How to View Revenue Forecasting | Latner Software Documentation

Revenue Forecasting shows what you have already invoiced next to what Latner expects your live rental contracts to bill, so you can see how the month is tracking and where the revenue is coming from.

Overview

Knowing what you have invoiced is the easy half. The harder half is knowing what is still to come, and that answer is already sitting in your rental contracts. The Revenue Forecast dashboard runs the same billing engine that produces your invoices across every live contract, then charts the result beside your actual invoiced revenue.

Two views of the future: a Monthly Forecast covering what is still to bill this month, and a Long Range Forecast that spreads expected revenue across up to twelve months.
Invoiced revenue and forecast revenue are stacked in the one chart, so the bar height is the total you expect to bill.
Filter by branch, customer, sales rep and line type, then group the revenue by anything from equipment class to customer industry.
Forecast revenue comes from rental contracts only. Invoiced revenue includes every source you invoice from, so sales orders, work orders and manual invoices appear in the invoiced portion.
Save a filter and group-by combination you use often, and download the charted numbers as a CSV.

Before You Begin

The dashboard is read-only, so there is nothing to configure before you use it, but a few things determine whether you see it and what it contains.

Requirement	Where to Find It
Permission: Customer Revenue Dashboards	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups, under Customers › Screen. This shows the tab and controls which branches' revenue you can see.
Rental contracts to forecast from	Contracts with a status of Active and a billing status of Active. The Long Range Forecast also includes Reserved contracts.
Optional setting: Calculate Revenue Forecast for Active Contract Details Using the Expected Off Hire Date	Security › Settings › Rental. Turns the Monthly Forecast from a whole-of-month estimate into one that stops each line on its expected off hire date.

The Customer Revenue Dashboards permission, found under Customers › Screen in a permission group

The Rental settings, filtered on "expected off hire date" - the forecast setting is off by default

With the setting off, the Monthly Forecast bills every active line through to the end of the month. With it on, each equipment line stops on its expected off hire date instead, clamped so it never bills less than today or more than the end of the month. Turn it on if your team keeps expected off hire dates accurate, and the forecast becomes noticeably more conservative.

Viewing the Revenue Forecast

Step 1 - Open the Revenue Forecast dashboard

Open Dashboard from the top of the screen and select the Revenue Forecast tab. It sits at the far right of the dashboard tab strip, so you may need to scroll the tabs across. The chart loads with the Monthly Forecast for the current month and no grouping.

The Revenue Forecast tab on first load - blue is what you have invoiced this month, pink is what is still expected to bill

If you use this dashboard often, use the tab icon at the right of the tab strip to open Reorder/Hide Tabs and drag Revenue Forecast up the list, or untick the dashboards you never look at. The order is remembered for you, not for everyone.

Reorder/Hide Tabs - dragging Revenue Forecast to the top saves you scrolling every time

Step 2 - Filter to the revenue you care about

Set any of the filters across the top, then select Update. Nothing changes until you do.

Branch - one or more branches. You only ever see branches your permission covers, so a branch missing here is a permission question, not a data one.
Customer - one or more customers.
Sales Rep - the sales rep on the contract or invoice.
Line Type - restricts both halves of the chart to particular kinds of revenue, for example Equipment, Sub Hire Equipment, Transport or Admin.

Filtered to the Sydney branch and Equipment line type - the totals drop to that slice of the business

Step 3 - Group the revenue to see where it comes from

Choose a Group By value and select Update. The horizontal axis switches from months to the grouping you picked, and each bar stacks Invoiced under Forecast.

Structural groupings: Company, Division, Branch.
Commercial groupings: Customer, Industry, Invoice Source, Line Type, Package.
Fleet groupings: Equipment Category (Rental), Equipment Class (Rental), Equipment Model (Rental).
Charge-detail groupings: Transport Type, Admin Charge Type, Fuel Type, Sanitation Type and Labour Type. Each of these needs its matching Line Type filter selected first, so pick Transport before grouping by Transport Type.

The Group By list - the last five options stay greyed out until the matching Line Type is selected

Grouped by Customer - a customer with no blue portion has not been invoiced yet this month

Step 4 - Switch to the Long Range Forecast

Change Forecast Type to Long Range Forecast and select Update to look further ahead. Latner spreads each contract's expected revenue across the months it covers, up to twelve months out, pro-rated by day where a charge spans a month end.

