Scenarios
Model Budget, Forecast, and Actuals side by side as versioned sets of numbers, instead of maintaining competing spreadsheets.
Scenarios are part of the paid Planning plan. See Plans & limits.
Scenario types
- Budget is the agreed plan for a period.
- Forecast is an updated projection as the period progresses.
- Actuals is what actually happened.
Each fiscal period can have one active Budget, which downstream views label against.
Lifecycle
A scenario moves through a small set of states.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being built; freely editable. |
| Active | In use for its period. |
| Locked | Frozen. Edits are blocked, but the data stays readable. |
| Archived | Hidden from the default list; kept for history. |
Use Lock to freeze a scenario and Unlock to resume editing. Locking blocks edits while the data stays readable.
Promote Actuals to a future Budget
When a period closes, you can turn an Actuals scenario into the starting Budget for a future period. This is the “Use as next year’s Budget…” action.
Only Actuals scenarios can be promoted. A locked scenario is still promotable, because promotion only reads the source.
Working with Scenarios
Find Scenarios in the Planning section of the main navigation. On the free plan the section shows an upgrade prompt (“Scenarios are a Planning feature”); upgrading registers your early-access interest until billing is live.
Create a scenario
Open Scenarios
Click Scenarios in the Planning section of the navigation.
Create new
Click New Scenario and choose a type: Budget, Forecast, or Actuals.
Fill in the details
Give the scenario a name, select the fiscal period it covers, and set its initial status. Draft is the right starting point for anything still being built.
Add targets
Once the scenario exists, open it and attach Targets to define the numbers you’re planning against.
Fiscal periods
Scenarios are always tied to a fiscal period. If you haven’t set up fiscal periods yet, go to Settings → Fiscal Periods and define your organisation’s year. Scenarios without a valid fiscal period cannot be made active.
Comparing scenarios
The value of Scenarios is comparison — Budget vs Forecast, or last year’s Actuals vs this year’s Budget. Views that reference Scenarios will show the numbers for the currently active scenario in a period. Switch which scenario is active to change what those views display, without touching the underlying data.
Lock your Budget before you start building your Forecast. That way the Budget stays stable as a reference point even while the Forecast evolves.
Permissions
Any workspace user can view scenarios. Only Contributors and Admins can create, edit, lock, or archive them.