AJ-18:Using Schedule Manager to Forecast Revenue

Jyoti Sohi, MacKay Sposito

Using Schedule Manager to Forecast Revenue

Presented By:

Jyoti Sohi

Senior Accountant • MacKay Sposito • Vancouver, WA

jsohi@mackaysposito.com

In this session you will learn:

Our goal is to forecast revenue by scheduled resources, but to get there we must learn how to:

• Budgeting Resources – Project Command Center

• Scheduling Budgeted Resources – Schedule Manager

• Forecasting Revenue with Scheduled Resources – Widgets

Project Command Center – Budgeting Resources

• WHO: Project Managers, Project Controls, Accounting

• WHAT: Revenue & Resource Budgeting

• WHEN: Project Set-Up with flexibility to make changes throughout the life of the project.

• WHERE: Ajera Project Command Center

• WHY: Clarity & visibility regarding project performance

Why Budget Resources?• Take ownership from the start!

• Measure project progress.

• Review charts to ensure project spend is accurate, on target, and within scope.

• Establishes a budget & schedule: enter resources & dates!

• Utilize Ajera’s progress tab with an assurance that it reflects the “real story”

Why Budget Resources?

Resource Budgeting• Project Command Center> Manage Tab

o Add Resources by Phas

o Hours/Units

o Estimated Start & Completion Dates

o Resource name is not required

• Billing Rate pulls automatically from the rate table

o Opportunity to ensure correct rate table is selected

Schedule Manager

• Resource detail – budgeted (available) hours and estimated completion dates from PCC comes into Schedule Manager automatically

• Schedule Manager does not talk back to Project Command Center, so, if you’re adding resources into Schedule Manager, they will not automatically show up in Command Center. Best Practice is to do Command Center setup first, and then have resources available in Schedule Manager

• Easily view available, scheduled, and actual hours• 2020 Ajera Update: Hours can be automatically filled into

Schedule Manager based on and estimated dates and budgeted resources added into PCC.

Schedule Manager – Resource Detail

How to Schedule Hours

• In Ajera, go to Manage>Schedule• On the Project Tab, search for Project using Binoculars on the top right hand side • Use Ajera’s Schedule Manager to allocate available hours by employee/labor

resource• Click on the Employee tab to see the hours allocated by employee, by week.• Note – as you schedule hours the totals for Scheduled Hours and Available Hours

will also update.

Reporting on Scheduled Hours & Dollars

• Did you know, scheduled hours can translate scheduled dollars?

• Essentially, this is as accurate as it gets – it looks at real scheduled hours x actual billing rate to inform total scheduled dollars.

• This can be a huge help when providing clients a forecast of revenue expected, backlog, planning resources

Scheduled Dollars - Widgets

• At our firm, our management team likes to see trend widgets – similar to these examples.

• This example is utilizing the resource phase and pulling in scheduled dollars. You can also utilize the Project Base, Employee Base, Phase Base, etc.

• Keep in mind – that once the data is in Ajera, you can most likely build a widget to see the data on a dashboard!

How to Build a Trend Widget – Scheduled Dollars

1) Add Widget2) Select base = Project3) Add Column = Scheduled Dollars4) Change Display Type to Chart5) Chart Type = Line6) Edit Grouping Options

a) Group by Date – change months ahead, behind as needed

7) Scheduled Dollars Column = Select Display By Period

8) Refresh Widget – Voila!

How to Build a Trend Widget – Scheduled Dollars

• Basic Trend Widget for Schedule Dollars –should look like this!

Bonus Widget Example – Comparing Scheduled Hours vs. Actual Timesheet Hours

• Another great tool is to compare actual hours worked vs. Scheduled Hours – here’s a basic one using the Employee Base

Bonus Widget Example – Comparing Scheduled Hours vs. Actual Timesheet Hours By Project

• You can also see scheduled vs. actual hours by Project.• Use the Resource Base and use the following formula for Actual Hours:

– SELECT sum(tunits) from AxTransaction where tisCurrent = 1 and tEmployee = [Employee Key] and tProject = [Phase Key] and tActivityType = 1 and tdate between {startdate} and {enddate}

• All others columns are standard in this base• Remember – if the data is in Ajera, you can most likely get it out in a report,

widget, or inquiry! Get familiar with Widget Bases and AxSchema!

•Questions?