Revenue Forecast – eSUB Fusion

User Personas: Admin | Project Manager

The Revenue Forecast report brings a project's committed costs, recorded actual costs, and month by month cost projections onto one page, then turns them into percent complete and recognized revenue. It answers two questions at once:

What is this project going to cost by the time it is finished?

How much of the contract have we earned so far?

The report reads what is already in eSUB. Budgets, purchase orders, labor and recorded costs all flow in on their own.

The one thing you contribute is the forecast: spreading each remaining balance across the months you expect to spend it. That spread is what drives the revenue curve, so a report with no forecast entered will show a project that stopped earning.

Access to the Revenue Forecast report is granted by permission group. See the Permissions table at the end of this article.

Use the links below to jump to a topic:

Before You Begin
Accessing the Revenue Forecast Report
How the Report Works
- The Three Layers of Cost Data
- Total Budget Versus the Committed Column
KPI Cards
The Committed Cost Schedule
- Columns
- Rows
Forecasting Remaining Costs
Percent Complete and Revenue Rows
Exports and Printing
Permissions
FAQ

Before You Begin

A few things determine whether the numbers on this report make sense the first time you open it.

The report runs at the project level. Each project has its own Revenue Forecast. There is no company wide roll up of this report.
The contract and budget values have to be in place. Total Contract Value and Total Budget drive every percentage and every revenue figure on the page. A project with no budget produces no percent complete.
Costs come from where they were recorded. Labor costs come from time entered, committed costs come from purchase orders, and indirect costs come from the Actual Costs recorded against the project.
- A purchase order counts once it is Pending or further along.
- Draft and Void purchase orders are left out because they commit nothing to the job.
The forecast is a projection, not a cost. Entering a forecast amount in a future month does not record a cost, post to a budget, or change a purchase order. It tells the report when you expect the money to be spent.

The Revenue Forecast report and the Cost to Complete Report are two different reports and they answer different questions.

Cost to Complete tells you what is left to spend against the budget.
Revenue Forecast takes that further and spreads what is left across future months so it can calculate percent complete and recognized revenue.

Accessing the Revenue Forecast Report

Open the project.
In the slide-out menu, expand Reporting.
Select Revenue Forecast, listed directly under Cost to Complete.

The header shows the date the report runs through and how long ago the forecast data was last updated.

The Revenue Forecast report, opened from Reporting in the project menu.

How the Report Works

Everything on the page is built from three layers of cost data and two different budget figures. Getting those two ideas straight first makes the rest of the report read easily.

The Three Layers of Cost Data

Every row of the schedule carries the same three layers, and every column on the page is one of them:

Layer	What it means
Budget or Committed	What you have planned or obligated: Labor rows carry the total project budget of all labor categories Purchase order rows carry the committed value of the purchase order.
Actual	What has actually been recorded as spent to date, taken from the Actual Costs records on the project. Actual amounts are read only on this report; they are corrected in Actual Costs, not here.
Forecast	What you expect to spend in each future month. This is the one layer you enter here, and it is capped by the remaining balance on the row.

The dividing line between actual and forecast is the current month. Months before it show actuals and are read only, months after it are open for forecasting, and the current month itself offers both. The report header carries the date it is current through, and how long ago the forecast data was last refreshed.

Total Budget Versus the Committed Column

Two budget figures appear on this page and they are not the same number.

Total Budget is the project's whole budget: the original budget plus approved budget change orders. It sits in the KPI cards and it is the denominator for percent complete and recognized revenue.
Budget or Committed is a column in the schedule and it belongs to one row. On the labor row it is the labor budget. On a purchase order row it is that purchase order's committed value.

The gap between the two is what the Uncommitted Costs row holds: budget you have not yet committed to labor or to a purchase order.

KPI Cards

Six cards across the top of the report summarize the whole project in one line each, and each carries the formula it was built from. They recalculate as soon as you change a forecast amount, so they are the fastest way to see what a forecasting decision does to the job. The project range and its length sit above the cards, on the Filters band rather than on a card of their own.

Six cards summarize the project, each carrying the formula it was built from. Over Budget turns red when the projection passes the budget.

The Committed Cost Schedule

The Committed Cost Schedule is the grid that fills most of the page. Reading left to right, it opens with three summary columns for each row, and then one column per month of the project. Each month header carries an Actual or a Forecast tag.

Reading top to bottom, the rows are grouped into sections:

Direct Labor
Purchase Orders
Uncategorized
Revenue and Completion
Cumulative

Total-All Costs pinned to the bottom.

The Committed Cost Schedule in full screen. Select Exit Full Screen to return.

