Cash Flow Forecasting

Access a project-level cash flow analysis and quickly visualize the difference between planned, actual, and forecast with built-in dynamic charts.

When all budget line items are forecasted, you can go to the Cash Flow tab to see a project-level cash flow analysis and the planned and actual forecast. Based on that, you can investigate details. The Cash Flow tab is a centralized place to create and manage all cash flow distributions.

Quick Navigation

In this article:

Set Preferred Forecast Period

Within the Settings tool, project administrators can set preferred forecast periods; weekly or monthly. Once a forecast distribution is created on any budget item this setting cannot be changed.

See the Forecast Setting to learn more.

Create a Distribution Item

You can create distribution items to see how your budget is performing at a project level with four built-in curves.

Note: You can choose between weekly and monthly forecasting distribution in the Forecast settings section, as well as configure how distribution items will be created.

To create a distribution item:

  1. Go to the Cash Flow tab within the Forecast tool.

  2. If there are no distribution items created yet, you'll see Add distribution item there:

    Add distribution item button

    However, if there are existing items, the Add distribution item button shows at the top:

    Add distribution item button at top

  3. Now you can choose what will be the base for a distribution item: Budget, Budget code segment, or Contract.

    Distribution window options

  4. Select distribution items and click Add.

    Tip: You may need a permission to view items on those lists. Contact a project administrator to obtain permissions. For the Budget tab, you'll need View All or Full Control. For the Contract tab, you'll need Collaborate, View All, or Full Control. Learn more about Cost Management's permissions.

Distribution items are added to the Revised Budget list, the detailed view of the Cash Flow tab. In the Cost & Time tab, you can connect budgets to schedule tasks, but actual distribution is done in the cash flow view. To create a distribution, you need to have created scheduled tasks.

Create a Distribution

After creating a schedule task and a distribution item, you can create cash flow distribution to see a project-level cash flow analysis and the planned and actual forecast. To do so:

  1. Go to the Cash Flow tab within the Forecast tool.

  2. Open the distribution item list view of Revised Budget or Forecast Final Cost. In our scenario, we clicked Revised Budget. The detailed view of Revised Budget opens. If project administrator allows budget forecasting, here you'll see Forecast Final Budget.

    Open distribution item list view

  3. You'll see the list of distribution items. Click the More menu More menu icon next to the one you want to create a distribution.

    Distribute option

  4. Choose distribution start and end dates. Choose the style of the cash flow curve.

    Note: Date range resources are available for distribution in the cash flow view. You can view quantities per period as an alternative to dollars, and add resources bidirectionally between distribution items and cash flow views. See Quantity Distribution to learn more. To configure date range resource frequency settings, see Date Range Based Resources.

The distribution is created. You'll see the table with created distribution, divided into months and years, and you can load more periods when available.

Load more periods option

You can override dates if preferred.

Create distribution from multiple distribution items

To create a distribution based on multiple distribution items, select the distribution items and click Distribute at the top of the page.

Multiple items distribution

Automated Forecast Adjustments

In cash flow management, actual costs can sometimes deviate from the forecasted final costs for each period. If the value of a specific period on the Forecast Final Cost (or Forecast Final Budget) curve doesn't match the corresponding period on the Actual Cost curve, an indicator will appear in the distribution item list view.

Forecast adjustments indicator

A context menu provides the option to Redistribute based on Actual Cost.

Redistribute based on actual cost

After selecting, you will see several options:

Forecast adjustment options

Keep the same forecast final cost or budget

After clicking the Redistribute button in the dialog, past periods will be adjusted to match the actual cost. The current period is not included in these adjustments.

The distribution item line will become editable. The Cancel and Confirm buttons appear at the right end of the row.

The variance resulting from adjusting past periods will then be evenly spread across the remaining ones.

Calculate new forecast final cost or budget

Here you have several available options:

Edit each period manually

The remaining periods retain their values, but they can be modified as needed. To do so, open the distribution detailed view and edit values in relevant periods.

Tips for distribution adjustment

Here is a demo of Automated Forecast Adjustments in action:

 

Create Forecast Adjustments

Apart from automated forecast adjustments you can also create adjustments manually.

In our scenario, we're making adjustments in Forecast Final Cost to New Travelling PM Budget. To do so:

  1. Click on the blue triangle in the Distribution Total.

  2. Choose Add forecast adjustment in the flyout panel.

    Add forecast adjustments workflow

  3. In the new window, choose a budget to add forecast adjustment to.

  4. Click Add.

  5. Name the new adjustment and approve it.

    Approve forecast adjustment

Now, open the distribution item detail view of New Travelling PM Budget and edit values in relevant periods.

You can add forecast adjustments in the same way in Revised Budget (or Forecast Final Budget, when budget forecasting is on) and Forecast Final Cost.

Tip: Once you've created forecast adjustments, you can generate PCOs from them to request additional budget changes or create budget transfers from them to move money between budget items.

Quantity Distribution

Use Quantity Distribution to track your cash flow with quantities and units (hours, days, weeks) alongside dollar amounts. This helps you manage labor budgets and time-based work by showing both the amount of work and when it will happen.

Example Scenario: When you create budgets using quantities and unit costs (for example, 100 hours × $50/hour = $5,000), the system only tracks the total dollar amount ($5,000) and loses the original quantity information (100 hours).

The Solution: Quantity distribution preserves both the dollar amounts and the original quantities, allowing you to:

Viewing quantity distribution

To work with quantity distribution, open distribution item list view:

Distribution item list view

Then you can:

  1. Toggle views: Switch between "Amount" and "Input Qty" views using the toggle button.

    • Amount view: Shows dollar values and percentages.
    • Input Qty view: Shows quantities and percentages.
  2. Work with the Unit column: When in quantity view, you'll see a "Unit" column showing:

    • Budget items: The budget's original unit (hours, days, and more).
    • Segment/Contract items: Shows hours.

Input quantity distribution view

How quantity distribution works

This feature is most valuable for labor and other time-based work. Try to use consistent time units within similar types of work. Update both quantities and amounts as your project progresses. Pay attention to unit costs when adjusting to ensure they remain realistic.

Key features:

  1. Forecast adjustments. When adding forecast adjustments:

    1. Enter a unit cost (for example, $75/hour).
    2. The system calculates quantities automatically based on your dollar adjustments.
    3. This unit cost applies to all time periods in the adjustment.
  2. Redistribute based on actual cost: When you redistribute amounts based on actual costs, the system also redistributes quantities proportionally, keeping your quantity forecasts aligned with actual progress.

  3. Modify quantity and unit cost per period after forecast adjustment was added. To do so, in the consolidated view:

    1. Click Edit input qty & unit cost.

      Edit input quantity

    2. Edit distribution.

      Edit distribution

Note: If a budget doesn't have original quantity information and isn't time-based, the quantity distribution will show empty values. This is normal for lump-sum contracts or material budgets without unit breakdowns.

Default units and how to change them

The system automatically selects appropriate units:

For time-based distributions, you can switch between different time units: hr (hours), d (days), wk (weeks), mo (months).

The system automatically converts quantities when you change units (for example, 40 hours becomes 1 week).

Update a Distribution

An Undistributed column advises of any differences between the amount in the budget view and the currently distributed. Selecting the More menu More menu icon next to the item with an orange triangle allows you to add in undistributed items for change orders or transfers, so they can be distributed separately from the original work.

Add to distribution item

After adding to the distribution item, you'll see the detailed view:

Undistributed items view

You can distribute those items using the predefined curves or manually.

Manual distribution

Approved Owner Changes and Internal Budget Transfer amounts are shown in a different color in the chart.

Different colors chart

Clear a Distribution

To clear a distribution, click the More menu More menu icon next to a distribution item and select Clear distribution.

Clear distribution option

Delete a Distribution Item

To delete a distribution item, click the More menu More menu icon and then select Delete. To delete more than one distribution item, select boxes next to items you want to delete, and then click Delete.

Delete distribution item

In both cases, you'll be prompted to confirm the action.

Distribution Item in the Collaborative Workflow

The collaborative functionality in the Forecast tool allows users to send distribution items to suppliers and ask for their input.

Learn more about the Cash Flow Collaborative Workflow.

Learn how to:

Teams can access a project-level cash flow analysis to easily visualize the cash flow distribution throughout the project lifecycle. This real-time summary enables teams to see planned actual and forecast quickly with all the details, when necessary. To access the Cash Flow table, open the Forecast tool.

To display the built-in dynamic time-versus-money chart, select the Chart icon icon. Then, you can:

Cash flow chart details

You can manipulate the Cash Flow table by using the Settings icon icon:

You can also see more details by selecting the Popout icon icon that appears in the table when hovering over a line:

Distribution item list view

The view of the budget for the specific column opens. Add distribution items and create cash flow distributions from this view. Click budget items with the Popout icon icon to see a more detailed forecast. Periods are divided into months and years, with extra periods available to load when needed.

Forecast in budget details

Cash flow periods are dynamic. Therefore, period column position and visibility cannot be saved in cash flow saved views. Only the following columns will be kept in saved views:

Consolidated view

You can view and edit the details of a distribution item on the list, and also see the cash flow context of other distribution items, by displaying these details in a subtable.

To display distribution item details in a subtable in the list view:

  1. Select any Distribution Total that has a blue triangle indicator to expand the subtable.

    Cash flow consolidated view

  2. You can now edit the details of an item and see other items.

Forecast adjustments across tools

Other forecast tools and workflows