Recurring Transaction Forecast report

The Recurring Transaction Forecast report provides insight into future billings. This report is based on recurring transaction schedules set up in the system. With this report, you can expand the number of forecasting periods, and select a forecasting frequency (monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually). Multi-currency enabled companies can choose to forecast on base currency or transaction currency.

For information on terms that may differ in your location, see Terminology across locales.

To access this report:

• Go to Order Entry > All > Reports > Recurring transaction > Forecast.

View a monthly report

1. On the report settings page, select View.

   The report displays all results for the default reporting period.

2. To refine the report, select Customize.

Customize and run

Before running the report, you can select the time period and types of items to include and specify how you want the report to appear.

If you want to see every result for a particular category, don't make selections from any of the data entry boxes. You can run this report without entering any search information. If you do that, however, the report can take a long time to run and can return too many results to be useful.

1. Select the reporting period from the dropdown menu, or enter the start and end dates you want the report to cover. If you don't specify a reporting period, the system generates a report for the current month to date.
   • You can specify either the reporting period or the start and end dates, but not both.
2. Set the filters to get the specific data you want.
   • Filters enable you to include or exclude specific types of data in the report, such as customer, item, UPC, value, or account. As a general rule, to get fewer and more precise results in your report, set more filters.
3. Format the report.
   • Format options will vary from report to report. Generally, you can set the layout of the report and arrange how to group and display the data contained in the report.
4. Enter a title, subtitle, and footer text for your report.

5. To view, process, memorize, or export the report, do one of the following:

   • To view the report now, select View.

   • To generate the report and store it for later access, select Process & Store.

     Reports can be either stored in My Stored Reports or delivered to a cloud storage location, such as Dropbox. Learn more about processing and storing reports.

   • To memorize (that is, save) the report so that later you can refer back to it or modify and re-run it, select Memorize.
   • To export the report to a separate file that you can then distribute or save to your local drive, select Export and then select Word, Excel, CSV, or Text.

Time period

You can create your own reporting period by entering in an As of date, selecting a forecast period, and setting the number of periods on which to report.

Time period field	Description
As of date	This is the date that the system will use as a baseline for the period you select. Leave this box blank to use today's date.
Start date	This is the date that the system will use for the start of the forecast.
End date	This is the date that the system will use for the end of the forecast.
Prompt on run
Forecast period	From the dropdown list, select the forecast period. Each column of the report will represent one period. Your choices are: Monthly Quarterly Semiannually Annually
Number of periods	With the Forecast period field, this is an alternate way to set the period of time you want the report to cover. Here, you can set the length of time that you want the report to cover: In the Number of periods field, enter the number of periods. For example, if you want a year of data and your Forecast period is quarterly, enter 4; if your Forecast period is monthly, enter 12. You can forecast up to 60 periods for online reports; and up to 12 periods for PDF reports.

Report filters

Use the filters to focus the results of your report. In effect, filters enable you to isolate and assemble just the data you want. You can set any combination of filters.

Filters	Notes
Transaction type	Enables you to limit your report to a specific type of transaction, such as a sales quote or a shipper invoice. By default, the report will cover all transactions. Select from: All (this is the default transaction type) AR Invoices OE sales invoice Sales Order Sales Quote Sales Return Shipper Invoice
Transaction currency (for multi-currency environments only)	Set the currency that you want the report to use. To do this, select the Transaction currency dropdown list and then select the currency you want the report to show. If you don't set a currency, the report page contains transactions for all your currencies.
From customer, To customer	To limit the report to specific customers, select the From customer and To customer dropdown lists and select the customers you want the report to cover. How to use the From and To fields All From and To field pairs work the same way. Use them to get search results in as broad or as fine a range as you need, from everything in the system down to a single specific object. To run this report for a single object: From the From dropdown list, select the object you want. From the To dropdown list, select the same object. To run this report for a specific range of objects: From the From dropdown list, select the object that you want at the beginning of the range. From the To dropdown list, select the object that you want at the end of the range. To run this report for all objects: Leave both fields blank. If you have a large number of objects or the report takes too long to process, use the From and To fields to run a series of smaller reports. For example, you can run five reports, one each for objects whose names begin with A-E, then F-J, K-O, P-T, and U-Z. An object is a catch-all term that refers to any specific data item in the system. Customers, suppliers, items, and accounts are all examples of objects.
Group by	Whether to group by customers or revenue account number
Transaction subtotals	Whether to exclude or include transactions subtotals
Forecast by	Whether to forecast by transaction or base currency.
Include Subtotal	Whether to show subtotals for grouped items.
Include transactions that do not post to AR	By default, the Recurring Transaction Forecast report includes transactions only if they post to Accounts Receivable. These are typically limited to AR sales invoices and activation documents, which represent actual customer billings. By selecting Include transactions that do not post to AR, you can include transactions that do not post to Accounts Receivable. How can this option be used to predict future business? If you expect a certain amount of future business, such as R10,000 a month in future consulting revenue, you can create specialized recurring transactions for forecasting purposes. For example, you might create a specialized type of recurring invoice, which you call a "Forecasted invoice." Because these aren't real invoices, you would set up the transaction definition for a "Forecasted invoice" so that the amounts do not post to Accounts Receivable. You could then report on your forecasted invoices by running a Recurring Transaction Forecast report and selecting the option to Include transactions that do not post to AR.

Titles and footer

Titles, subtitles, and footers apply only to the print versions of this report. Export to Excel or CSV, or select Print for a PDF version.