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Project reporting in Forecast is designed to give you a complete 360-degree view of your project's health. It goes beyond simple time tracking to connect your operational data (time entries and task estimates) directly to your financial performance (revenue, cost, and margin).
This guide introduces the standard reporting structure used throughout Forecast, explaining the core financial metrics, the different data "snapshots" used to compare the project's trajectory, and how calculations are made and best used.
Project reports display numbers based on the exact exchange rate that was active on the day the work happened. This point-in-time reporting means your past revenue, margins, and utilization metrics remain fixed and accurate, protecting your data from drift when current rates change. The same rule applies across budgets, expenses, retainers, invoices, and baselines.
Jump to...
- The 5 Financial Pillars
- Snapshots: The "Data Timeline" of Your Project
- Configuration: Tailoring Calculations to Your Ways of Working
- Key Takeaways
- Related Articles
The 5 Financial Pillars
Every financial report in Forecast — whether it's a portfolio view or a single project deep-dive — is built on five standardized metrics.
Revenue
The amount of money you expect to earn or have earned from the client.
Revenue depends on the project budget type:
- Time & Materials projects, Time & Materials Retainers, and Fixed Hours Retainers: Revenue is calculated as Billable Hours × Role Rate + Price of Expenses.
- Fixed Price projects: Total Revenue is locked to the fixed price amount, plus the price of expenses.
- Fixed Price Retainers: Revenue is tied to the total price of all retainer periods.
Manual Revenue Recognition and Revenue Locking give finance teams the ability to keep books balanced on a month-by-month basis.
Read more in-depth about Revenue reporting in Financial Categories: Revenue Calculations.
Cost
The internal expense incurred by your company to deliver the work.
Formula: Hours × Internal Hourly Cost of the resource + Cost of Expenses
If a specific user isn't assigned, cost can be based on company or project team averages per role, or a flat hourly cost. The desired option is set in Project Settings > Financials.
Profit
The net financial gain.
Formula: Profit = Revenue − Cost
Margin
The percentage of revenue left after subtracting costs.
Formula: Margin = Profit / Revenue × 100
Value of Service
The "theoretical" value of all work performed, regardless of whether it is billable or billed. This field answers the question: "What would this work be worth if we billed for everything at our standard rate?"
- Total Value of Service reflects the value of all time and expenses (Billable + Non-Billable).
- Billable Value of Service reflects the value of time and expenses marked as Billable.
- Non-Billable Value of Service reflects the value of time and expenses marked as Non-Billable.
Formula: Hours (Billable or Non-Billable) × Role Rate + Expenses
Fixed Price Retainers with expenses included in the fixed price:
- Actual Billable Value of Service = (Time Registrations × Rate) + Price of Billable "Part of Fixed Price" Expenses on Period
- Estimated Billable Value of Service = (Estimated Hours × Rate) + Price of Planned "Part of Fixed Price" Expenses on Period
To learn more about expenses on fixed-price retainers, review our release notes: Introducing Expenses on Fixed-Price Retainer Periods.
On Fixed Price projects, the Value of Service can be compared to Revenue (from the Fixed Price) to determine whether the project has "over serviced" or not, and therefore whether the pricing model was a good choice. Comparing Revenue with the Value of Service will also reveal any "offset" introduced by Manual Revenue Recognition or Revenue Locking.
Snapshots: The "Data Timeline" of Your Project
We all know that the shape of a project can change from the proposal to the live project to a delivered product.
Forecast provides snapshots of data to compare your original plan against reality, and where you are against where you're expected to land.
Configuration: Tailoring Calculations to Your Ways of Working
Not every project follows the same model. Agile projects often can't be fully scoped in advance. Staff augmentation services don't require task scoping or time registrations if a team and timeline are set. While the default for calculations is task estimates and time registrations, you can instead use resource allocations as the basis for Estimated, Actual, or Remaining Work fields.
This is set in Project Settings > Financials.
Key Takeaways
- Rates drive Revenue; internal costs drive Cost. Revenue is external (Rate Cards); Cost is internal (Resource Cost).
- Baselines represent your initial budget. Compare against it to track if you're drifting off course.
- Value of Service (VoS) tells the full story. Use VoS to understand the financial weight of non-billable work.
- Projected Total is your compass for the project. Check Projected Total to see if your project will finish profitable, or in line with the Baseline.
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