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- Budgeting & Forecasting
- Features
- Scenarios
Scenarios
Scenarios give Finance a place to test different assumptions before choosing a plan. Clone the selected budget basis into an upside, downside or other alternative, retain its lineage and change the inputs for that branch. What if runs record the resulting comparison, including revenue and the planning earnings measure. The original plan remains available, so the discussion can focus on what changed and why rather than on which spreadsheet now contains the baseline.
OverviewScenario Results×
Budgeting & Forecasting · Scenarios
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Scenario Results
What if runs
| Run number | Scenario | Baseline revenue | Scenario revenue | Baseline EBITDA | Scenario EBITDA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WIR-18679 | Cash conservation plan | 31,097.29 | 26,831.72 | 4,827.93 | 27,986.63 | |
| WIR-34145 | FY27 board commitment | 24,995.30 | 9,741.34 | 4,172.99 | 4,190.73 | |
| WIR-96640 | Q1 hiring delay case | 28,238.45 | 38,104.97 | 35,730.37 | 19,554.98 | |
| WIR-79568 | Q2 supplier price increase | 39,967.85 | 35,871.70 | 47,010.97 | 11,328.43 | |
| WIR-51032 | Q2 supplier price increase | 34,445.76 | 18,088.56 | 41,513.76 | 40,944.45 |
6 of 6 records
Cash conservation planWhat if runs · WIR-18679
Baseline revenue31,097.29
Scenario revenue26,831.72
Baseline EBITDA4,827.93
Scenario EBITDA27,986.63
EBITDA delta800
What you can do
Branch from a known starting point
Choose the budget version and source Scenario that the alternative should inherit. The clone keeps the budget cells, driver values, defaults and formula revisions used at that point. Active Scenarios shows the alternatives available for the review. A branch named board commit does not itself establish board approval, and a scenario copied from a locked plan does not gain permission to change that plan. Keep the author and lineage visible so another reviewer can reconstruct the starting assumptions.
Change the assumption and retain the result
Apply an override to the scenario’s own driver basis, such as a revised sales growth assumption or a different hiring schedule. Validate dependencies before computing the affected lines. Scenario Results retains each what if runs execution and its input summary rather than replacing the previous result. Compare outputs using the same periods, entities and reviewed account mapping. The planning EBITDA measure requires its defined revenue, cost-of-sales and operating-expense classes; a generic total of expense accounts is not a sufficient calculation basis.
Bring a reviewed alternative into planning
A scenario comparison informs a decision; it does not approve a budget or forecast. If Finance chooses an alternative, create the intended draft version or explicitly scoped forecast changes, retain the source run and complete the applicable review route. Forecast adjustments belong to a particular rolling forecast and cannot be copied into an annual scenario without an explicit conversion. Preserve the original what-if evidence even after a new plan is selected so later reporting can explain the decision in context.
What your team sees
- Active Scenarios. Open the related work within your assigned scope.
- Scenario Results. Open the related work within your assigned scope.
Rollout checks
Pilot a base, upside and downside run using the same monthly population. Change one driver at a time and compare its effect with the expected formula result. Confirm that repeated calculations retain their own evidence and cannot overwrite the approved baseline. Test that a shared scenario does not expose restricted personnel inputs through its detail links or exports.
What it keeps track of
Data model- Scenarios
- What-if scenarios — Base, Upside, Downside, board commit, back of the envelope. Cloned from a parent Scenario via the
scenario-clone-and-versionworkflow; lineage tracked inLineage. - What if runs
- Outputs of the scenario engine. One row per scenario execution recording inputs deltas vs. base, and the resulting EBITDA / Cash deltas. Powers the Scenario Comparison report.
- Budget versions
- Versions within a Cycle. The audit-friendly chain — V1-Submission, V2-negotiation CFO, V3-board approved, mid year reforecast — so the trail of who proposed what and what the board approved survives.
- Budget lines
- The atomic line of the plan. Each cell keeps its version, period, account, entity and scenario. Budget cells are unique within that basis. Forecast cells additionally require rolling forecast and snapshot key; Actual cells require a reconciled ledger snapshot key. A comparison names its chosen bases explicitly instead of joining ambiguous latest rows. Published snapshots and locked plan amounts are immutable.
- Driver values
- Per Driver per Entity per Period the actual numeric value used by formulas. The grain mirrors budget lines so a Headcount value for
(Engineering, 2026-03-01)resolves cleanly into the Personnel Expense formula for the same cell. - Driver formulas
- Formula definitions referencing Drivers and other driver formulas. Resolved at computation time per
(Version, Entity, Period, Scenario)cell; output writes a budget lines row ofType: Budget(or Forecast). Driver dependency tracing is performed at workflow #4 (driver-update-cascade) evaluation time using one validated expression grammar:Drivers.CODEandFormulas.CODEidentifiers. Validate dependencies and reject cycles before publishing any affected cells. A failed computation leaves the last published snapshot intact and reports cycle detected to FP&A Analyst. There is no separate dependency-graph table. - Assumptions log
- Audit trail of every Driver, driver value, and driver formula change plus every budget transfer apply. The auditor’s source of truth for “what assumption produced what number when.”
Who uses it
Permissions- FP&A Director
- And CFO compare alternatives.
- FP&A Analyst
- Supports the retained input basis and reporting.
- Cost-Center Head
- Reads only scenarios shared within their scope.
- Auditor
- Can inspect the preserved lineage.
Set up Budgeting & Forecasting your way.
Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.