Billing Forecasting Overview

Notes:

Billing Forecasting is to be superseded by Revenue Forecasting at some point after the PSA Fall 2020 release. If you are already using Billing Forecasting, Certinia will provide you with a migration path to enable you to move to Revenue Forecasting. If you are not already using Billing Forecasting, we recommend that you choose Revenue Forecasting as your forecasting solution.

Billing Forecasting was previously called Enhanced Services Forecasting. It has been renamed to better reflect the functionality.

Billing Forecasting offers an efficient way of calculating billing forecasts for services projects and opportunities:

  • We include resource requests from backlog calculations in the billing forecast calculations, providing a more complete picture of anticipated revenue.
  • You can forecast unscheduled backlog and opportunities on a curve, which allows you to refine your billing forecast calculations by dividing the anticipated revenue over a period of time. For more information, see About Billing Forecast Curves.
  • You can run billing forecasts as and when you need them, or schedule a job to run the calculations at regular intervals. For more information, see Running Billing Forecast Calculations.
  • The Billing Forecast page enables you to view the values generated by a billing forecast calculation all in one place. You can drill down and view RPG values for subregions and sublevels and also view the forecast values calculated for opportunities. You can expand projects and view a breakdown by forecast factor of the total value for each billing forecast category on that project. For more information, see Viewing a Billing Forecast.
  • You can override values displayed on the Billing Forecast page. Icons enable you to see at a glance when an override is present, and whether the adjusted value is higher, lower, or the same as the original value. Hovering over an adjusted value or a summary roll-up displays a tooltip that shows details of overrides. For more information, see Overriding Billing Forecast Values.

Objects Used in Billing Forecasting

Custom Objects

The following custom objects are available in PSA to support calculated forecast generation without the need for manual data entry.

Custom Objects Used in Billing Forecasting

Object

Description

Related Information
Billing Forecast Calculation Stores the parameters used to run a billing forecast calculation against a region, practice, or group. Billing Forecast Calculation Fields
Billing Forecast Calculation Log Stores details of any errors that occurred when a billing forecast calculation was run. Billing Forecast Calculation Log Fields
Billing Forecast Curve Contains one or more billing forecast curve details to measure varying anticipated revenue over a defined sequence of time (such as a quarter). Billing Forecast Curve Fields
Billing Forecast Curve Detail Represents a single sequence of time used within a billing forecast curve, and includes the percentage of the total forecast amount of revenue anticipated within that time period. Billing Forecast Curve Detail Fields
Billing Forecast Detail Stores the billing forecast records created for a project or opportunity. Billing Forecast Detail Fields
Billing Forecast Detail Category Stores the weighted category totals for the related project or opportunity. Billing Forecast Detail Category Fields
Billing Forecast Override Stores information on an override applied to a billing forecast summary category or billing forecast detail category. Billing Forecast Override Fields
Billing Forecast Run Info For internal use only. Used to input the information required for the billing forecast calculation run. Billing Forecast Run Info Fields
Billing Forecast Setup Contains the information required to configure and run a billing forecast calculation. Billing Forecast Setup Fields
Billing Forecast Setup Category Stores details about the weighted billing forecast categories, such as Best Case or Expected, used in a billing forecast calculation. There must be at least one category assigned to the billing forecast setup details for a billing forecast calculation to run. Billing Forecast Setup Category Fields
Billing Forecast Summary Stores the billing forecast records created for a region, practice, or group. Billing Forecast Summary Fields
Billing Forecast Summary Category Stores the weighted category totals for the related region, practice, or group. Billing Forecast Summary Category Fields

Additional Objects

To use Billing Forecasting, you also need access to the following objects, which are used in the Billing Forecasting process:

