The Forecast page shows you where your money is going over the next 12 months if nothing changes. It takes your current income patterns, your planned expenses, and your recurring transactions to project your financial trajectory — month by month.
What the Forecast Shows
The Forecast page displays a 12-month chart with three lines or bars:
- Projected Income — expected monthly income based on your recurring income entries and Cash Flow plan
- Projected Expenses — expected monthly spending based on your Fixed Expenses and historical spending patterns
- Projected Balance — how your account balance changes each month based on income minus expenses
Below the chart is a month-by-month data table showing the specific numbers behind each bar.
How Projections Are Built
ZhanPlan builds the forecast from:
- Your recurring income entries — payroll marked as recurring, freelance income with set frequency
- Your planned income from the Cash Flow page — the baseline you set for expected monthly earnings
- Your Fixed Expenses — rent, utilities, subscriptions, loan payments logged on the Expenses page
- Your historical spending averages — ZhanPlan uses your average monthly spending per category as a baseline for variable expenses
The forecast is most accurate when your Recurring Income entries and Fixed Expenses are fully populated. An incomplete picture produces an optimistic forecast — if rent is not entered, the forecast will not account for it.
Reading the Balance Trajectory
The most important thing to look at on the Forecast page is the balance trajectory. Is it trending upward over 12 months, staying flat, or declining?
An upward trajectory means your income exceeds your expenses consistently — you are building financial position. A flat or declining trajectory means expenses are keeping pace with or exceeding income — a signal that something needs to change.
What to Do If the Forecast Looks Bad
If your 12-month forecast shows a declining balance:
- 1Identify the month where the decline is steepest
- 2Check whether that month has unusual projected expenses (annual bills, irregular costs)
- 3If it is systemic — every month looks flat or declining — the issue is structural: ongoing expenses exceed ongoing income
- 4Use the Cash Flow page to see where the gap is and what to adjust
- 5Common fixes: reduce one significant recurring expense, increase income, or both
Comparison Page Connection
The Comparison page (under Reports) lets you see up to 4 months of actual income and spending side by side, with category breakdowns and percentage changes. Use Comparison to understand past patterns and Forecast to see where those patterns lead in the future.
How far into the future does the forecast go?
The default forecast window is 12 months. Some ZhanPlan plans may show a longer window — check your plan features.
Does the forecast account for one-time large expenses?
Not automatically. One-time expenses (a vacation, a home repair) are not in the forecast unless you have added them as Fixed Expenses on the Expenses page. If you know a large expense is coming, add it temporarily to Fixed Expenses for that month, then remove it after.
How is the Forecast different from Cash Flow?
Cash Flow shows your actual historical income and expenses alongside your planned targets. Forecast projects future months based on recurring patterns. Cash Flow is about what happened and what you planned; Forecast is about where you are headed.