In the Planning grid, Figured gives you multiple options for managing your forecast. This is the order we recommend working through them:
Configure accounts
Overdraft Settings
Importing / Exporting a forecast
Take snapshot / Approve plan
NOTE: Some of these options will be hidden if you're in a consolidated multi-farm
NOTE: Some of these options will be hidden if you're in a consolidated multi-farm, or if your budget is locked.
1. Configure accounts
Configure accounts allows you to see all accounts from your preferred accounting software’s chart of accounts, and change its categorisation, payment period, and detail in planning.
Along with these options per account, you're able to copy the entire configuration from another farm you have access to, provided the two farms share account codes.
2. Overdraft Settings
If you have an overdraft facility on your bank account, you can enable the automatic overdraft calculation from within overdraft settings. The tool will look at your forecasted closing bank balance and your interest rate, and calculate the interest based on that.
3. Importing / exporting
A good way to start a new forecast is by importing an existing plan and using that as the basis for the years forecast. You have the option to import actuals from last year, import from a snapshot, and import from a file.
You also have the option to export a plan from the planning grid. For example, you can export a prior years plan as a mix of Actuals + Forecast (if the prior year hasn't finished yet) and re-import that into the current year. You can also export a plan and send via email if you'd like it to be reviewed by others.
Further details on exporting and importing in the planning grid can be read about here.
4. Take snapshot / Approve annual plan
This button allows you to capture a snapshot of your farm. Snapshots are a picture of your farm at a point in time. Depending on whether this is your first snapshot you may see this button as either Approve Plan or Take Snapshot. The first snapshot you take of a years plan the button will display as "Approve Plan" and it will automatically set that snapshot as that years annual plan. After that the button will display as "Take Snapshot" and you will be given the option to set any of the new snapshots as the annual plan.
A snapshot can't be edited, so you know that it’s an accurate picture of the farm at the time that the snapshot was taken. However, you can make edits and take a new snapshot at anytime.
For video tutorials on the planning grid check out your YouTube playlist here.