Castaway is designed to accept Actuals data on a monthly basis.
However, we often hear from users who prefer to bring Actuals data in less frequently, and often quarterly.
It's easy to work with quarterly Actuals, provided a few principles are followed.
These principles apply whether we are entering manually or importing Actuals data.
Here's a quick example... To bring in quarterly Actuals for the September quarter, we prepare our Project as follows:
- July: use zero for all Profit & Loss items, and repeat the June numbers for the Balance Sheet
- August: use zero for all Profit & Loss items and repeat the June numbers for the Balance Sheet
- September: use the quarterly totals for all Profit & Loss items and the September Balance Sheet data
Important:
We're assuming the forecast already contains either an Opening Balance sheet or Actuals data for June. For both July and August, 0 movements in the Profit & Loss together with 0 movements in the Balance Sheet means 0 cash flow. The cash flow for the whole quarter will appear in September.