobs up into the header, or at the individual job level (which will display only jobs - of any level - flagged for forecasting in Job Maintenance).

The screen display allows for a window of 12 periods to be displayed at any one time. Forecast values before this 12-month window are displayed in Prior Period column.

The allowable forecast value, the To Bill value, is based on the revenue budget for a job and/or its subjobs less what has been invoiced for a job and/or its subjobs.

Screen Guide:

Generate Options

On a new period, the screen will show no jobs and the +New Forecast button will be available to generate the Revenue Forecast lines. Once the new Forecast has been created for the period, the button changes to Refresh Forecast or Rebuild.

Any changes done on the screen must be saved using the SAVE button at the bottom right of the screen.

• + New Forecast
  This button creates new revenue forecasts for the period.
  

  

• Rebuild
  This option rebuilds the forecast spread from the previous forecast period for all unforecasted lines. Warning message when using Rebuild option: “Warning: data on lines not forecasted nor approved will be lost“.
  This means that if the line does not have the Forecast or Approve column ticked, any existing spreads on the line will be overwritten. Be sure to tick Forecast or Approve and SAVE before rebuilding if you want to keep those forecasted line values.
  

  

• Refresh
  This option refreshes the To Bill, Adjustments and Billed To Date figures on existing forecasts.
  It does not create new forecasts and only applies to unapproved lines.

• Access to Generate Options
  The Control Parameter 'Revenue Forecast Closing' controls the access to these buttons. They are greyed out where the settings disallow the generation or updating of forecasts through the relevant period being closed. See the Control Parameters in Setup section below for detailed descriptions of these settings.

• Spreads from Previous Forecasts
  When creating a new forecast the spread values from the previous period will be copied forward into the next forecast period, dropping off the first period from that previous forecast e.g. if the previous forecast was 2021/10, there would have been a forecast value in the 2021/10, 2021/11, 2021/12 etc. In creating the 2021/11 forecast, the 2021/10 value will be dropped off, but the 2021/11, 2021/12 etc values will be brought forward. They can then be edited.

Setup

Criteria for Inclusion

• First thing to do for a Job to be included when generating Revenue Forecast is to tick Revenue Forecast check box in Billing and GL tab on Job Maintenance.

• the Job is not Finalised or it has a Finalised Date in the current forecast period or later.

• The other criteria for jobs to display on the list depends on the value on Control Parameter 'Revenue Forecast Mode'

  • Where the Control Parameter 'Revenue Forecast Mode' is All, Both or Time:
    This allows for a jobs and subjobs to be included in the forecast.

  • Where the Control Parameter  'Revenue Forecast Mode' is Header All, Header Both or Header Time, Jobs included are Level 1 Header Jobs. For these 'Header' options, by default all subjobs of the Level 1 Header job will be rolled up into the forecast for the job, regardless of whether the ' Forecast Revenue ' checkbox on Job Maintenance for the subjobs is ticked or not.