The financial forecasting engine projects your business's cash position, revenue, expenses, and balance sheet from the data already held in iVendNext. Unlike the inventory and sales engines — which operate at the item level — the financial engine works at the account and company level, reading GL Entries and Sales Invoices to produce month-by-month projections across five forecast types.
This article explains how each forecast type works, what the Financial Forecast master record does, and how alerts surface financial conditions that need attention.
The Financial Forecast is the master record that sits at the centre of financial forecasting in Foresight. It records the chosen prediction model, scores the prediction's risk and volatility, and carries the confidence and accuracy metadata. The Cashflow, Revenue, and Expense Forecast records all roll up to it.
Five forecast types are supported:
Key calculated fields on the master record:
volatility_score = (upper_bound − lower_bound) / |predicted_amount| × 100
risk_category:
confidence ≥ 75 AND volatility ≤ 30 → Low
confidence ≥ 60 AND volatility ≤ 50 → Medium
confidence ≥ 40 → High
else → Critical
trend_direction:
change vs prior forecast > +5% → Increasing
change vs prior forecast < −5% → Decreasing
change > 2% → Volatile
else → Stable
forecast_alert fires when:
confidence < threshold
OR risk is High or Critical
OR volatility > 75
The Cashflow Forecast record provides a line-itemised cash inflow and outflow projection per company per month.
Inflows cover: receivables collection, sales forecast amount, other income, investment returns, and loan proceeds. Outflows cover: payables payment, inventory purchases, operating expenses, capital expenditure, and loan payments.
When inflow or outflow fields are left blank, Foresight auto-populates them from the company's cash and bank account movement for the month.
Key calculations:
net_cash_flow = predicted_inflows − predicted_outflows
closing_balance = opening_balance + net_cash_flow
surplus_deficit = closing_balance − minimum_cash_required
liquidity_ratio = predicted_inflows / predicted_outflows × 100
confidence = (data_completeness + ratio_health) / 2
where data_completeness = filled fields / 3 × 100
and ratio_health: liquidity ≥ 120 → 90 | ≥ 110 → 80 | ≥ 100 → 70 | ≥ 90 → 60 | else 40
alert_status:
surplus_deficit < 0 → Critical
liquidity_ratio < 110 → Warning
else → Normal
The liquidity comfort line is 110%. A month where liquidity falls below 110% generates a Warning alert even if the closing balance is positive.
The Revenue Forecast record projects monthly revenue by category, using submitted Sales Invoice history as its primary input. Revenue is broken down into six categories: product, service, recurring, one-time, commission, and other.
When revenue figures are needed, Foresight can auto-populate them from the company's confirmed sales for the period.
Key calculations:
total_predicted_revenue = sum of all revenue categories
growth_rate = (current − previous) / previous × 100
confidence = min(95, max(50, 80 + growth_rate × 0.3))
seasonal_factor: Nov–Dec 1.3 | Jan–Feb 0.7 | Jun–Aug 0.9 | Sep–Oct 1.1 | else 1.0
market_factor: growth > 10% → 1.2 | growth < −5% → 0.8 | else 1.0
trend_direction: growth > 5% Increasing | growth < −5% Decreasing | else Stable
A revenue alert fires when projected monthly revenue for any category falls below the minimum threshold configured in Foresight Settings.
The Expense Forecast record projects monthly expenses by category with variance tracking against actuals. Six main categories are supported: fixed, variable, semi-variable, operational, administrative, and inventory-related. Inventory-related costs are further broken down into storage, handling, purchase-related, reorder, carrying, and stockout costs.
Key calculations:
total_predicted_expense = sum of main categories + sum of inventory-linked costs
variance_percentage = (actual − forecast) / forecast × 100
confidence = clamp(85 − |variance%| × 0.3, 50, 95)
alert_status: risk ≥ 70 → Critical | risk ≥ 40 → Warning | else Normal
optimisation flags:
actual > forecast × 1.10 → high-priority overspend flag
actual < forecast × 0.90 → underutilisation note
An expense alert fires when projected monthly expenses for any category exceed the maximum threshold configured in Foresight Settings.
The Financial Forecast master record ties all five forecast types together under one roof. The AI Finance Dashboard presents cash flow, revenue, and expense projections side by side, giving the finance team a single view of cash health, revenue trajectory, and expense run-rate.
The Finance Consolidated Predictive Insights report aggregates all forecast types into a single executive view. The overall financial health score is calculated as:
health = 0.45 × growth + 0.35 × stability + 0.20 × runway
Recommendations are generated automatically: a runway under 6 months triggers a "increase runway" flag; strong growth with high confidence triggers an "accelerate" recommendation.
Financial alerts are persistent records created when a forecast breaches a configured threshold or when the risk category reaches High or Critical. Key behaviour:
High or Critical priority alerts trigger email notifications to the assigned owner
Alert records surface in the AI Finance Dashboard
Balance alerts fire independently of forecast alerts:
Current balance < critical cash threshold → Critical alert
Current balance < cash trigger threshold → Warning alert
Current balance < 0 → Critical (negative balance) alert
Prediction differs from current balance by > 50% → Info alert
Thresholds — cash trigger, critical cash, minimum revenue, maximum expense — are configured per company in Foresight Settings.