What is a baseline plan?

You should save a baseline once you’ve built your original working plan for the coming year and any time you do a thorough revision that you may want to refer back to. You can save multiple baselines through the year.

You can then use the baseline to compare to your working plan in reports like the Variance or YTD comparison.

With a baseline, you can:

• See when it was created

• Create multiple baselines throughout the year

   

You can’t:

• Rename a baseline plan

• Change planned items or details

   

How to save a baseline

In the Budget screen:

1. Open the Working Plan.

2. Ensure your revision line is set to the correct month. You will see actuals on the left-hand side of the revision month and planned items on the right-hand side.

   NOTE: The revision line cannot be changed from within the Baseline Plan, whatever you choose here will decide the data displayed in the baseline plan. However, you can create as many Baseline Plans as you need.

3. Select the padlock in the top left-hand corner.

4. Confirm that you would like to set a Baseline Plan with this revision date.

    

What is the difference between a baseline with actuals and one without?

If you have a working plan for a future financial year i.e. 2023/24, it will only contain budget items and no actual transactions.

This means that when you save it as a baseline, the entire plan will be set to read-only and can’t be altered - nice and simple.

If you have a working plan for a past or current financial year such as 2022/23, it will include a combination of actual transactions up to the revision date and budget items for the remainder of the year.  

Troubleshooting:

1. When you save this plan as a baseline, the actual information can potentially change. This is because the information comes from the Actuals screen, through bank feeds, or manually imported/entered bank transactions.​

How can a baseline with actuals change?

Closing/opening bank balances, milk production, and livestock numbers can change where:

• A baseline is saved before entering all transactions for the period into the Actuals screen. 

• There are duplicate transactions, and one needs to be removed/reversed

   

NOTE: Changing the code on a transaction can change where it sits in the baseline but won't necessarily change bank balances, milk production, or livestock numbers.

2. You can retrospectively save a baseline plan for the start of the financial year halfway through the year (so only planned items are shown) by moving the revision date to the beginning of the Financial Year

In the Working Plan:

1. Click on the drop-down arrow next to the Revision date.

2. Click on the month at the beginning of the Financial Year. The Actuals will be replaced by planned events and the grey background will no longer show.

3. Click on the padlock icon and you will be prompted to 'Set Baseline' plan.

The Baseline plan will now be displayed on your plans landing page and is available to send to others and can be used to compare what you anticipated at the beginning of the Financial Year to what happened (ie compare your actuals with your original plan)

TIP: Use your Compare icon in your Working plan to do this.