Forecasting Module Basics

The Forecasting module is included in the Plus and Premium subscriptions, and allows three kinds of forecasts.

• Multi-Year Projection - Project future budgets across multiple years
• What-If Analysis - Compare multiple scenarios for possible changes to a full year's budget
• What-If Analysis by Month - Update specific months from an underlying budget in a standalone scenario to see the forecasted impact

Features of Forecasting include:

• Forecast year-over-year changes to any budget within Martus based on the dimensions, accounts, or account categories selected.
• Project forecasts for the current year, or up to 9 years into the future – with the years shown side-by-side for easy comparison.
• Add notes to explain future adjustments and assumptions, and quickly see the results in the form of impact to the bottom line.  
• View results in the same summary/detail views used throughout Martus. Results can also be exported to Excel.

Forecasts is a selection on the Planner menu. This feature is automatically available to Admin users.  Permission to use this feature can also be assigned to non-admin users, and they will only be able to see budget information and prepare forecasts for the dimensions to which the user has access.

Managing Forecasts

When you select Forecasts from the Planner menu, you see a list of existing forecasts. Create as many forecasts as you'd like. The forecasts are listed for the current budget year. An Admin user can see all forecasts. A non-admin user can only see the forecasts that they have personally created.

Take any of these steps on the Forecasts page:

• Select a year and click Load Budget Year to change the current year and show forecasts for that year.
• Click Add a New Forecast to create a new forecast.
• Click Edit to view and change detail for a forecast, or to delete a forecast.
• Click Results to proceed to the results report for a forecast.
• Click Copy to create a copy of an existing forecast.

Creating a New Forecast

1. Navigate to Planner > Forecasts.
2. Select the Year for the new forecast.
3. Give the forecast a Name. Max characters is 100, but only about 25 will show on the screen.
4. Specify the Type of the forecast.
   • Multi-Year Projection and the Number of Years, in addition to the budget year
   • What-If Analysis and the Number of Scenarios
   • What-If Analysis by Month and the Number of Months
5. Select the dimensions, accounts and account categories (unique to your instance of Martus) to include in the forecast.
6. Select the Current Budget from the dropdown for Admin users; a forecast by a non-admin user is always based on the default budget for the selected budget year.

Note: Any budgeted amounts for Excluded accounts will NOT be included when creating a forecast. Use the steps below as a workaround: 

1. Open a tab in your browser with just the Excluded accounts showing in Setup > Accounts. Then duplicate that tab and make the Excluded accounts not Excluded. Be careful not to do anything to the original tab.
2. Create a forecast from the budget desired, with all accounts now Included.
3. Go back to the original tab, select all the accounts, and make them Excluded again.

       7. Click Preview to see the Forecast Detail screen and then enter the adjustments that will shape your projections for that forecast. By selecting and updating the various amounts by flat amount or percentage. 

Forecast Detail

The Forecast Detail screen summarizes your budget based on the configuration of the forecast (the dimensions and account information that you have selected to show).  You can filter the display and report on any of the dimensions that you’ve used in the configuration, but you can’t add or remove dimensions from the configuration.

You can delete any lines that you don’t want to consider in the Forecast, and you can add any lines that weren’t budgeted but that you want to include in your projections.

The Forecast has totals for each type of account (Income, Expense, Other Income, Other Expense, and Cost of Goods Sold). It also shows the impact of your projects for each account type and each year.

Examples of the Forecast Detail with Various Configurations

If you select only to show the account category in your forecast, the Forecast Detail would look like this:

If you select to show departments and category, the display might look like this.

Filtering the Forecast Display

You can use the filters at the top of the screen to limit the display. This example illustrates a filter to a specific department.

This example illustrates a filter to a particular account category:

Updating the values in the Forecast

Adding Lines. You can add lines to the forecast, based on combinations of the dimensions and account information used in its configuration. In this example, the forecast configuration was based on department and account category, so you can select a combination of department and account category that is not presently listed on the forecast. You also must indicate the account type in order to determine the section of the forecast in which the new line will be added.

Deleting Lines. Use the checkbox on the far right to select lines to be deleted, then use the Delete button at the bottom right side of the screen to delete lines from the forecast.

Updating Lines within the Forecast

The checkboxes on the Forecast Detail are a powerful tool for selecting the lines to update with your projections. The checkboxes can:

1. If needed filter to the appropriate rows
2. Select the appropriate cells
   • Selections can be made for the whole row
   • Selections can be made for the whole column
   • Selections can be made on a cell-by-cell basis
3. Click "Adjust Selected" 
4. Choose the Adjustment type
5. Enter the Amount
6. Enter any notes
7. Click save

Reviewing the Results of the Forecast

The Forecast Detail shows totals for each year, each account type, and overall.   More reporting options are available on the Forecast Results page. To access this, you can either select Results from the Forecast List, or select Results from the bottom of the Forecast Detail.

Options for the Rows dropdown include Detail view and summaries by anything used in the configuration of this forecast. You can also limit the display to any dimension or the level of account information included in the configuration. Results can be exported to Excel in order to be printed, for distribution, or for further analysis.