Columns

Column	What it shows
Budget or Committed	The planned or obligated amount for that row. The label changes with the row: Labor rows read Budget Purchase order rows read Committed.
Actual	Invoiced or actualized to date.
Remaining	What is left on that row. Budget or committed minus actual, and it does not go below zero.
Month, past	The amount recorded in that month, in green and read only.
Month, current & future	An editable cell, shown in blue, where you enter what you expect to spend that month.

Rows

Row	What it shows
Direct Labor	The labor budget for the project, the labor cost recorded month by month from approved time, manually entered in Labor Costs tab in Actual Costs and the labor budget still remaining. In future months the row carries the labor forecast you type, and that forecast now counts toward percent complete, revenue and the KPI cards.
Purchase Orders	One row for each purchase order on the project, showing its committed value, what has been invoiced against it, and what is still remaining. Purchase orders that are Pending, Open, Partial Shipment, Received in Full or Complete are listed; Draft and Void purchase orders are not. The purchase order number links straight to the purchase order by clicking the link icon.
Uncommitted Costs	Budget headroom that has not been committed to labor or to a purchase order yet. This row is calculated depending on the Budget Basis chosen.
Indirect Costs	Costs that are not tied to a purchase order and are not labor, such as permits, rentals, and small tools, taken from the Indirect Costs tab in Actual Costs. Recorded amounts appear in past months and you can forecast future months. This row and Uncommitted Costs make up the Uncategorized section.
Total - All Costs	Column totals for every row above, month by month and across the summary columns.

Forecasting Remaining Costs

Forecasting is the work you do on this page. Everything else is already calculated for you. The goal is simple: every remaining balance should sit in the month you expect to spend it, and no balance should be left unplaced.

Setting the Month Range

A long project produces a wide grid, so the report opens with a month window you can narrow.

Select Filters at the top of the report.
Set Project Start and Project End to the months you want on screen. Both are month pickers rather than dates.
Select Clear all filters to bring the whole schedule back.

More controls sit on the band above the grid.

Collapse All folds every section to its summary row, and the button then reads Expand All.
Collapse Actuals rolls every month up to and including the current one into a single Actuals column, so the forecast months have more room. The button then reads Expand Actuals.
Grouping switches between None and By Vendor, which gathers the purchase order rows under the vendor they belong to, with a subtotal row for each vendor.
The full screen button at the end of the band gives the schedule the whole window. Select Exit Full Screen to return.

Collapse All folds each cost section to its summary row.

Collapse Actuals rolls past months into a single Actuals column.

Setting the Budget Basis

The Budget Basis control decides which budget figure drives the Uncommitted Costs row.

Basis	Effect on Uncommitted Costs
	Headroom is measured against the full project budget, including approved change orders.
	Headroom is measured against the cost to complete figure instead, which is the tighter of the two on a project that is running over.

Switching the basis changes the Uncommitted Costs row and anything downstream of it. It does not change your recorded actuals, and it does not change Total Budget, so percent complete and recognized revenue are unaffected.

Entering Monthly Forecast Amounts

Find the row you want to forecast and check its Remaining figure. That is how much is still unplaced.
Select a future month cell on that row and type the amount you expect to spend in that month.
Move to the next month and continue until the Remaining reads zero.

A forecast is capped by the row's remaining balance, so the total you spread across future months on a labor or purchase order row cannot exceed what is actually left on it. Indirect Costs are the exception: that row is not measured against a budget, so its forecast is not capped.

Work down the Remaining rather than across the months. When every row reads zero, the projection is complete and the revenue curve will run to the end of the job instead of flattening out partway through.

The Current Month Column

The month you are in sits on the boundary between recorded and projected, so its column header is the only one carrying two states rather than one. It reads Current with the month beside it, and you pick which figure the column shows.

Actual shows what has been recorded so far this month.
Forecast shows what you projected for the month.

Months already past carry a single Actual state, and months still ahead carry a single Forecast state, so the current month is the one place the two meet.

The current month is the only column offering both an Actual and a Forecast state.

With Collapse Actuals on, the current month folds into the Actuals column along with the months before it.

Percent Complete and Revenue Rows

Under the cost schedule sit two sections that turn cost into revenue, Revenue and Completion and Cumulative. They use the cost to cost percent complete method: the share of the budget you have spent is the share of the contract you have earned.

Every figure in both sections is built from each month's cost, and that cost includes labor the same way the Direct Labor row shows it.

A month that has passed uses the labor recorded against the project.
A month still ahead uses the labor forecast you typed, or the recorded labor if nothing has been typed yet.
The current month follows its Actual / Forecast switch.

The KPI cards follow the same rule.

For example, on a project with a $60,000 budget, typing $6,000 of Direct Labor into next month adds 10 percent to that month's % Complete · Monthly and the matching share of the contract to Revenue · Monthly.

The Revenue and Completion and Cumulative sections below the cost schedule.

Row	What it shows
% Complete · Monthly	That month's total cost as a share of Total Budget.
Revenue · Monthly	Revenue earned in that month: the monthly percent complete applied to Total Contract Value.
% Complete · Rolling	Cumulative cost through that month as a share of Total Budget.
Cumulative Cost	Total cost through that month, recorded and forecast.
Recognized Revenue	Cumulative revenue recognized through that month. It is capped at the contract value, so a project that runs over budget does not recognize more than it is owed.
Remaining Revenue	Contract value still left to recognize.

Exports and Printing

The floating Actions button carries three ways to take the report out of eSUB. Each one uses the report as it is currently displayed, so set your filters and grouping first.

Print Report opens a print view of the report.
Export Report as Excel saves it as a workbook.
Export Report as CSV saves it as a comma separated file.

Print or export the report from the Actions menu.

Permissions

Access to the Revenue Forecast report is granted per permission group in settings, in the same place as every other report permission. A user who has not been granted access does not see the report.

Permission	What it allows
Reports - View	Open the Revenue Forecast report for a project and read every figure on it.
Reports - Edit	Enter and change forecast amounts, edit the labor budget on the schedule, add and remove indirect costs, and change the budget basis.

FAQ

Why do I see two different budget totals?

Because they measure different things. Total Budget in the KPI cards is the whole project budget and it is what percent complete is measured against. The Budget or Committed column in the schedule belongs to a single row: the labor budget on the labor row, the committed value on a purchase order row. The difference between the two is the Uncommitted Costs row.

Why can I not enter a forecast on some rows?

Two reasons cover most cases. The month is in the past, so it holds recorded amounts and is read only. The row has no remaining balance left to spread.

Why is the current month showing a forecast instead of what we actually spent?

The current month is only partly over, so its column header carries a toggle. Switch it from Forecast to Actual to see what has been recorded so far this month instead of what you projected.

Why does an overpaid purchase order show $0 remaining?

Remaining is the committed amount minus the actual, and it does not go below zero, so a purchase order that has been billed past its commitment shows a zero balance rather than a negative one.

Can I correct an Actual amount in this report?

No. Actual amounts are read only here. Correct the cost where it was recorded.

What happens when I mark a purchase order complete?

The commitment is closed out. Nothing further is expected against that purchase order, so its remaining balance stops being forecastable and drops out of your projected costs.

Why are my projected costs higher than my Total Budget?

Usually indirect costs. Uncommitted headroom is calculated from the labor budget and purchase order commitments, so indirect costs are added on top of the budgeted rows rather than drawn out of the headroom. Recorded and forecast indirect costs therefore push Projected Costs above Total Budget and turn Over Budget red.

Does the Budget Basis control change my recognized revenue?

No. It changes which budget figure the Uncommitted Costs row is measured against, and nothing else. Recognized revenue is always calculated from Total Budget and Total Contract Value.

Why does a purchase order that is still waiting on approval appear?

A Pending purchase order is a cost the project expects to commit, so the report counts it toward every total just like an open one. Only Draft and Void purchase orders are left out, because they commit nothing to the job.

Why did my revenue change after I typed a labor forecast?

Because a labor forecast in a future month now counts as that month's labor cost, so it moves % Complete · Monthly, Revenue · Monthly, the cumulative rows and the KPI cards.

Card	What it shows	How it is calculated
	The value of the work you are under contract to perform.	Scheduled value plus the approved amount of approved change orders.
	The full cost budget for the project. A Basis tag marks the card the Budget Basis control is set to.	Original budget plus the cost column of approved change orders.
	The cost to complete figure for the project. It is not entered on this report. A Basis tag marks the card the Budget Basis control is set to.	Committed plus remaining plus adjustments, which is the same basis the Cost to Complete report uses.
	What the project is on course to cost in total.	Actual costs recorded to date plus everything remaining, including anything you have forecast. The card reads Actual + Remaining. Future months count the Direct Labor forecast you type, not just labor already recorded.
	Whether the projection lands inside the budget. Green is under, red is over.	Total Budget minus Projected Costs.
	One card carrying three measures side by side, each with its margin percentage. Total is measured against the full budget, CtC against the cost to complete figure Projected against the projection, which is the one that moves as you forecast.	Total Contract Value minus Total Budget minus Cost to Complete, and minus Projected Costs respectively. Each margin is that figure divided by contract value.