Skip to main content
Use separate formulas when closed months should show what your books recorded and later months should show a plan. For example, Payroll can read QuickBooks through Last close and calculate Headcount times Average Salary after it. Every workspace has two formula ranges: Actuals, the months through Last close, and Forecast, the months after it. A Variable can have a formula for each. To understand the boundary, read Actuals, Forecast, and Last close. To move it, see Set Last close and date defaults. A formula range needs the Model’s base periods: months, unless your Model uses another grain. A formula you save on a row of a table with those periods already covers them, and a row on a table with no periods has one formula for every period. Write range formulas on a table at the base grain. In a monthly Model, a formula written on a table by year is saved at year grain and fills only the year cells; the month cells do not read it.
Name the Variable and both calculations:
Use imported Payroll for Actuals and Headcount times Average Salary for Forecast.
To change only one range, name it:
Forecast Software Spend as 4% of Revenue. Leave Actuals as they are.
Ari saves each formula for its range and tells you if a Variable cannot take a range-specific formula, for example because the table it sits on has no months. A range formula Ari saves on a Variable outside any table covers the Model’s base periods, usually months.
Check the first Forecast month after you save. A formula that reads the previous month, such as `Cash Balance`[-1] + `Net Cash Flow`, starts from the last Actuals month, so that month needs a value.

​
When a section shows a dimmed formula

A section with no formula of its own shows the formula it inherits, dimmed. Point at it to see the source: Inherited from Actuals formula (or Forecast), and the address that owns it.
  • Select Edit source formula to open the formula it inherits and change it there. Saving it updates that formula instead of creating a second copy.
  • Click the dimmed formula, press →, or press Tab to copy it into this section and change it for this range only.
  • Start typing to replace it.
A formula the section owns opens at full strength and edits in place.

​
Show the Actuals and Forecast formulas side by side

On a table with months, the formula column splits into Actuals Formula and Forecast Formula. To show the formula columns, see Show or hide the formula columns.
  • To hide one, right-click its header and choose Hide column.
  • To bring it back, right-click the other one’s header and choose Show Actuals column or Show Forecast column.
  • Hide all formula columns hides both.
A row that cannot split by range, such as a row with no months, shows its one formula in the first formula column shown.