Forecaster Sections and Accounts

In Forecaster, you can design Lines (also referred to as Line Sets) to represent the accounts that should be displayed in an input set or in on a report. These lines can then be assigned to cost centers for input sets, so when a particular department (e.g., Accounting) accesses their input set to enter or review their budget, only the accounts applicable to the selected department are displayed. This concept of assigning lines to specific cost centers is referred to as an "override" on the input set.

The applicable paths we have discussed so far in Forecaster:

• Build>>Lines
• Build>>Reports or Report Worksheet
• Setup>>Budgets>>Input Set>>Overrides

Additionally, you can set up Sections (Setup>>Budgets>>Sections). Sections are just that..section headers, and can be added to lines for input sets or reports, to label a particular section and to help with the presentation of the data.

So...why am I telling you all this? Well, last week I had a client with a strangest issue. In their input set, a particular account was showing with the wrong label. We deleted the account, re-added it. Same result. Wrong label. We made sure the label was correct on the account as well as in the line set. Same result. All users and workstations had the same issue. Argh.

At a loss, I started a case. We stared at the issue some more. We decided to install the latest service pack. But before we had a chance....EUREKA! The just happened to notice that she had a Section with the same ID value as the account that was being problematic. So, the input set was confused and was pulling the label from the Segment although it was presenting data and saving like an account.

Just wanted to share this little nugget of experience, so that you can spare yourself the time we spent to find it :)