Analyzing your 30-day budget in Aspire

In our recent webinar, “How to Survive the Challenges of COVID-19 on Your Landscaping Business,” veteran industry consultant and co-founder of Aspire Software Kevin Kehoe shared several suggestions based on his experiences during past economic downturns. One recommended course of action that he discussed during the webinar was shifting to a 30-day budget.

That’s why we’ve put together this blog post explaining how to use the various reports in Aspire business management software to analyze your 30-day budget so you can better understand your revenue and expense position.

In this blog post, we’ll review:

1. Estimating your expenses
2. Estimating what is (and what will be) available for invoicing
3. Establishing new sales expectations
4. Other helpful concepts for building a smarter budget

Expenses

Using a simple Work Ticket pivot table, you can speculate your monthly expenses based on estimated ticket activity using (see screenshot below for recommended display fields and grouping).

• Filter “Work Ticket Status” to show “Open,” “Complete,” “Scheduled,” and “Pending Approval” only
• Filter “Scheduled Date Year” to show “2020” only

From this Work Ticket pivot report, you can compare your already incurred costs vs. remaining costs. Subtract the “Total Cost Actual” from the “Total Cost Estimated” to determine the estimated remaining expenses for the month, if all the anticipated work is performed.

Note that larger work tickets spanning multiple months may inflate the estimated monthly expenses, but you can analyze and modify these anticipated expenses to create accurate assumptions.

Revenue

Aspire Landscape can provide an idea of how much revenue you can anticipate invoicing in a specific period. There are two basic reports required to pull this data together: 

1. Invoicing Assistant Amount Total
2. Work Ticket Pivot Estimated Revenue

Invoicing Assistant will show all services completed through the selected date and all fixed-payment contract installments for that month.

The Work Ticket pivots will provide an overview of the work you expect to perform and complete this month that has not already moved to the Invoicing Assistant. You can use the same Work Ticket pivot report from before to gather this information.

There are two changes necessary:

1. Filter “Work Ticket Status” to show “Open,” “Scheduled,” and “Pending Approval” only
2. Add “Invoice Type” and filter to display all invoice types except fixed payment

In the screenshots above, note the following figures:

• April Invoicing Assistant = $30,355.30
• April Work Ticket Pivot Estimated Revenue = $188,958.08

Add the above amounts for your estimated invoicing:

• April Estimated Invoicing = $219,313.38

The Invoicing Assistant shows what work is complete through the present, and the Work Ticket pivot report shows what you can anticipate completing. It’s important to understand that the Revenue column from the Work Ticket pivots is based on earned revenue. Keep in mind that Aspire cannot predict when you will actually complete and invoice the work.

Also, larger work tickets spanning multiple months may inflate your monthly revenues. Thus, you will need to analyze and modify these anticipated revenues to create accurate assumptions.

New sales pipeline

You can create an opportunity sales pipeline to estimate the sales you anticipate to close. To lean out the sales pipeline, assign a probability of 100%, 50%, or 0% to all opportunities. Only allow 10% of all opportunities to be placed with a 50% probability. 

Build the following list in Opportunities:

Helpful concepts

• Accurate Work Ticket pivots require proper Work Ticket management
  • Change the anticipated start dates for postponed services
  • Cancel work tickets that will no longer be performed per the original contract
  • Drill into “Service Types,” “Services,” and “Properties” to ensure accuracy of the Work Wicket pivot ticket statuses and dates
• When analyzing invoicing in Work Ticket pivots, consider additional calculations for large tickets spanning multiple months
• You can invoice “Fixed Price Open Billing” and “Fixed Price on Payment Schedule” at any ticket status

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact your Aspire Customer Success Manager (CSM).

View the recorded webinar with Kevin Kehoe, “How to Survive the Challenges of COVID-19 on Your Landscaping Business.”