Forecast Summary Worksheet

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Prerequisites

Prior to reading the instructions on the Forecast Summary Worksheet, it is beneficial to review the following sections of the IU Accounting Standards Book to gain foundational information along with requirements and best practices:

  1. Accounting Fundamentals Section
  2. Chart of Accounts and General Ledger Section
  3. Financial Statements Section

Overview

Forecasting refers to the process of using current and historic cost data to predict future costs and assists fiscal officers and leadership in projecting future outcomes and/or trends. The Forecast Summary Worksheet is a management tool that allows the user to view actual revenues and expenses and remaining fiscal year encumbrance balances alongside an adjustable projection column. This enables the user to change the final projected balances to gain a better understanding of how business decisions or operational changes may affect financial outcomes. The Forecast Summary Worksheet is also key in goal setting (i.e., setting target profit or revenues) as it helps project the financial position in which the entity is projected to finish. Additionally, it is important for internal control compliance through monitoring and keeping expenditures under a certain budgeted dollar amount. The main purposes of this report are for planning and control.

How the Forecast Summary Worksheet Works

Unlike other reports in the Controller’s Office Reporting Tools, the Forecast Summary Worksheet has a column that allows the user to add values to manipulate financial data outcomes. It displays actuals through the selected period, remaining encumbrances for the fiscal year (includes internal and external encumbrances (IE, EX) with a parameter option to include pre-encumbrances; cost shares (CE) are not included), and an adjustable Projections column where the user can input data to adjust forecasted balances. The remaining columns display the new projected Forecast balance (summation of the first three values that changes based on user input into the projections column), the total fiscal year Budget (user has the option to select Current Budget, Adjusted Base Budget, or both to be displayed on separate tabs), and the Variance of the adjusted Forecast number to the Budget.

The user can see the impact certain financial decisions might have on their current fiscal year balances. In scenarios where an initial budget was never prepared for the entity, the Forecast Summary Worksheet will only have actuals populated and the budget column with zeroes. It assumes that since nothing was budgeted for, no activity is expected. A quick way of checking for whether an initial budget was prepared is by looking at the Budget column for zeros throughout.

The Forecast Summary Worksheet can be used in conjunction with the Forecast Report. Whereas the Forecast Report displays where a unit is projected to end the year next to where they had planned or budgeted to end, this worksheet enables the user flexibility to adjust the forecasted balance without making any actual adjustments to actuals, encumbrances, or budgets. This is key in aiding units in predicting and planning for revenue and expense variations. It allows the user to gauge potential outcomes of business decisions or operational changes and their impact on financial performance. For specific descriptions and details on each column of the worksheet, see the collapsible section directly below.


Running the Report

Define the search parameters to return results relevant to your organization or to a specific account. The search parameters available in the Forecast Summary Worksheet are divided into three parameter types: chart of account report parameters, report specific parameters and display parameters.

If there are questions related to running the report, requirements or reviewing results, please contact your (RC) fiscal officer or campus office. Each campus may have individual specific requirements related to the Forecast Summary Worksheet, so be sure to reach out to the related campus office or fiscal officer prior to quarter closings.

General Notes: Do not include any special characters other than approved wildcards in any of the below parameters. Additionally, do not run reports by campus as it will take up valuable computing services.

Click Save Parameter Settings to save your parameters for future use of this report. For instructions on how to save settings, review the Save Parameter Settings document on the Controller's Office Reporting Tools page.