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, this can be compared to see whether or not 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. Periods must be valid and entered in Period End Maintenance to allow the Month columns to be displayed on this screen.  Note: they can be closed, the entries must just exist.

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:

Open

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.
  
  

  Open

  

  
  
  

• 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.
  This button is controlled by permission: Rebuild Revenue Forecast
  
  

• Generate
  This option adds any Jobs that were flagged to be included in the Revenue Forecast after its creation for the period. It will only add new lines with those missing Jobs, and will not update any existing lines. Note, only Jobs with a Budget Revenue (To Bill) will be listed.
  
  

• 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.

Columns:

Read-only columns can be enabled/disabled using Grid management’s Revenue Forecast grid.

• Forecast Period is the period for which the revenue forecast is being created.

• Display Form is the first period to be displayed in the grid, followed by the next 11 period. This screen shows 12 periods in total. This is designed to help navigate future periods. There is also a scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen or the arrows from your keyboard can be used to move around the grid as well.

• Filters are there to help the user find specific jobs to work one.

• Forecast column is to be ticked to indicate that the revenue for that line is being forecasted and worked on.

• Approve column when ticked indicates that the spread has been reviewed for that line and no further changes are to be done. It has been approved. Refresh or Rebuild will not change any Approved lines.

• Job is the job being forecasted.

• Type shows what type of revenue is being forecasted. When the same job appears twice, is because the Revenue Forecast Mode has Both, splitting the revenue into a Time activity types line and any other activity type revenue line. When the control parameter value is All, then only one line per job is displayed. See Setup section for configuration details.

• Budget Rev is the revenue total from the job’s budget.

• Budget Adj displays the value of all adjustments for the job.

• Billed To Date is the total of what has actually been invoiced until the Forecast Period.

• To Spread is the difference between To Bill and Billed to Date. Non-Zero values display in red.

• Spread Total shows the total of all the spreads for that line into the current and future months (including periods that may not be visible on the grid).

• Variance is the difference between To Spread and Spread Total (To Spread - Spread Total).

• Prior Period shows what has been forecasted for the previous period to the Forecast Period.

• All of the above columns are not editable except for the check boxes. And from there on the current period and future periods are displayed and editable, so the revenue can be spread.

• Save button must be used to save any changes done on the grid.

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. Job Templates support Revenue Forecast checkbox on Details Tab.

• 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.