Forecasting varying amounts over time Follow

When creating any forecast entry, you have two options for entering your numbers:

  • Constant amount, which applies the same number to every month or year of your forecast
  • Varying amounts over time, which allows you to manually enter different numbers for each month of your forecast, or to have certain months with no numbers at all

The example below shows you how to access these input types for a sample revenue entry, but the process is identical for direct costs, expenses, personnel, assets, or any other type of forecast item:



When do I use varying amounts over time?

The Varying amounts over time input is useful in a number of different scenarios:

  • Let's say you want to show growth in your revenue, or growth in your direct costs or expenses, as your business grows. In that case, you can use Varying amounts over time to enter larger amounts for each month of year of your plan. (Or, you can use the point-and-click chart to draw an upward curve.)
  • If the unit price of your product or service varies seasonally, Varying amounts over time allows you to set different unit prices for different months.
  • If you're adding personnel to your forecast and you want to show seasonal fluctuations in the number of staff you'll be employing, Varying amounts over time allows you to enter a different number of employees each month. You can also use this method to show seasonal fluctuations in salary amounts.

In other words, the Varying amounts input can be used throughout the forecast, adding flexibility to your projections.


Applying a percentage of growth to varying amounts entries

When you've created an entry using varying amounts over time, you can then apply a flat growth percentage to each month of the current year. Enter the percentage in the Change field, and click Apply:


As shown above, the point-and-click chart and the numbers entered below it will both change as the percentage is applied to all months of the current year.


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