We've all been in this situation: you've put in the effort to create a comprehensive forecast, complete with Actuals data reaching back to the start of the current financial year—or perhaps a year or two further. You confidently present the reports to a boss, a bank, or a business partner, only to have them request an extension of the model to include additional actual data from earlier years.
While adding future years to a forecast is straightforward, extending it backwards is not as simple. The good news, however, is that it can be done.
Here are the steps to realign your data when adjusting the start date of your project:
1. Roll Actuals Backward
- Navigate to the Active Actuals Month in your project.
- Select the earliest period available from the dropdown list.
- Confirm that you’d like to proceed with rolling the Actuals backward to the very beginning of the project.
2. Extract Existing Forecast Data
- Export your current forecast data from the project via Forecast > Upload > Build Upload Forecast Data Template
3. Adjust the Project Timeline
- Open the Overview Screen.
- Increase the Duration to add additional years to your project timeline.
- Move the project start date to the earlier period you want to include.
4. Upload the Forecast Data
- Reupload the adjusted forecast data template back into Castaway via Forecast > Upload. This will align the original values back to it's correct period
5. Clear all the actuals data
- Clearinhg Actuals data for Balancesheet, P&L and Other data screen.
6. Import or Manually Enter Historical Actuals
- Roll actuala period forward to the period you need to add actuals
- Use the Integrations to import historical actuals data.
- Or manually enter historical data directly into Castaway.
7. Save the budget
- At this stage you can save your Budget:
- You can adjust Active Actuals Month retrospectively to stay within the intended budget timeframe before saving the Budget or Forecast if needed
- Save the Budget via Manage Budgets.
Refer to Managing Budgets to learn more about this process.
By following these steps, you can seamlessly extend your forecast model to include earlier years while maintaining data accuracy and consistency.