Budgets & Scenarios in Calxa are similar and have many of the same features and functionality. But they do server very different roles and are used for different purposes. In this article we'll give you an overview of how you can use scenarios to explore multiple possible budget outcomes.
What is a Scenario?
Scenarios are layers of small budget changes that can be layered on top of a base budget. Each scenario represents a specific adjustment or assumption, which can easily be included or excluded to see how these different factors impact the overall budget.
Step 1 - Setup Scenarios
Navigate to Budgets & Cashflow -> Budget Tools -> Scenario Manager. This is where you will create a list of scenarios that can later be layered with a budget in Dashboards and reports to create different budget outcomes.
The scenario manager allows you to create, group, sort, organise and archive as many scenarios as you require. Full details can be found in the Budgets & Scenarios: Manage Versions help article.
Step 2 - Edit Scenarios
The scenarios each need to have their own values entered and much like budgets there are many ways you can edit or add scenarios values.
Navigate to Budgets & Cashflow -> Budget Tools to use tools such as:
Budget Factory: a bulk editor to help you build scenarios based on other actual, budget or scenario data.
Import Budgets: import scenarios directly from Excel or CSV.
Navigate to Budgets & Cashflow -> Scenarios to enter the figures in a spreadsheet view with the following budget & scenario features:
Budget & Scenarios: Views & Layouts: view your data with different date, business unit, account and metric projections.
Budgets & Scenarios: Edit: enter and edit values in the different spreadsheet views shortcuts such as editing totals and a simple calculator.
Budgets & Scenarios: Formulas: use formulas to build calculations into your scenarios and use Metrics to build driver-based formulas.
Preview Mode
While editing scenarios you can use the preview mode to layer one or more scenarios over a base budget and view the different outcomes with all the same views and layouts that are available in the edit mode. Full details can be found in the Scenarios: Preview Mode help article.
Step 3 - Reporting with Scenarios
Dashboards and Reporting is where the magic happens, and you can start analysing different scenarios in an ad-hoc way. While reporting you can optionally layer one or more scenarios with a base budget to generate different results and projections.
Dashboards
Use the dashboard gallery and the scenario selector to add or remove scenarios as required. The dashboard will refresh using the combined value of budget and selected scenarios.
Scenarios can also be configured directly in custom data sources with the "Custom selections Fixed) organisation and budget type. While this option is not quite as dynamic as adding them in the gallery it does allow you to compare different scenarios in the one dashboard.
Reports
Use the scenario selector in report criteria to add or remove scenarios as required, then refresh reports to review the different results. Remember to save your report to a bundle to save time and remember your selections or to run different scenarios as separate reports or charts in the same bundle.