Forecasting charts in Productive help you plan upfront and ensure that your projects are on track and financially viable.
They provide comprehensive insights into the budget and profitability of your projects, enabling better planning and resource allocation.
To use the charts for forecasting, you must first add bookings for your teammates in Resourcing. After booking people on upcoming budgets and their services, navigate to the budget of your choice.
Enabling the Forecasting Charts
To enable the chart, follow these steps:
Go to the budget of your choice.
Select Show forecast chart in the upper right.
Budgeting Section: Explanation of Chart Elements
The Budgeting section provides a detailed overview of how resources and funds are allocated and utilized throughout the budget.
Billable Time: Time that can be billed to your client.
Total Scheduled Time: Time allocated using bookings in Resourcing.
Budget Total: Total budget for the project.
Budget Used: Budget spent so far working on the project.
Budget Used (Forecasted): The estimation of the budget usage based on the future bookings added in Resourcing.
Profitability Section: Explanation of Chart Elements
The Profitability section allows us to see if our work is still profitable, even if the whole budget is used. You see the following there:
Worked Time: The total hours that team members have logged against the project.
Total Scheduled Time: Time allocated using bookings in Resourcing.
Revenue: The income generated from the project.
Profit: The financial gain calculated by subtracting the total costs (including the cost of work and other expenses) from the revenue.
The chart indicates a profit margin of 71% in November 2024, showing that even if the entire budget is used, the project will remain profitable.
Reading the Charts
You'll notice that the Budget Total and Budget Used lines are not solid at certain points, indicating forecasted future data based on time (bookings) added to Resourcing.
For a detailed overview of forecasted data, hover over any future point on the chart.
In the example below, you can see what will happen in early November 2024: the "Budget used" is forecasted to burn the "Budget total".
Tip: Clicking on the point in the graph will also show you the forecasted budget data below the carts.
For a more precise forecast, switching to Week view allows us to see that the budget will be depleted in W46 of 2024.
Changing the Period
You can tweak the data using the dropdown menus. View your data by choosing between the following:
Cumulative (highlights the overall trend and growth over the project duration) or Per-period (a snapshot view of the selected period)
Year, Quarter, Month or Week for a more broad or granular overview of your budget
Select which year, quarter, month or week you'd like to focus on
Recurring Budgets
For recurring budgets, you can view the Forecast chart in the Recurring tab.