  • Assignment
  • Budget
  • Expense
  • Group and Group Actuals (only required for running a billing forecast from a Group)
  • Hours to Days Rule
  • Milestone
  • Miscellaneous Adjustment
  • Opportunity
  • Practice and Practice Actuals (only required for running a billing forecast from a Practice)
  • Project and Project Actuals
  • Region and Regional Actuals (only required for running a billing forecast from a Region)
  • Resource Request
  • Schedule
  • Time Period

Forecast Factors

Forecasts can be based on multiple factors:

  • Actuals (Billings, Expenses)
  • Scheduled Backlog (Assignments, Resource Requests, Milestones)
  • Unscheduled Backlog (Budget minus Actuals minus Backlog)
  • Opportunities (within Regions, Practices and Groups that do not have an associated Project)

Billing Forecasting gives you the flexibility to choose which factors you want to include: when configuring your billing forecast setup, you can enter "0.00" as the weighting for forecast factors you want to omit.

Staff with appropriate permissions can use different sets of weightings for the different billing forecast categories available, which are Best Case, Expected and Worst Case.

Note:

Forecast factors are displayed on the Billing Forecast page for billing forecast calculations run after the Spring 2019 release.

Example of Weightings on a Billing Forecast Calculation

This table provides an example of how weightings are applied to the different forecast factors within a billing forecast category to provide different forecast values for a given project and time period. For more information on using weightings on billing forecast calculations, see Configuring Billing Forecasts.

Project A Q3 Forecast

 

Forecast Factor

 

$ Amount

Billing Forecast Categories
Best Case Expected Worst Case
Actuals $5,000 1.00 1.00 1.00
Expenses $200 1.00 1.00 1.00
Scheduled Assignments $5,000 1.25 1.00 0.50
Held Resource Requests $1,000 1.00 1.00 0.50
Unheld Resource Requests $2,000 1.00 1.00 0.00
Scheduled Milestones $10,000 1.00 1.00 0.50
Unscheduled Backlog $12,000 1.25 1.00 0.00
Opportunities $5,000 1.00 0.80 0.50
TOTAL FORECAST $40,200 $44,450 $39,200 $15,700

Formulas Used to Calculate Forecast Factors

The tables below describe how we arrive at the opportunity and unscheduled backlog values used in billing forecast calculations.

For more information on the formulas used in billing forecast calculations, see How Billing Forecasting Calculations Work.

Calculating Opportunity Values

Order

Data

Multiplied By

Result
1 Value of the opportunity. For more information, see Opportunities. Value of the Percent Burndown field on the Billing Forecast Curve Detail record. The adjusted burndown.
2 The adjusted burndown. Value of the Probability (%) field on the opportunity record. The probability and adjusted burndown.
3 The probability and adjusted burndown. Weightings defined in the appropriate Opportunity Category multipliers on the Billing Forecast Setup page. For more information, see Billing Forecast Setup Fields. The opportunity forecast.
Calculating Unscheduled Backlog Values

Order

Data

Multiplied By

Result
1 Unscheduled Backlog (Budget minus Actuals minus Backlog). Value of the Percent Burndown field on the Billing Forecast Curve Detail record. The adjusted burndown.
2 The adjusted burndown. Weightings defined in the appropriate Project Category multipliers on the Billing Forecast Setup page. For more information, see Billing Forecast Setup Fields. The calculated unscheduled backlog on a project.

Billing Forecasting Permission Sets

This table shows the permission sets you can assign to users for access to Billing Forecasting.

Billing Forecasting Permission Sets
Permission Set Name Description
PSA - Adjust Forecast Version Assign to users who need to perform overrides.
PSA - Configure Forecast Setup Assign to users who need to configure the setup for forecasts.
PSA - Lock Forecast Version Assign to users who need to commit forecasts.
PSA - Run Forecast Assign to users who need to run forecasts.
PSA - View Forecast Assign to users with a project manager role, who need to view forecasts for their projects and opportunities.
PSA - View All Forecasts Assign to users with a services leader or regional manager role, who need to view forecasts for the regions, practices, and groups they cover, and for all projects and opportunities.