Too often marketers don’t spend the full budget amount allocated to them. Organizations see underspend as a sign that too much budget was allocated. Most often, this means the budget will be cut the following year, as the money could be used by other teams. Allocadia helps Marketers manage their over/under spend for greater control of budgets by use of the Forecast Status Tags and Plan vs Forecast Variance.

Forecast Status Tags enable marketers to gain a better understanding of where they have made financial commitments and where they are leaving money on the table. The Status Tags identify if Activities are planned, have a signed contract, or have taken place. Activities that are planned can be cut if the budget gets cut, or the money can be reallocated to other activities where necessary. At the end of every month, any funds allocated to an activity that has not occurred should be reallocated to the month the activity will take place, or to another activity to keep financial records accurate.

The Plan column shows the bottom-up plan of marketing activities that will be completed to spend the allocated budget and the Forecast reflects the latest expected costs. The Plan vs Forecast variance shows how much we are under or over forecasting against the original plan. Using the variance, we can identify if we are under forecasting due to changes in comparison to what we planned. Allowing for reallocation of funds activities that may require more funding, or to activities, we didn’t originally plan for.