LivePlan's Forecast Metrics panel allows users to immediately see how changes to their forecasts impact their key annual financial metrics such as revenue, expenses, profit, and more. This can help users make clearer financial decisions and improve their business planning. For example, if a business owner wants to forecast a revenue increase for the year, they can make the necessary changes in the forecast editor and see how it impacts their revenue and other financial metrics.
This feature is available to LivePlan Premium users. To learn more about LivePlan Premium, please click here.
Viewing Forecast Metrics
The Forecast Metrics icon is visible in the right sidebar when working in the Forecast tab:
Click the icon to expand the Forecast Metrics panel:
Click on the Fiscal Year buttons to view metrics for the different years of your forecast:
The annual values represented in the Forecast Metrics panel are taken from your forecasted Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow statements.
- Revenue: The sum of your revenue streams, taken from the Revenue line in the Profit & Loss.
- Expenses & costs: The sum of your direct costs and expenses, taken from the Total Expenses line in the Profit & Loss.
- Net profit: The total annual earnings once all expenses have been deducted.
- Cash at end of year: This metric comes from your projected Cash Flow. It is the sum of the Cash at Beginning of Period amount (or the equity calculated in your Starting Balances) plus the Net Change in Cash amount for the current fiscal year.
- Cash low point: This represents the lowest cash balance during the selected fiscal year and indicates the month in which it occurs. It is taken from the Cash line in the Balance Sheet.
Updating Forecast Metrics
Any time a change is made in a forecast, the Forecast Metrics panel is updated as soon as the change is saved:
After saving a change in the forecast, the change to the affected metrics is displayed briefly below the metric: