Smart Cells for Forecast enable you to manage budgets dynamically and perform real-time updates in the Forecast column.
When enabled, Smart Cells for Forecast display available funds and allow you to perform actions such as reallocating, adjusting, or trueing up budgets directly within the Forecast column.
The Forecast serves as an active planning anchor, driving available budget calculations and variance reporting, while Total Budget remains as a stable reference point for variance analysis and audit tracking.
Why We Introduced Forecast as an Anchor
In modern budgeting workflows:
Total Budget represents the budget provided by the finance team and remains largely unchanged throughout the year to perform year-end variable analysis.
Marketing or department owners continuously update Forecasts to reflect real-time changes such as performance trends, shifting priorities, or spending adjustments.
Example: Finance allocates $5,000 for January. Mid-month, Marketing realizes they’ll need only $3,000, so they update the Forecast column. The Total Budget remains as the historical baseline, while the Forecast now represents the most current plan.
Note:
If your process tracks only a single budget number, you can continue to use the Total Budget column just as before. The Forecast option is optional; it’s an additional tool for teams who want to dynamically manage and adjust plans while still retaining their original budget baseline.
Key Benefits
With Smart Cells for Forecast, you can:
Use Forecast as your active planning anchor and manage budgets dynamically as performance and plans evolve.
Perform drag-and-drop reallocations and True-ups directly within the Forecast column.
Instantly redistribute funds without relying on static totals.
Track variances between Total Budget (Finance’s allocation) and Forecast (Marketing’s evolving plan).
Gain visibility into when and why Forecasts were updated for greater accountability.
Improve spend accuracy and real-time availability across all budgeting views.
Eliminate manual recalculations to increase agility and confidence in budget management.
Together, these capabilities make Forecast a dynamic, actionable control point—while retaining Total Budget as a stable baseline for variance analysis and audit tracking.
How to Set Forecast as an Anchor in Budget
In the Budget page, you can define which column, Total Budget or Forecast, acts as the anchor for Smart Cells and budget calculations.
To select Forecast as the anchor:
Navigate to Settings > Budget. The Plan Budget page appears.
Click Create Budget. The Add Budget drawer opens.
Notes:
You can set Forecast as an anchor point only when creating a new budget.
You cannot set Forecast as an anchor on the Edit Budget page; the section is visible but greyed out, since the anchor type cannot be changed after the budget is created.
Fill in all required details.
Enable Forecast.
Under the Smart Cell section, select Forecast. This section lets you choose the anchor point for your budget — either Total Budget (default) or Forecast.
Set your custom Available Budget Formula.
The default formula for Forecast-anchored budgets is:
Forecast – Actual Spend – Remaining Committed Budget – Remaining Planned Budget
Where:Forecast: Represents the most current expected spend for a given period. Forecast values can be updated throughout the fiscal cycle to reflect real-time changes such as shifting priorities, campaign performance, or spending adjustments.
Actual Spend: The total amount that has already been spent. This value is calculated based on closed expenses recorded in Planful for Marketing.
Available Budget: Indicates the remaining amount that can still be allocated or spent after accounting for Actual, Committed, and Planned amounts. It is calculated using the selected formula defined in the budget setup.
Remaining Committed Budget: Represents funds that have been formally obligated, such as signed contracts or purchase orders. These amounts are expected to be spent and are deducted from the available budget.
Remaining Planned Budget: Represents anticipated or provisional spending that has not yet been committed. Planned amounts are tentative allocations that help teams model future spend before final confirmation.
Supported custom formulas are:Forecast – Actual Spend
Forecast – Actual Spend – Remaining Committed Budget
Forecast – Actual Spend – Remaining Planned Budget
Choose the formula that best fits your organization’s cost-tracking approach.
Click Save.
Where You’ll See These Enhancements
When Forecast is selected as the anchor:
Smart Cells appear in the Forecast column across the Budget, Manage pages and drawers.
You can use Smart Cells to:
Drag and Drop Surplus: Move unused amounts between months, segments, or campaigns.
True-up: Double-click to return surplus funds to the overall budget.
Adjust Deficits: Add funds back to balance negative values.
Manage Page
When Forecast is the anchor:
Smart Cells appear in the Forecast column for all relevant views: Campaign, Segment, Goal.
Smart Cells are visible only for actionable timeframes, such as the first month in a monthly budget or the first quarter in a quarterly budget.
Example: Smart Cells by Timeframe
When the Timeframe Type is set to Monthly, Smart Cells are enabled for each monthly period on the Manage page, as shown below.
Since the Timeframe Type is set to Monthly, when you switch to the Quarterly view (Q), Smart Cells are disabled and are not actionable within that view.
Charts on the Manage page automatically update based on the selected anchor. When Forecast is the anchor, charts display only Forecast values — the Total Budget is not shown.
This ensures that all visual summaries and spending timelines reflect Forecast-based calculations, keeping your data consistent with the active planning anchor.
Note:
If Manage Page formulas are altered (for analysis-only views) using the ‘Customize Budget Calculation’ option, Smartcell interactivity such as drag-and-drop or true-up will be disabled to ensure data integrity. To learn more about Customize Budget calculation, click here.
