The Category Intelligence area gives a clear overview of the company's most important income and expense categories. Forecast settings can be made individually for each category.
COMMITLY creates a separate forecast for each category, independent of planned values. The sum of all categories then forms the company's overall liquidity forecast. This allows individual categories to be adjusted independently of each other to better align the forecast with individual expectations.
The detail view of a category contains a detailed analysis of its forecast and development.
The Forecast model dropdown defines the basis on which the future development of a category is forecast.
Depending on the category, the following forecast models are available:
COMMITLY AI (recommended) – creates the forecast using COMMITLY's AI. The available company data is analyzed and an expected development of the category is calculated. The AI takes the existing company history into account, with more recent data weighted more heavily.
Prior-year values – uses the historical values of the past twelve months as the basis for the forecast. A percentage adjustment can also be entered to account for future changes compared to the prior year, for example a planned salary increase or rising operating costs due to inflation.
Run rate – creates the forecast based on the current development of the category. It assumes that the current trend will continue in a similar way in the coming months.
Moving average – calculates the forecast using an average of past months. The number of months included can be set individually to smooth out short-term fluctuations.
Set the Forecast Baseline (e.g. Median, Pessimistic, Optimistic)
An individual Forecast Baseline can be set for each category. This determines whether the selected category is forecast pessimistically, as the median or optimistically.
If needed, exclude the category from planning with “Don't plan”
The lower area shows the development of the selected category in a chart. The chart lets you compare the Actuals to date with the forecast development.
The legend on the left shows which values are displayed in the chart:
Weekly
Prior-year actuals
Forecast
Monthly
Prior-year actuals
Forecast