How can you forecast in Cost Tracker?

[Amy Lambden]

Hello, 

I am looking at how Cost Tracker can be used to help forecast hardware/software over the life cycle of a project? 

I see you can add expenses into Cost Tracker, but when you add a future date, they do not show up in Cost Tracker. 

Is there a way to have the future expenses in Cost Tracker visible on the timeline? Or is there another way around this? 

Thank you 

Amy 

[Olha Yevdokymova_SaaSJet]

Time & Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud does allow you to add future expenses! You have two options to incorporate them into your cost tracking and forecasting:

1. One-Time Expenses:

   • When adding a new expense, you can select any future date in the 'Date' field. This is ideal for one-off expenses like a planned hardware purchase or software license renewal.
   • These future expenses won't be immediately visible on the Cost Tracker timeline, but they will be included in any Cost Reports generated for the time period that includes the expense date.

2. Recurring Expenses:

   • For expenses that occur regularly, like monthly subscriptions or software licenses, you can set up Recurring Expenses.
   • Specify the start date, recurrence frequency (e.g., monthly, quarterly), and end date (if applicable).
   • These recurring expenses will be factored into future Cost Reports, giving you a better understanding of your projected costs over the project lifecycle.

While these future expenses won't appear directly on the Cost Tracker timeline, they will be included in any Cost Reports that you generate for future time periods. This allows you to factor these upcoming costs into your budget forecasts and make informed decisions about your project's financial health.

So, even though you can't see the future expenses visually plotted on the timeline, rest assured that the Time & Cost Tracker has you covered when it comes to including them in your overall cost analysis and projections.