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Auditing a Forecast

Find out where your forecast numbers come from in Fathom

Updated over a week ago

Contents:


How the forecast is calculated

Fathom forecast values are calculated based on the:

  • Value rules chosen for the P&L accounts, headings, and/or classifications

  • Timing profiles determining the Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Unearned or Deferred Revenue, and Prepaid Expenses

  • Schedules determining loan repayment, depreciation, amortisation, etc.

  • Journals (including custom, inventory, auto-payment and ‘system’ journals)

  • Drivers used as variables in formula value rule calculations

To ensure you have transparency around your forecast values, the following features help you audit your Fathom forecast:

Auditing tool

What you learn

A Excel document showing all of the value rules, timing profiles, schedules, journals, drivers, and assumptions or notes in the forecast for the baseline

A timeline of all of the value rules and timing profiles impacting an account

The opening balance, all of the impacts from the Profit & Loss, schedules, and journals, and the closing balance of a balance sheet account


Forecast Value Audit

The ‘Forecast Value Audit’ is a downloadable Excel document and is a complete listing of all of the value rules, timing profiles, schedules, journals, drivers, and notes impacting a forecast's baseline. To access the ‘Forecast Value Audit,’

  1. From the main forecast grid, select the ‘Cog/Gear’ icon in the lower left corner to open the ‘Forecast Settings’

  2. Under ‘General,’ you’ll see a ‘Downloads’ section. Select the ‘Forecast Value Audit’ option.

  3. Choose to download all or some of the following:

    1. All notes

      Note: This includes every note made in the forecast, not only those selected to be included in the Assumptions report)

  4. Select the date range

  5. Select ‘Download Excel’

The report will download with each of the selected options listed on their own sheet in the Excel document. For example, if you selected to download the value rules, timing profiles, and driver, then the P&L value rules would be listed on the first sheet, the timing profiles on the second sheet, and the drivers on the third sheet.


Rule Timeline

From the main grid, you’re able to view a timeline of all of the value rules and timing profiles used to calculate an account. To do this,

  1. Select the name of the account you want to audit

  2. A panel will open to the left showing the ‘Rule Timeline’

The value rules and timing profiles are listed from top to bottom in the panel. The top most value rule or timing profile occurs at the start of the forecast and subsequent value rules or timing profiles will display the date at which they start in the forecast for that account. For any direct entry value rules, the date will be shown in a white box instead of a green box, to make the direct entries easier to identify.

If you need to edit or create a new value rule or timing profile, you can hover over it and select the ‘Three dot’ icon. The green ‘+’ option also allows you to create a new value rule or timing profile for the selected account.

💡Pro Tip: The balance sheet accounts impacted by a timing profile can be viewed by selecting the ‘Settings’ option in the panel for the Rule Timeline. This menu enables you to change the Balance Sheet account linked to the selected P&L account.


Balance Sheet Detail View

Within the Fathom forecast balance sheet you are able to fully reconcile the running total of a Balance Sheet account within a particular layer (e.g. within the baseline, or within a particular microforecast). This allows you to see exactly how the closing balance is arrived at for an account. Generally balance sheet accounts will carry forward with the same value unless changed.

There are 3 ways that balance sheet accounts change in a Fathom Forecast:

  1. From P&L Accounts

  2. From Balance Sheet schedule lines

  3. From journals (including ‘custom’, ‘auto-payment’ and ‘system’ journals)

Viewing the balance sheet layer detail

To access the balance layer detail,

  1. Navigate to the Balance Sheet in the main grid

  2. Click on a cell for the account you want to audit

  3. From the properties menu that opens on the right, select the Baseline

  4. Click the ‘Magnifying Glass’ icon in the top right corner to view all of the impacts on the account. This audit screen also details custom journals that impact this Balance Sheet account as well as the impact of any schedules that have been set up.

💡Pro Tip: If you select a microforecast associated with the account instead of the ‘Baseline’, you will be taken to the microforecast where you can view all of the movements associated with that particular microforecast.


Next steps

What you want to do:

Where to go next:

Report on your forecast

Share your reports with others or enable them to comment on reports

Invite others into your Fathom account to share insights

Analyse the company's performance with the Analysis tools

Ready to consolidate your companies in Fathom or Benchmark them?

Need to add another company to your Fathom account?


Additional knowledge & common questions:

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