⏱️ 5 minute read
We are committed to always improving the experience of using Forecast and the value that our customers get from the platform. On February 16, 2026, we released updates to Financial Categories and Reporting.
This article covers:
- What's Changing and Why?
- Revenue, Profit and Margin Reporting
- Terminology of Standard Reporting Categories
- Summary Table of Standard Reporting Categories Changes
- Consistency and Tooltip Coverage
- Advanced Analytics and the API
What's Changing and Why?
We have heard from customers that have been struggling with the financial reporting on the platform and we are preparing some improvements so that:
- Customers can more easily and accurately track their revenue, profit and margin across all budget types and revenue recognition processes.
- Data categories, terminology and calculated fields are easier for new users to learn and for existing users to remember.
We will achieve this through a mix of new data fields, new terminology, better consistency, and tooltips which are up-to-date and provided more widely.
Revenue, Profit and Margin Reporting
We heard from many customers that understanding project financials was challenging especially for Fixed Price budgets. They pointed to the fact that “Billable Time and Expenses” is displayed prominently for Fixed Price projects despite being more of a Time-and-Materials based metric, and furthermore it is used as a basis for Profit and Margin reporting. This can be confusing and it can give the impression that a project is healthy when it is going off-track.
Revenue Recognition provides the accurate figures, but this is siloed from the standard reporting categories (Planned, Actual, Forecast To Complete, Total at Completion).
Something similar happens with T&M budget types when manual revenue recognition or the locking of months is used: “Billable Time and Expenses” is not impacted resulting in a discrepancy with Revenue Recognition.
Introduction of a Revenue field throughout the standard reporting categories
To improve on this, we will be introducing a field for Revenue that is present throughout reporting in Baseline, Planned, Actual, Forecast To Complete and Total at Completion. This field will respect budget type (e.g. Fixed Price vs Time-and-Materials) as well as Manual Revenue Recognition and the locking of months. This Revenue field will be the basis for Profit and Margin reporting across these standard categories, rather than “Billable Time and Expenses”.
For a detailed explanation of the calculations underlying the new Revenue field, please refer to Financial Categories: Revenue Calculations.
"Billable Time and Expenses" renamed to "Billable Value of Service"
The field of “Billable Time and Expenses” is still useful of course. For Fixed Price budgets it shows the comparison point of what would be charged in Time-and-Materials, which is critical for understanding whether the pricing model was the correct one and whether initial pricing estimates were accurate. For Time-and-Materials projects using Manual Revenue Recognition or the locking months it provides a check of the billable value without those inputs.
Value of Service is a more flexible and sustainable overarching category going forward as it can be further split into sub-categories, e.g. Billable Value of Service vs Non-Billable Value of Service vs Total Value of Service, or Value of Service (Time) vs Value of Service (Expenses).
Terminology of Standard Reporting Categories
Many users are struggling to keep reporting straight across the categories of Planned, Forecast To Complete, and Total at Completion, often getting these mixed up with each other.
"Planned" renamed to "Estimated"
“Planned” is misinterpreted at times to only refer to work planned in the future. Estimated better reflects that the work can be in the past or future, and it makes a closer connection to the default setting which has this field based on the hours estimated on tasks.
"Forecast to Complete" renamed to "Remaining Work"
Many mistake this category with Total at Completion, i.e. the expected final result that comes from Actuals plus the finishing of remaining work. In fact the field reflects what is left to do, e.g. the remaining time on unfinished tasks and expenses in the future. “Remaining Work” makes this more explicit and intuitive.
"Total at Completion" renamed to "Projected Total"
This field is frequently mixed up with “Forecast To Complete.” To better reflect that it is the projected finishing point, it will be called “Projected Total.”
Summary Table of Standard Reporting Categories Changes
In the above, Profit and Margin are always based on the Revenue field.
Consistency and Tooltip Coverage
Our data terminology has some inconsistencies where the same data point is referred to by different terms in different places. We are endeavoring in this work to standardize terminology and make it consistent throughout the platform.
We know that tooltips are very useful for reminders and explanations of data fields. We also know it’s frustrating when tooltips aren’t provided or are out-of-date. As a part of this work we are also updating our tooltips and writing new ones when they are missing.
Advanced Analytics, API and Integrations
At first, these changes will be introduced in the Forecast application itself and will not be changed in Advanced Analytics, the API or Integrations. This is to reduce disruption to those services. We are working on a new project-based data model for Advanced Analytics which will reflect these changes as well as having data updated in real time. The API and Integrations will be updated in a future version as well.
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