Overview
This help article describes the Forecast - Transactions screens of the Economics Project Info Tab.
Similar to the cash flow forecast screen, you can do detailed cash flow forecast-transactions in this screen. While in the cash flow forecast screen the data was shown by month, in the forecast-transactions screen every transaction will be presented. This screen shows outflow as well as inflow, which is connected to the ASP/Price screen. Here only outflow can be added or edited. In order to being able to edit forecast- transactions of a project, click on New Revision.
When clicking on New Revision, many options become visible (i.e. edit/delete transactions (except ASP), New Cash Transaction, Distribute COGS, Templates).
To delete an existing transaction, click on the red cross button in the first column. To edit a transaction, click on the edit icon in the first column. A new popup window will appear in which you can edit the transaction. A similar popup window will appear when you click on New Cash Transaction to add a fresh cash transaction.
Update the invoice date, vendor, PO #, invoice #, payment terms (in days), COGS category, description, and click OK. Further, you can also either update % of COGS, or the amount. For example, if the COGS value (i.e. $10,000) for modules is updated in the COGS section, and you enter the % of COGS here as 10%, then the amount will be auto-calculated and will be presented here as $1000. To update the invoice date, click on the three dot button on the right side, and a popup window will open.
If the date is static, then you can use the static date. However, we recommend to use the Link to milestone option as the forecasted transaction dates can automatically get recalculated based on changes in the project schedule. Select a milestone and enter the lag days.
Besides adding a new cash transaction and editing an existing transaction, you can also use another option called Distribute COGS. Click on the button and a new popup will appear.
Select the COGS category, vendor, PO #, payment terms, first invoice date, number of invoices, and days between each invoice. This functionality can help you to quickly forecast cash outflow for a particular COGS category.
For example, let us assume the COGS amount for modules is $50,000 and you want to do a forecast using the Distribute COGS functionality, then do the following: select the COGS category as modules, update the payment terms, select the first invoice date, and enter the number of invoices as 5 and days between each invoice as 7. Once you click on OK, it will create 5 transaction of $10,000 each, with invoice dates 7 days apart from the first invoice date. This is why the this functionality is called Distribute COGS, as it splits the COGS amount equally between each transaction based on the entered number of invoices.
To forecast cashflow even faster, use predefined templates. Your Atlas admin probably has created cashflow forecast templates. Click on Templates, and then click on Import from Template... . A new popup window will appear.
Select the template of your choice and click OK. This will generate multiple cash transactions based on the configuration of the template with multiple COGS categories, % of COGS, invoice dates linked to milestones, number of deliveries/invoices etc. This is the quickest way to do forecasting.