Contents
Accessing the Forecast Settings
There are several ‘Forecast Settings’ configurations that can be managed by navigating to the ‘Cog/Gear’ icon in the lower-left corner of the forecasting grid.
Here you can find and manage the applicable settings:
Extend your forecast date range
Download your forecast to Excel and the 'Forecast Value Audit' report
View the residual drawdown settings
Delete your forecast or reset the baseline.
Manage account linkages and relationships
Merge future accounts with actuals
Tax Settings: Audit and manage settings across your accounts that control tax status, tax % and account links.
Outlined below are each of the settings areas and how these settings will impact your forecast in Fathom.
General Settings
Forecast Range
By default, Fathom enables you to forecast 3 years beyond the current financial year.
You can extend the forecast to enable you to forecast up to 5 years beyond the current financial year.
Downloads
You can download your forecast directly into Excel, by using the ‘Download Excel' button under the 'Forecast' option. This will prompt you to select:
To download the monthly, quarterly, or yearly forecast data
The financial statement(s) you want to download (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and/or Cash Flow Statement). These statements will be downloaded into separate Excel sheets in the same document.
The date range of actuals that you’d like to appear (up to 12 months) as well as the forecast periods (up to 36 months).
💡Pro Tip: If you have a scenario active when using the 'Download Excel' option for the forecast, then the forecast values for the selected scenario will be downloaded.
You can also download the 'Forecast Value Audit' to view an Excel download of all of the value rules, timing profiles, schedules, journals, drivers, and notes set up in a forecast.
Drawdowns
The Drawdown field allows you to change the time period of the residual drawdown for your actuals (closing Balance Sheet), Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable balances. To learn more about how the drawdown is calculated, please see this article.
Forecast Management
Here you can reset or delete your forecast and start over. Note these are both permanent actions, and you will not be able to roll back or recover these changes.
Reset Baseline
Resetting your forecast is a non-recoverable action that will clear all your current baseline data, including:
Value rules and timing profile overrides
Direct Entries
From this screen, you will be able to reset which default value rules and timing profiles you want to use in your reset forecast.
Delete Forecast
Delete your entire forecast and start from scratch. This allows you to set the forecast up again using the onboarding fields.
❗Notice: Before deleting your forecast, we recommend downloading the Forecast Value Audit report for your records.
Account Settings
The ‘Accounts’ tab is where you can set up some default account settings. This area allows you to link accounts together for timing profiles, posting purposes, and tax settings. You can set defaults or main accounts for the following accounts:
Accounts Receivables
Accounts Payable
Cash
Current Earnings
Unearned Revenue (prepaid)
Prepaid Expenses
You can then drill down and take this even further by setting up each individual relevant account linkage. For example, with each revenue account you can dictate the cash, accounts receivable, and unearned revenue account that rely on the sales or revenue from this account.
For cost of sales, you can dictate the cash, accounts payable and prepaid account. For expenses, you can dictate your cash, accounts payable and prepaid expenses.
Account linkages automatically calculate the accrual, time down and posting for a given account. For example, based on a timing profile applied in Fathom, we can automatically calculate the Balance Sheet implications of changes to sales. i.e. increases in revenue timed down to the applicable accounts receivable account and cash account on the Balance Sheet.
You are also able to edit, link future accounts, and view the microforecasts that are linked to these future accounts from this area. Simply use the ‘three dot’ overflow menu, to select the action you’d like to perform.
These settings are designed to be set up once; however, they can be edited at any time as business needs change.
Tax Settings
Fathom allows for three different overall tax types to be set. Within each of these three areas, multiple rules and formulas can be set up, giving you ultimate control over the calculation of each.
Click on each type to learn how to forecast that tax type in more detail:
Tax Type | What it is | Examples |
A consumption tax is a tax on the purchase of a good or service. Consumption taxes can take the form of sales taxes, tariffs, excise, and other taxes on consumed goods and services. |
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A withholding tax is an amount that an employer withholds from employees’ wages and pays directly to the government. |
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Taxes linked to an expense account on the P&L.
For example, a corporate tax is a levy placed on a firm's profit by the government. A firm's operating earnings are calculated by deducting expenses, including the cost of goods sold (COGS) and depreciation from revenues. Then, tax rates are applied to generate a legal obligation the business owes the government. These types typically have an expense account to capture the tax (or super), which reduces the earnings. |
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Next steps
Continue the 'Forecast Creation & Setup Workflow' by choosing from one of the next steps below:
What you want to do: | Where to go next: |
Set up loans, depreciation, and inventory in your forecast | |
Track the performance of key metrics throughout your forecast | |
Plan for potential business events & actions |
Additional knowledge & common questions