Who this is for: Accountants who want to project a client’s revenue and expenses forward.
What you’ll learn: How to build a forecast scenario for a company and include it in a report.
Before you begin
- Forecasts belong to the company. Build a scenario once, then any report can use it.
- A report projects the scenario forward from that period’s actual figures.
Step-by-step instructions
Step 1: Open the Forecasting view
In the company’s Reports tab, switch to Forecasting.
Step 2: Set the assumptions
Name the scenario, then set the assumptions: starting revenue, expenses and cost of sales per month, and how many months to project.
Step 3: Set the growth rates
Enter Revenue growth % / month and Expense growth % / month. Use Best-case adjustment % and Worst-case adjustment % to widen or narrow the range around the base case, and turn on Apply seasonality to shape the curve by last year’s monthly pattern.
Step 4: Override individual accounts (optional)
Use Account drivers to give specific accounts their own driver — a growth rate, a percentage of another line, or a fixed monthly amount. Everything else keeps the aggregate growth rates.
Step 5: Read the projection
The chart plots Base Case, Best Case and Worst Case revenue, with base-case net profit, and a month-by-month base case table sits underneath it.
Step 6: Check the full-year outlook
Full-year outlook adds the year-to-date actuals to the forecast for the remaining months, so you can see where the year lands.
Step 7: Save the scenario
Select Save forecast.
Step 8: Keep more than one scenario
Use New to start another scenario and the picker to switch between them. The starred scenario is the company default.
Step 9: Add the Forecast section to a report
Open a draft, select Edit beside Included Sections, and turn on Forecast.
Step 10: Pick the scenario to deliver
Choose the saved scenario under Forecast scenario. The small chart shows the shape of the projection; the delivered report uses this period’s actual revenue as the starting point.
What happens next
The scenario is captured in the snapshot when you finalize, and renders in the report and the PDF as a chart of the three cases plus a base-case projection table.
Troubleshooting
- The Forecast section says to build a forecast first. The company has no saved scenario yet — build one on the Forecasting view.
- The projection looks flat. The growth rates are zero, or the period has no revenue to project from.
- The report shows a different scenario than you expected. The section stores the scenario you picked; if that scenario was deleted, the report falls back to the company default.