There are three different ways to start your forecast in Fathom:.

All setup options take you to the same forecasting tool, so you are not limited by the method you select. You should further tailor your forecast to your business and goals once it has been created.

All options result in a 3-way financial forecast (Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement). All options also enable you to do driver-based forecasting.

Each method only dictates how your forecast’s baseline is initially set up before you customise it further.

When you choose the ‘Quick Start’ forecast option, Fathom will set up the default rules for your forecast so you can get started more quickly. You can change these selections or customise them further once you’re in the forecasting tool.

Fathom will look at your historical data and choose from the following rule options to get you started:

For Revenue, Cost of Sales, and Expense accounts, Fathom will determine which of the three value rules is best for your company’s forecast by taking your past financial data and running a forecast to test for accuracy in predicting your more recent actuals.

The rule that is most accurate for each classification will be set up by Fathom as the default value rule for that account classification. You can review and set rules for individual Profit & Loss accounts once you are in your forecast.

Fathom will identify your default accounts using keyword matching. This means that if accounts have unexpected names, Fathom may not be able to identify them. You can review and, if necessary, change any account linkages in your Forecast Settings once you are in your forecast.

Your default accounts will be chosen as follows:

For a Quick Start forecast, Fathom will assume that all Revenue, Cost of Sales, and Expenses are paid or received in the same month they are recorded on the Profit & Loss. You can change this assumption once you are in your forecast as part of the 'Forecast your Baseline' workflow.

Fathom will identify Long Term Debt and Short Term Debt accounts based on their account classification. To ensure we’re not setting up loan repayment schedules for debt accounts that are not loans, Fathom will identify debt accounts with a positive balance that have consistently decreased over the last 3 months.

Using the accounts’ historic values, we will calculate a blended Interest Rate. Schedules will be created for all identified accounts, posting to the Interest Rate Expense account with the highest value.

The loan repayment amount will be based on the average monthly decrease in the debt accounts over the last 3 months. Fathom assumes a default loan term of 20 years.

You can review and change these assumptions once you are in the forecasting tool as part of the 'Forecast your Baseline' workflow.

Fathom identifies the three Fixed Asset accounts with the greatest value based on their most recent balance and account classification.

We then use the historic values in these accounts to calculate an average depreciation percentage. With the average depreciation percentage, we calculate the depreciation for the top three accounts and add the depreciation schedule to the account with the largest balance.

You can review and change this depreciation schedule once you are in the forecasting tool as part of the 'Forecast your Baseline' workflow.

Fathom will identify tax accounts based on account classification and keyword matching across all tax types. If you are using a cloud-based source accounting system, then Fathom will query the system to determine the appropriate tax rates.

Fathom will calculate a blended rate for all Tax Expenses based on the sum of earnings accounts compared to the sum of tax expense accounts.

The 'Link to Budget' option specifically links your forecast to your imported Profit & Loss budget, so that future budget periods are used as your forecast values.

Your Balance Sheet and any Balance Sheet-derived P&L accounts (e.g. interest, depreciation, amortisation) will not be linked to your imported budget. Instead, those forecast values can be determined when you forecast your balance sheet.

You can review and change the Profit & Loss figures in your forecast once you are in the forecasting tool as part of the 'Forecast your Baseline' workflow.

If you’ve forecasted in Fathom before and know the rules you want to use to start your forecast, then the custom forecast onboarding option allows you to begin tailoring your forecast right away.

As part of the custom forecast setup process, you:

You can change any of the choices and customise your forecast further once you’re in the forecasting tool as part of the 'Forecast your Baseline' workflow.

Once you’ve created a forecast, you can review your choices and tailor the baseline to your business:

Learn more about the recommended forecasting workflow from our ‘Get Started with Forecasting’ article.

Learn more