Hi Brendan. I think we do a fairly detailed budget. As you say, review and update on a monthly basis is easier for people to do. Note that I say 'people' and not 'Finance'. With many people involved the work is distributed. Heads of departments and their administrator/coordinator working together to update their own forecast. Sometimes that means having Finance in on the monthly meeting to move things along. More than one person can update the personnel planning. Management/Financial reports are designed such that it is automatic and no manual adjustments, although always important to have automatic checks to ensure integrity and accuracy.
Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2023 09:45
From: Brendan Eger
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
This is super helpful @David Cornfield to understand your process as well as technically how you do this in Vena! I suspect others like myself might find monthly rolling forecasts to be an overwhelming concept, and it might be because the level of detail that we budget in is so great (I've posted about this in a different thread) that it feels overwhelming. I imagine if your budgets are fairly rolled-up, this process becomes MUCH easier. There's probably also something to be said for a smaller review each month being more manageable compared to doing a bigger review once a quarter or twice a year, which can then feel like a much larger task.
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Brendan Eger
Assoc. Dir. of Information Systems and Analytics
Partners In Health
Original Message:
Sent: 02-21-2023 08:46
From: David Cornfield
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
At World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada) we do monthly rolling forecasts. This is a Scenario (RF 1+11, RF 2+10, RF 3+9...) and a monthly Process. You can copy the Process [RF 6+6] to create the next Process [RF 7+5]. After each month end close we use Versioning to copy the actuals and the future months to the next scenario - for example after our January month end close we copy from scenario Actuals seven months actuals to RF 7+5 and copy 5 months rolling forecast from RF 6+6 to RF 7+5. With Scenario 7+5 we've added the next fiscal year to the templates, so this rolling forecast is for 17 months out. We Hide the RF 6+6 process and hit Play for RF 7+5 to start the process for the new monthly rolling forecast. We add dates to the process as reminders and to encourage deadlines. It is usually a good idea for an administrator for the department to set up a half hour meeting with the head of the department to review and update. If Finance attends this is an opportunity to ask questions about activities and outlook. The other key element is designing the templates. Use Excel formulas to automate #lockcolumn for actuals, colour format and so on to make clear what is actual and what is input fields.
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David Cornfield
SVP, Finance
WWF-Canada
Original Message:
Sent: 02-14-2022 12:53
From: Josh Weinberg
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
hi David, (and thanks too for some helpful questions Christine),
I'd really like to hear more about how exactly you're doing rolling forecasting within Vena?
We currently do 1 budget and 3 reforecasts, using different Scenarios and Processes for each. These are quite demanding of budget holder and Finance Planning & Analysis team time. We've identified there would be benefits of moving to a rolling forecast (in our case looking to update current year forecasts monthly, rather than looking 12 months out each time), but wonder how you structure this? We wouldn't want managing the process to be so labour-intensive as our quarterly efforts. Do budget holders enter details or just finance team members?
Slightly unrelated, but we've also found it very useful to the ability to have a scenario we call a 'funder budget' which reflects additional funding and expected spending (per funder agreements) when new funding is obtained in year. This distinction is crucial for us as the values differ from what is in reforecasts as those represent what we're actually expecting, and not necessarily what the funder agreement is.
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Josh Weinberg
Original Message:
Sent: 02-11-2022 09:27
From: David Cornfield
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
The rolling forecast [template] goes out to end of the current and next fiscal year. So, from 13 months up to maximum 24 months. Although I confess that many people focus only on the current fiscal year and don't focus on the next fiscal year until the budget.
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David Cornfield
Original Message:
Sent: 02-11-2022 09:11
From: Christine Sawyer
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
Hi David,
I'm curious, how far out is your rolling forecast? For example, at the January 2022 close, does your forecast go out until Jan 2023, July 2023?
Also, our budget owners use line item details for their budgeting and our current forecasting process, which only predicts the remainder of the fiscal year. Do you use line items and, if so, do you incorporate them into your rolling forecast?
I love having the ability to reach out to others re: Vena and other financial issues ��
Christine
Original Message:
Sent: 2/10/2022 8:32:00 AM
From: David Cornfield
Subject: RE: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
Simple question, not so simple answer(s). Especially for Not-For-Profit organizations. In my opinion planning for NFP organizations is harder and more complicated than for profit organizations. And it will depend on the type of organization, revenue sources, activities, etc.
Your strategic planning must be done first. What are the strategic priorities? If you don't know that, you won't be able to know how to complete smart planning. Strategic planning will determine how you will allocate your (scarce) resources. Priority activities and available or predicted funding should be the focus. For many NFPs and charities, funding and the timing of funding can be unpredictable. At WWF-Canada we use Vena rolling forecast capability to look forward and adapt as required during the year. Planning is not once and done.
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David Cornfield
Original Message:
Sent: 02-09-2022 14:43
From: Irene Tang
Subject: The Not For Profit Thread! 🤝
Hello Everyone!
With the The Not for Profit Pros Meetup and Demo happening tomorrow, I wanted to start a new thread for everything Not for Profit!
First: if you haven't already, make sure you RSVP to the event. There are 2 super special speakers (@Josh Weinberg and @Brendan Eger) who are also Forum members, and you don't want to miss out 👀!
Now, let's start off the conversation with this question 🤔:
➡️ How are you approaching your process for budgeting and forecasting in nonprofit organizations?
Let's make this thread the go-to place for conversations on NFP!
💬 Continue the conversation after the NFP Meetup event here on this thread,
💬 reply to specific posts in the thread to continue those conversations, or
💬 reply to this main post to start a new topic/conversation!
Thanks all! 🌱
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Irene Tang
Community Marketing Manager
Vena Solutions
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