How do I utilize the Forecasting feature?

Forecasting, in MIP Fund Accounting, is used to project future expenses and revenues based on prior year Actual or Budgeted data and a Multiplier you select.

Forecasting cannot calculate on non-existent data so calculation can only be based on current or previous year data.

The Statement of Revenue and Expenditures by Period contains the Forecasting feature. , You can locate   this report by navigating to:  Reports > Financial Statements > Statement of Revenues and Expenditures by Period. There is a default report available <Statement of Revenue & Expenditures By Period> which will be used for this article.

Quick Tip: When you select a default report in MIP Fund Accounting, the Account Balances Begin date automatically defaults to the first day of the most recent open fiscal year, which is the proper date to ensure report accuracy.  For additional information about Reporting Dates please see article KB 1356

For this article we will report on fiscal year 1/1/2016 – 12/31/2016 therefore the dates will be as follows:



When a default or system delivered report is selected and then edited, the Report Name is removed.  Since we will be editing this default report, we will give the report a new name:  “Forecasting 2016”. Also note that the default Financial Statement format is titled: <Default – Detail>.  Please update this to one of your organization’s existing Financial Statement Formats per your reporting needs.

In order to use Forecasting, on the Content tab of the report, you must leave the selection of Column “Actual” as part of the Report Body Selected Columns. You can include any other available columns for your report.

Select the tab titled Forecasting:



You can Forecast “Based On” Actual or one of the various Budget versions created by your organization:



Actual uses the actual amounts for the same period in the prior year and multiplies them by the multiplier value.

Budget (version name) uses the posted budget amounts (unposted budget figures cannot be utilized) for the year you are reporting on for the period to be forecast and multiplies them by the multiplier value.

Start Date must be the first day of the period you are currently reporting on (month, quarter, or year). The system will then forecast through the Ending Balances Date indicated on the Setup tab. It cannot forecast on dates prior to the Opening Balances date on the Setup tab.

Note: If you are in the midst of your current fiscal year and would like to forecast on future periods (months or quarters)  you can use the first day of  the future period for the Start Date  and the report will provide current actual and forecast figures based  on the month indicated in the Start Date. For example, you have completed January, February and March and want to forecast April through December:  you would enter a Start Date of 04/01/2016 and this feature will forecast based on Actual (January, February and March) and Budget starting with 04/01/2016 (based on 4/01/2016 budget figures), and your results will start in the column for April.

Multiplier indicates the amount you want to apply against the “Based On” amount and will allow you to use decimals, 1.5 for instance to represent 150%.

Your forecasted results will replace the Actual results in the report, whether you base your forecast on Actual or Budget. In this example, the Actual column will display 150% of prior year Actual data beginning in April of this year.


The Options tab will allow you to determine the Reporting Period, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. For our report we will use a quarterly period.



See results: