Product: Enterprise
The Revenue Forecast shows the schedule of the invoices expected to be issued each month across the stages of your projects. You can drill down to the stage level, and edit the schedule to specify exactly the amount that you expect to invoice, and when.
Why use the forecast?
Managing revenue, as part of your cash-flow management, is imperative to the success of your organisation. It is critical that you have a clear view of the monthly revenue and can easily see if that is above or below your business costs. The revenue forecast is an invaluable business tool to ensure you operate your business profitably.
Introducing the interface
Project list
Red arrowheads, red dots, red numbers: There is something wrong with one of the stages in your project. More than likely, the forecast does not equal the fee. This is detailed in the Actions > Editing project row.
NOTE: If a stage does not have a start or end date and you will need to go back to the planning board to amend it.
Teal arrows: There are no issues with this project.
Arrow: Brings the project into view.
Arrowhead: Shows the stages of the project.
Amount in project list: total project cost including fee
Revenue rows
The rows in the grid show the expected revenue income of your organisation, based on the invoicing of the work completed on all your projects.
Teal bar: Projects with an active status and in delivery mode.
Teal striped: Projects in proposal status. The projects can be in planning or delivery mode.
NOTE: Unlike the project planning view, revenue forecasting does not use an italicised font.
Figure in a row: The figure outside of the grey overlay shows the forecasted revenue from today’s date. The figure inside the grey overlay shows the expected revenue from the last month.
Distribution: You can select at any time if you want the invoiced amount to be distributed equally for the duration of the stage or via a custom method. See Actions for more information.
Grey overlay: Figures within the dark overlay show money that has already been invoiced.
Stage tool tips
Use the hover function on each stage to capture key information about the stage, including Fee, Invoiced to date, Forecast, Balance and Complete %
Revenue view
Target revenue: The black baseline shows you the target revenue value that your business needs to make each month to break even.
Revenue: The blue line shows the forecast revenue for each month, and lets you see if the forecast revenue in each month is over or under the target value.
Revenue breakdown views
You are able to change the view on the Revenue Forecasting screen depending on what you are wanting to see. These views correlate with the Rate Categories in Synergy and can be accessed through the toggle in the top right of the board.
External and Expenses will show only Rates from their respective Categories. Internals, however, will include any difference between the Fees and the Budget, so if you’re using the difference between these for a markup, it will be included in Internal.
Depending on the filter applied to your Revenue Forecast page, the report you can access from the More menu will also be customised.
EXAMPLE: When filtering by Externals, you will Generate the External Forecast Report instead of the Gross Revenue Forecast.
Actions available
Search
Type part of the 'project name', ‘project manager’ or 'project number' into the search and filter box at the top of the projects list and press enter to run the search.
Click the arrow on the project to auto-position the planning grid to show that project. Clicking on the project name or arrowhead will show the stages.
Click ‘Clear’' in the search and filter box to clear the search and return to seeing all the projects.
Distribution
Synergy can automatically distribute the amount you are expecting for a project per month by changing the expected invoice distribution method at the stage level. Synergy will reset your forecast if you are changing from custom distribution to linear.
Linear distribution will distribute the stage amounts equally for the duration of that stage. (top symbol)
Custom distribution allows you to edit the monthly amounts at the stage level. (bottom symbol)
Editing project rows
While Synergy’s linear cashflow distribution provides a good estimate, as practice managers, you know if you will receive more during the earlier or latter halves of your planned project
Select the custom distribution method to fine-tune your forecast.
When you click on a month in the grid, you will see the cursor change and you can edit the amount for a specific month.
Hovering over the row will show a tooltip with financial information related to this stage.
You can make changes to the stage by adding an amount in any month to equal the difference. Use a positive value if you need to add to the amount, or a negative value if you are forecasting more than is expected.
If the row is in red, there is an amount not balancing. Re-check the tooltip to balance the amount. Generally, the balance line will show the difference between the total project amount and how much you have billed.