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.

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 the distribution of revenue across the project's duration.

To edit your forecast, click "Edit Forecast" at the top-right of the page.

Quick Forecast Options

Next, you can adjust your monthly completion percentages manually, or select "Quick Forecast Options." The Quick Forecast Options enable you to select the forecast type that most accurately represents the distribution of revenue across the project's duration. The forecast options include the following:

• Linear: Distribute revenue evenly across the project's duration.
• Balanced Curve: Distribute revenue along a standard s-curve with most of the project's revenue coming in during the middle of the project.
• Front Loaded Curve: Distribute revenue along a standard s-curve with most of the project's revenue coming in during the first half of the project.
• Back Loaded Curve: Distribute revenue along a standard s-curve with most of the project's revenue coming in during the second half of the project.
• Reset to current forecast: Undo any changes made and reset to the current forecast values.

Edit Forecast Manually

Alternatively, you can adjust your monthly completion percentages manually by entering the values into the fields below.

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.

Forecast Trailing Periods

If there are costs or billings that occur after the construction has ended, you can extend the forecast beyond the construction end date.

To extend the forecast, simply click on the Settings icon in the project's Forecast tab, enter the number of trailing billing periods, and click Save.

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."