WIP - Rolling Forecast & Continuous Planning

Rolling forecasts extend the horizon continuously, rather than sticking to fiscal year boundaries. It’s a mindset shift – always looking 4–6 quarters ahead, not just to year-end. While quarterly forecasts are a good step, they often still focus on the current year. Rolling adds that next quarter or two beyond, which is crucial for strategic planning (it prevents the “cliff” where you stop forecasting in December and only start again in next year’s Q1). Also, rolling tends to be more frequent (some do it monthly lightly). The value is in early warning – you spot trends that affect next year, not just reacting within the year. And yes, many leading companies have adopted it because it improves agility. Tools like Keboola make the process far less painful than Excel, which is why it becomes feasible to do it continuously.

Initially, there’s a cultural shift, but the platform is meant to reduce the work. Since actuals load automatically and prior assumptions carry forward, you might only be changing what needs changing (no need to rebuild everything from scratch). Many organizations find that once the heavy annual budget is done, the rolling updates each month or quarter are relatively small tweaks – maybe adjusting a growth rate here or an expense line there based on new info. It often takes less time overall than the old method of doing a big budget and a big reforecast, because now it’s incremental updates. Additionally, by spreading the work out (continuous small updates), it avoids the huge crunch period. The team can integrate it as a normal monthly task rather than an all-hands fire drill once a year.

It’s important to educate stakeholders that a rolling forecast is a feature, not a bug – it’s a sign of responsiveness. The platform will help by clearly showing why numbers change (assumptions and drivers). In practice, you present it as “latest best estimate” and compare it to the last one to show the delta. If you communicate consistently – e.g., “We forecasted 100, now we forecast 95 because market demand softened, so we’re taking actions A, B, C to still hit our goals” – management appreciates the foresight. Over time, they’ll see that these updates help avoid surprises. We’ve seen executives initially skeptical (“why does it keep changing?”) become advocates when a rolling forecast helped them navigate a downturn with no surprises to the Board. Transparency is key: Keboola’s auditability means you can always explain the changes, which builds trust. The goal is to make management feel more in control, not less, and the continuous dialogue around an ever-current forecast achieves that when managed well.