What are Forecasts?

What are Forecasts ?

Forecasts are built automatically when you accept an estimate. You get to set the forecast at that time, but of course, that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way. E.g. your client puts the job on hold for a month, you don’t complete a phase for a job as quickly as expected and you can’t progress bill as soon as you had originally forecast.

How do you keep your forecasts real?

• Review your forecast every week and at the end of the month when you have completed invoicing for the month. Look at the numbers in current and future periods. Is your forecast looking real?
• Look at what you have billed this month and compare it to what is in your forecast. Have you billed more than you forecast? Tip: Use the selection “Underperforming in the current period” to quickly identify the jobs where the forecast is higher than the actual billings. Where the forecast is higher, you either have an opportunity to bill more this month, or you need to adjust your forecast to meet the changing expectations on the job. You need to move the billings to next month or beyond, wherever it is going to be billed.
• Use “Over-performing in the current month” to identify where you have billed more than what you forecast.
• Tip: you may ask “why is this bad”? It’s bad if you were not intending to bill the job until a later month but you were able to bring it forward. True, that’s not bad in itself, but what will be bad is when you look at next month’s forecast and you haven’t billed what was expected next month. That will lead to all sorts of time spent trying to reconcile what was billed when, and why the forecast is out. The simple fact is that you don’t have time to go back and try to work out the past, it should have been done last month, and each month. You should only be concentrating on the present and the future, and it should be telling you the truth about what is going to be billed.