The project forecast tool is a powerful feature for recording your projects' actuals and budgets to keep the future financial forecast up-to-date.

Get Started

To access your project's Forecast tab, you will first need to enter Start & End dates for your project. Additionally, you will need a Contract Value. To enter a contract value, you can create an estimate (for pursuit projects), or a prime contract (for won projects).

Once your project has Start / End Dates and a Contract Value entered, we can access the Forecast tool. Navigate to the Forecast tab in your project financials tool.

Here, you will see that your project forecast defaults to an S-curve - smaller payments in the beginning & end of a project, larger payments toward the middle of the project. You will also notice the columns broken out by revenue, profit, cost, and more. To better understand each of these columns, simply hover over the column header to view the information.

Edit Forecast

You can adjust your monthly forecast to more accurately reflect your projected cost per monthly billing period. To edit your forecast, click "Edit Forecast" at the top-right of the page.

Next, you can adjust your monthly completion percentages as needed. The completion percentage is used to calculate each period's cost, revenue, and profit. Note: When updating completion percentages, each period's percent complete must be greater than the previous period's percent complete.

When your edits are complete, click "Save Forecast," and your forecast chart will update accordingly.

Close Billing Periods

Once your project has been awarded and a prime contract has been created, you can begin to close your monthly billing periods in your Forecast tool. Closing a billing period will allow you to record the exact progress a project has made during that billing period. When a billing period is closed, Buildr will automatically re-forecast future billing periods, maintaining the forecast curve.

Note: You will need a prime contract created in order to close billing periods.

To enter actuals for a given billing period, navigate to the billing month and select "Close Month."

Here, you can enter the period's Project Cost, Estimated Cost at Completion, and Billed Amount. The project cost and estimated cost at completion will be used to calculate the project's percentage of completion (see cost-to-cost formula notated under Project Costs).

Once your actuals have been entered, click "Create." Buildr will automatically re-forecast the project's future billing periods based on the values entered.

Importing Closed Periods

Buildr also enables you to import closed periods into your won projects. You can utilize the Forecast importer to bulk edit existing closed periods, or log new closed periods in your projects. Learn how to import closed periods here.

Edit a Closed Month

If you need to adjust the actuals entered in a closed month, simply click "Edit."

Adjust your values, and click "Update" to save your changes.

Delete a Closed Month

Buildr enables you to delete the most recently closed billing period. Note: Any closed months prior to the most recently closed billing period can be edited, but not deleted.

To remove the closed billing period, click "Edit." Next, click "Delete."