The Long Range Forecast - each column is a month of expected rental revenue rather than a single month total

When you group a Long Range Forecast, an extra column appears at the front of the chart labelled with the current month and (Invoiced). That column holds your actual invoiced revenue; every column after it is forecast.

A Long Range Forecast grouped by Branch - the leading "(Invoiced)" column keeps actuals separate from the forecast months

Step 5 - Save the view, or take the numbers with you

Two small icons sit above the chart on the right.

The bookmark icon opens Saved Filters. Type a name, select Save, and the whole combination of filters, forecast type and grouping is stored under your login. Selecting a saved filter later reloads it and refreshes the chart in one step. The cross beside a saved filter starts a delete, and the bin icon confirms it.
The download icon writes the charted values to Revenue Forecast.csv - one row per series and one column per bar, exactly as displayed.

A saved filter named "Monthly Revenue by Branch" - saved views belong to your login, not the whole company

Step 6 - Optional: schedule an extra forecast refresh

Latner rebuilds both forecasts overnight, so most teams never need to touch this. If you want an additional refresh during the day, go to Security › Configuration › Scheduled Jobs, select Options › Create Scheduled Job, choose the Monthly Revenue Forecast job type, set how often it repeats and the time to run, then Save. Options › Run Job runs a saved job immediately.

Creating a Monthly Revenue Forecast scheduled job - the job type needs no configuration of its own

How the Numbers Are Built

Invoiced revenue counts Completed and Paid invoices only, dated in the current month. Draft invoices are not included, and invoices created today are held out so they are not counted twice against the forecast.
The Monthly Forecast is a preview billing run across every Active rental contract with Active billing, billed to the end of the current month.
The Long Range Forecast is a separate run across Active and Reserved contracts, billed a year ahead in advance, with each line stopping on its expected off hire date. Damage waiver and environmental levy are recalculated for each month rather than pro-rated.
Both runs happen overnight, so the forecast you see is the most recent completed run rather than a live calculation. A contract created this morning shows up in tomorrow's forecast.
The selector below the chart switches between Invoices & Credits, which nets credit notes off your invoiced revenue, and Invoices Only, which leaves it gross. It changes the invoiced portion only, because a forecast has no credit notes in it.

The forecast is an estimate for planning, not a billing document. It bills contracts as they stand at the time of the overnight run, so off hires, stand downs, rate changes and new contracts entered since then are not reflected. Never use a forecast figure to invoice a customer - raise the invoice from the rental contract so the charges are calculated against the contract as it is right now.

FAQs

The Revenue Forecast tab isn't there. Why?

The tab needs the Customer Revenue Dashboards permission, granted under Customers › Screen in your permission group. It can also be hidden from your own tab strip - open Reorder/Hide Tabs from the icon at the right of the tabs and check that Revenue Forecast is ticked.

I just created a contract and the forecast hasn't changed. Is it broken?

No. Both forecasts are rebuilt by an overnight job, and the dashboard shows the most recent completed run. New contracts, off hires and rate changes appear the next day. If you need a refresh sooner, set up a Monthly Revenue Forecast scheduled job under Security › Configuration › Scheduled Jobs.

Why does my Long Range Forecast stop after a month or two instead of running twelve months out?

Because the long range run bills each contract line only as far as its expected off hire date. If most of your live contracts are due off hire in the next few weeks, the forecast ends there. Lines with no expected off hire date are forecast for the full twelve months, so the shape of this chart is a good check on how far ahead your expected off hire dates actually go.

Why is the invoiced revenue only ever for the current month?

The Revenue Forecast dashboard is built to answer "how is this month tracking", so it always compares the current month's invoiced revenue against what is still to come. For invoiced revenue over a longer period, use the Revenue dashboard tab instead.

Do sales orders and work orders appear in the forecast?

Not in the forecast half. Forecast revenue is generated from rental contracts, which is why the series is labelled Forecasted Rental Revenue. Sales orders, work orders and manual invoices do appear in the invoiced half once their invoices are completed, so grouping by Invoice Source shows them on the invoiced portion of the bars.

Latner won't let me group by Transport Type. What am I missing?

Transport Type, Admin Charge Type, Fuel Type, Sanitation Type and Labour Type only make sense within one kind of charge, so each needs its matching Line Type selected first. Choose Transport in Line Type, then Transport Type becomes selectable.

Can I share a saved filter with the rest of my team?

Not currently. Saved filters are stored against your own login, so each person sets up the views they want. The tab order and hidden tabs are personal in the same way.

Watch the Demo

Prefer to watch it? Step through the same flow here.