As a manager you need to adjust the forecast roll up to corporate. This report allows you to view your Forecast compared to the Top Down Budgets.
No more calculations or negative numbers! For example, if your Salespeople are saying it’s going to be $2 million in June for Digital, but really you think it’s going to be $1.75 million then you simply just need to enter in $1.75 million in June for Digital.
Please follow the below steps to ensure accurate, useful forecasting information.
TOPDOWN FORECAST
The Top Down Budget Attributes (Outlet – Office – Rev Type) must match your Top Down Forecast Attributes (Outlet – Office – Rev Type) to ensure accuracy for Digital, Local, National & Political. You can find your TopDown Forecast on the Navigation Pane on the left side under “TOPDOWN FORECAST”.
SETTING UP YOUR TOPDOWN FORECAST PAGE
1. Select the year you would like to forecast on.
2. Create the rows that you will be forecasting against, which should include Spot, Political, and Digital revenue types against the appropriate Outlets and Offices.
a. If you already created a TopDown Budget via the budgets module you can use the “Set a Baseline from Budget” button to recreate the lines that you’ve budgeted against within your TopDown Forecast.
NOTES:
-Whether you set your FILTERS or NOT, the Set a Baseline from Budgets button recreates all of the lines that you've budgeted against.
-The Top Down totals will populate underneath the data cells as shown highlighted in yellow below. The totals do NOT populate in the data cells as shown highlighted in red below. This is for you to add your adjustments.
-If you haven’t set a TopDown Budget this option will NOT create any rows within your TopDown Forecast
b. Add lines manually via the “Add Row” button located at the bottom of the page.
Once selected, enter the Office/Outlet/Rev Type combination for the new row you are creating.
c. When choosing your row combinations, Corporate determines the Revenue Types to bring into the
TopDown Forecast, based on the granularity they desire.
3. To remove a row from your TopDown Forecast, click the menu icon at the end of that row to delete.
ENTERING YOUR TOPDOWN FORECAST
1. Select the row to forecast based on the Outlet/Office/Rev Type combination, and click into the open field for the month you wish to enter a value against and simply type it in.
- You can filter by Outlet and Office. If you are also required to use the Revenue Type during your Top Down Forecasting, then you will have those filters as well.
2. When entering the values, you will be presented with this same timeframe’s “TopDown Budget” and “Bottom Up Forecast” to provide context as you call the TopDown Forecast:
- When Revenue Type is part of the TD FC, you will see a Revenue Type Group total for the Outlet and Office when you click into any field to edit the dollar value. As you make changes, the total updates in real time.
- Last Update Date and Last Updated By row appears when you click into any field to edit the dollar value. As you make changes, the values update in real time.
3. Update the number as needed for reporting. Unlike booked and pending numbers, the TopDown
Forecast is exclusively owned by managers, and is only adjusted through this interface.
REVIEWING THE TOPDOWN FORECAST (Use the Top Down Forecast Report)
1. The TopDown Forecast Module will confirm your totals for each line, and roll up an overall total at the top of the page for each month and quarter.
2. Utilize the “TopDown Forecast Report” to get a comprehensive review of your numbers that also includes the TopDown Forecast field.
a. Access from the Forecast & Deals tab within Reports.
b. Setup with Rev Types Grouped for your hierarchy:
This shows booked dollars alongside the TopDown Forecast, and will also show your overall Local/National/Political/Digital forecast as it rolls up to the appropriate Rev Type grouping.
Using TD FC Change Since
“TD FC Change Since” allows you to compare a historical TD FC value to today’s value. Default value will be 7 days ago. You pick the date, and we will display it as part of the columns as well.
- TD FC as of <DATE>
- TD FC Change from <DATE>
New Columns Added
The following columns have been added to the Top Down Forecast Report:
- Forecast (this is the normal forecast that you would see on the Forecast report so that it may be compared against the TD FC)
- $ Diff TD FC / FC
- % Diff TD FC / FC