When clicking on the ‘Change planning method’ button on the cashflow details screen, a dialog appears in your screen. This dialog shows the available options to plan your cash flow. On the left side of the dialog, the following options are shown:
- Plan scenario total
- Plan object totals
- Plan manually
Figure 1: Change planning method dialog
Plan scenario total
The first option is planning the total scenario amount. This allows you to split the total scenario amount into 1 or more terms. These terms can then be planned independently from each other. When you enter the cashflow details for the first time, it is according to this method by default. You can click on an individual row on the cashflow planning screen to see the detailed cashflow planning of that row. By default, the total scenario amount of the selected row is planned.
You will see a grid with one or more rows. Each row represents a part of the total amount that has been planned.
You can add a row to the grid by clicking on 'Add row' on top of the grid. Now you can enter a name, forecast, method, start date and end date. Once you've entered the data, you need to click on the check icon to add the row to your grid.
Figure 2: Plan scenario total details screen
In the example above, the total amount is be planned in one row of 40%, another row of 30% and a final row of 30%.
Each row in this grid can be planned independently according to one of the following three methods:
- Linear: Plan the amount linear between two dates
- S-curve: Plan the amount in an S-curve between two dates
- Lump sum: Plan the full amount on a single date.
Once the desired method of a row is selected, you need to set the start – and end date. You can fill in a custom date, but you can also pick any of the activities or milestones that you planned. This way, your cashflow is linked to your scenario planning. Whenever you change the planning, the cashflow will be automatically updated accordingly. When you pick a custom date, this effect does not occur.
Besides this method to plan the scenario total, there are 2 other options available to plan your cash flow which are described below.
Plan selection of objects
The second option is ‘Plan object totals’. When this option is selected, your project structure will be shown. You can select the level on which you want to plan amounts. For each selected object(group), one row will be added to a grid. For example, if you would click on all individual objects, you would get a row for each of those objects. For each row, you can edit the linear, s-curve or lump sum and set the start – and end date. This works similar to the ‘Plan scenario total’ method.
With this option, you can plan amounts based on individual objects or object groups. The object(group)s are selected in the 'Change planning method' dialog. For this example, the following selection has been made in this dialog:
Figure 3: Select objects for the cash flow planning
As you can see, there is one object group selected ('Residential') and two individual objects ('Supermarket' and 'Office units'). For each selection, a row will be created. This will result in the following grid:
Figure 4: Selected objects to plan by
The grid now reflects the objects and object groups that were selected.
For each object(group) the forecast amount is directly linked to the Costs & revenues. Whenever the amount for the Supermarket is changed on the Costs & revenues screen, it will be automatically changed in your cash flow screen too.
You can edit three columns in this grid:
- Method: plan each object(group) either linear, through an S-curve or by lump sum.
- Start date: Date on which the cash flow planning for that row will start
- End date: Date on which the cash flow planning for that row will end
With this method the start - and end date can also be linked to the planning of the respective object(group). By clicking on the dropdown, you can select any activity or milestone to which you want to link the cash flow. The date field will be automatically generated based on the selected activity or milestone. In contrary to picking an activity or milestone, a custom date will not be updated automatically can only be edited manually.
In the example above you can see that 'Constructional costs building' of the Supermarket are planned linear between start of construction and end of construction. This means that whenever the start - or end of construction of the supermarket is changed, the dates for will be updated automatically.
Notes:
- The application checks whether the start date of a row is earlier than the end date of a row. If this is not the case, you will see a validation message and will not be able to save the grid.
Plan manually
The third option is to plan manually. This option allows you to plan the total amount of the scenario in a grid. Each month is shown, in which you can enter values. When this option is selected in the dialog, you can pick between entering absolute values or entering values as a percentage.
When the option 'Plan cashflow manually' is selected for your cashflow, you can plan the cash flow manually in a grid. You can either fill in absolute figures or you can fill in percentages, depending on the setting that was picked in the 'Change planning method' dialog. The following grid will be shown when planning cash flow manually:
Figure 5: Plan manually screen
The grid consists of the following items:
- Name: Name of the row you've clicked on the Cash flow planning screen
- Forecast: Total amount that you've forecasted for that row
- To be planned: Remaining amount that needs to be planned in the grid.
- Timeline: A timeline starting from the first date in your scenario until the last date in your scenario. The timeline is fixed on monthly level.
You can enter values in the input fields underneath the timeline. For each month, you can determine what value should be planned. While you are entering values, you will notice that the 'To be planned' column will decrease. This column is automatically recalculated when you've entered a value in the timeline. Once all costs or revenues have been planned, the manually planned cash flow can be saved. You will now return to the cash flow planning screen.
Notes:
- In order to save, the total forecast needs to be planned. hence the 'To be planned' column needs to be zero.
- The timeline is based on the earliest date in your Planning and latest date in your planning.