True-Up Functionality For Forecast
You can easily reallocate the budget among different segments using the smart cell technology available on both the Budget and Manage pages. These cells display how much you have remaining to spend (or have overspent) for each campaign, segment, and expense group, along with the allocated amount, total expenses, and the variance between them (the available funds or overspending).
When Forecast is set as the anchor, you can perform True-Up actions directly within the Forecast column. The True-Up action updates Forecast values while keeping the Total Budget unchanged. Variance calculations and Smartcell indicators automatically refresh based on your active formula, and all connected Smart Cells update instantly to reflect accurate available funds.
This functionality works the same way as the True-Up for Total Budget, but applies to Forecast-based availability and calculations.
This feature conveniently allows you to adjust allocation amounts directly within the table or seamlessly transfer available funds between segments/campaigns (highlighted in green text above the cell).
The Double-click to true-up feature allows you to reallocate or ‘give back’ money that went unused back to your top-level budget items. For example, let's say you allocated $5,000 to an event in October, but only $4,000 was spent. By double-clicking, you can easily true-up the October budget to $4,000, releasing $1,000 back to your segment where it can be allocated elsewhere.
Another useful feature is the Drag and Drop option to take the leftover budget from any month and move it to a future month within the same segment or move the remaining budget to a different segment if necessary.
Note:
You can always manually type in and overwrite the budget allocation.
In the following scenarios, you can either true-up or drag and drop the excess amount:
If the variance is positive (indicating an available budget for that period), you can redistribute the funds elsewhere in your budget using the drag-and-drop feature.
Alternatively, the true-up feature enables you to adjust the amount by double-clicking and returning it to the total available budget.
If the variance is negative (indicating overspending in that period), you can’t move this amount (you can’t redistribute money you don’t have!). However, you can transfer funds between items or from the available budget of another segment to cover the costs and reconcile the amount using the true-up feature.
When Forecast is the anchor, the same rules apply — but all true-up and drag and drop actions impact Forecast values and availability instead of Total Budget values
Notes:
You cannot drag and drop or true-up to a campaign, segment, expense group, or timeframe that has been closed.
Additionally, you cannot transfer available dollars from one expense group to another; you can only transfer them to another timeframe within the same expense group.
Campaign and Expense Group Drawers
Campaign, Expense Group, and Goal drawers always follow the Budget-level formula, not the Manage Page formula. Within the Allocations tab of Campaign or Expense Group drawers:
Any formula set using Customize Budget Calculation does not affect drawer calculations.
The Total Budget column remains visible but does not contribute to calculations.
The Allocations tab always follows the Budget-level formula defined when the budget was created.
When Forecast is enabled, the Forecast column displays Smart Cells that support:
Manual entry
True-up
Drag and drop actions
Reporting and Exports from Manage Page
When you perform an Export from the Actions menu on the Manage page, with Forecast set as the anchor, all exported budget reports dynamically reflect the active formula and anchor.
For example, if your Manage Page formula is Forecast – Actual, only those columns and values appear in the exported data.
Reporting and Exports from Create: Import/Export Data
When Forecast is set as the anchor, exports and reports accessed through Create → Import/Export Data are updated to reflect Forecast-based values instead of Total Budget values. These changes ensure consistency between in-app Forecast data and exported reports.
Report Tab
Campaign Status Report
Budget-related columns, such as Remaining Budget and Spend vs. Budget, use Forecast as the reference baseline.
Variances are calculated as Forecast – Actual Spend instead of Total Budget – Actual Spend.
This ensures your exported status reports mirror the same values visible within Planful’s Forecast-based Manage Page.
Campaign Reallocation Report
Each monthly column “Allocated Budget (USD)” will be “Forecast Budget (USD)”.
These columns display the Forecast values for each month, ensuring exports align with the latest planning data.
For example:
Before (Total Budget as anchor) For: January Allocated Budget (USD)
Now (Forecast as anchor): January Forecast Budget (USD)
Segment Reallocation Report
Similar to the Campaign Reallocation report, Allocated Budget (USD) columns for each month will be Forecast Budget (USD).
The columns Projection (USD) and Projection Minus Total (USD) have been removed.
The data now reflects Forecast-based allocations across all segments.
Totals align with the in-app Forecast amounts.
Note:
For thematic campaigns, total amounts may differ slightly between the application and the export because thematic campaign allocations are exported as zero for consistency.
Budget (XSLX) Tab
When exporting a budget from Create → Export/Import Data → Budget (XLSX):
Both Total Budget and Forecast columns appear in the file.
When Forecast is the anchor, Forecast Budget becomes the primary calculation driver.
Columns such as Available Budget, Remaining Committed, and Remaining Planned are calculated using Forecast values rather than Total Budget.
The Total Budget column remains available for historical or variance tracking.
Example:
If a campaign’s Total Budget is $5,000 and the Forecast is updated to $3,000, all availability and remaining calculations are now based on the $3,000 Forecast, while the $5,000 Total Budget remains visible as a baseline.