Clear And Sunny Skies Ahead: Forecasting Budgets in The Financial Edge

Entering budgets can be a time consuming and time-sensitive part of maintaining organizational finances, but it’s also an important step in setting your organization up for successful spending in the year ahead. The process also can be tricky when changing budget amounts year to year. The Copy/Forecast tool in the optional module Budget Management can streamline the budget creation process. Who doesn’t love a way to reduce the time needed to enter a budget while also reducing any potential manual calculation or entry errors? The tool also allows you to prepare your budget well in advance of a new fiscal year.

What is it?

By using the Copy/Forecast tool, you can copy budgeted or actual amounts from one fiscal year to another. If you are copying current year actual figures, you can project actual figures for the remainder of the year. For example, if you are entering the budget for the Jan/Dec 2015 fiscal year ahead of time in September 2014 (period 9), the program can project amounts for October through December (periods 10-12) based on the current year-to-date activity. That way, you can create a budget for the next fiscal year based on current year activity before the end of the current year, allowing you to review, edit, and distribute the budget to the necessary parties.

The system uses a formula based on current year actual data and its relationship to the current year budget to forecast the remaining periods of the year. See how the calculation is created here: How are budget forecasts calculated? (BB89210)

So, let’s get a head start and create your new budget! Follow the steps in How to Copy/Forecast budgets (BB66945) and check one more task off your end-of-year list today!