Skip to content
Open appSchedule a pilot

Budget Projection

Budget Projection turns your recent income statement into a 12-month forecast you can adjust. Set growth for each revenue stream, decide which costs move with sales and which stay flat, then compare scenarios or save one as a budget. It requires the CFO Advisory Suite add-on, the same as Budgets.

Key capabilities

  • Five tabs: Dashboard, Income Statement, Revenue Assumptions, Cost Assumptions and Full Forecast
  • Named scenarios you can create, rename, delete and Compare to one another
  • Revenue growth per stream, with variable costs as a percentage of revenue and fixed costs as a base amount plus yearly escalation
  • Typed monthly values that pin a month so the drivers skip it
  • BULK APPLY to set one rate on every line, and reset buttons that restore trailing averages
  • Export and import of assumptions as Excel or CSV templates
  • Save as Budget to create a draft budget from the projection, and Export projection to Excel
  • Monthly interest income and expense in Settings

How it works

Everything starts from an actuals window, by default the last six closed months (up to 24). Your assumptions project forward from the last actual month.

flowchart LR
  act["Actuals from your books"] --> cls["Classify costs"]
  cls --> asm["Set assumptions"]
  asm --> run["Run Projection"]
  run --> fc["12-month Full Forecast"]
  fc --> bud["Save as Budget"]
  fc --> cmp["Compare scenarios"]

Each revenue stream grows month over month from its last actual month. A variable cost equals its percentage times projected revenue. A fixed cost starts from a base amount and rises through the year by its escalation rate. Changes save automatically, with Saving..., Saved or Save failed (use Retry) beside the page buttons.

How to use it

  1. Open Budget Projection. Pick a scenario at the top, or click New and name one. New scenarios are seeded from your trailing actuals.
  2. Set the Actuals date range. It drives every tab.
  3. On Income Statement, review actuals by month. Click a VAR or FIX tag on any expense line to switch how it is projected.
  4. On Revenue Assumptions, type a Growth / Mo rate per stream, or use Growth MoM to all streams and Apply to all. Reset growth to 0% clears it.
  5. On Cost Assumptions, set % of Revenue for variable lines and Base $ / Mo with Annual escalation for fixed lines. Compare each against the 3M Trailing % column.
  6. To pin a single month, type over any monthly cell on either assumptions tab. It is marked as a manual override and drivers skip it.
  7. When the banner says assumptions changed, click Run Projection.
  8. Open Full Forecast to see actuals followed by the projection. Use the From and To pickers, $ Only or $ & %, and Margins Show or Hide.
  9. Choose Compare to to see a second scenario beside the first, then click Save as Budget, name it and click Save Budget.

Pro tips

  • Create one scenario per question, such as "Base", "Hire two sales reps" and "Lose top customer", then compare them.
  • Classify costs before tuning rates. Moving a line from FIX to VAR resets it to its trailing percentage of revenue.
  • Reset to trailing % of rev and Reset to trailing run rate restore defaults from the last three months of actuals.
  • Download a template with Export .xlsx or Export .csv, edit it in a spreadsheet, and bring it back with Import Template to change many lines at once.
  • Budgets created here show Generated from Projection on Budgets, and you can also start a scenario from a budget with Model Scenario.
  • Use Hide Empty Rows on the Income Statement and Full Forecast tabs to cut noise.

In-depth guide

The tabs

Tab What it shows
Dashboard Last Month Revenue, Projected Revenue, Projected Gross Margin and Projected Net Margin cards, plus actual-versus-projected revenue and net income charts
Income Statement Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Operating Expenses and Other Income by month, with margins
Revenue Assumptions One row per revenue stream: growth, trailing share and 12 projected months
Cost Assumptions Variable Costs and Fixed Costs grids with totals
Full Forecast Selected history months followed by up to 12 projected months and a total column

History in Full Forecast follows your report basis (accrual or cash).

Scenarios and comparing

The scenario marked (active) cannot be deleted, and you need at least two scenarios to delete one. Deleting removes its drivers and manual overrides but keeps budgets already saved from it. Compare to is read-only and shows projected revenue, gross margin, net income and net margin for the 12 months for both scenarios with the difference. Edit assumptions on the primary scenario only.

Settings

Click Settings to enter Monthly Interest Income and Monthly Interest Expense. Income is added to Other Income and expense is subtracted from it. Other income and expense lines otherwise repeat their trailing three-month average.

What the projection does not do

Net income here is operating income plus other income and expense. No income tax is modeled. Save as Budget needs your latest edits saved first and creates a draft monthly budget. If some lines fail to save you are told how many, and can fix them in Budgets.