The Forecast section helps you plan and track your company's finances over time. You can monitor your income and expenses by category, and compare what you planned with what's already happened.
How is it represented?
Your forecast appears as a combined chart:
- The line shows your cash balance progression month by month. It's solid for past months (real closing balances) and dashed for the current and future months, since those are projections
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Bars display inflows (green) and outflows (red) for each period, split into layers:
- Actual (solid colour): money that's already moved — settled transactions.
- Overdue (orange): expected transactions (see above) that have passed their due date without being paid. Shown for current and future months only.
- Expected (striped colour): expected inflows / outflows - invoices or quotes due in the future, predicted transactions based on your history, etc. (more details)
- Target gap (lighter tint): the remaining distance to your target shown only if you have set a targetyour target is higher than actual + overdue + expected combined.
👉 Note: The balance curve may temporarily fall below zero if your outflows are higher than your inflows in a given month, illustrating periods with negative cash flow.
💡Good to know: You can integrate Google Sheets with Cash Flow Management as part of the Smart plan. With this integration, you can import forecasts from Google Sheets into Qonto and automatically sync categorized transaction data from Qonto back to your connected Google Sheet.
When to use it?
- To use as a budgeting tool: set a target for each category and track live how your actual and expected activity compares to it.
- To analyze past transactions by category and understand where your money comes from and where it goes.
- To plan ahead, whether for short-term needs (anticipating upcoming cash requirements and avoiding running out of funds) or long-term goals (evaluating the impact of new projects, hiring, or seasonal changes).
- To see your confirmed pipeline — unpaid invoices, scheduled payments, etc. — is tracking ahead of or behind your target for the month.
- To simulate different situations using Scenarios: you can create up to 5 parallel forecasts to project various outcomes, such as a positive, neutral, and negative scenario, to anticipate any outcome and make informed decisions.
- To get a quick projection with Flash Forecast instead of setting figures by hand — see "How do I use Flash Forecast?" below.
- To compare how your actual results align with your forecasts, month by month and by category.
What's the difference between Target and Forecast?
- Target is the plan or budget you set for a category and period — what you intended to happen.
- Forecast is the number Qonto shows you: whichever is higher between your target and your confirmed activity (actual + overdue + expected). It's designed to never understate what's already confirmed to happen, even if it's more than you originally planned.
Clicking into any month or category opens a side panel where you can see the breakdown behind these numbers, including an Expected tab (transactions not yet settled) and, if relevant, an Overdue tab (expected transactions past their due date). For more on what counts as an expected transaction, see How do I use Expected Transactions to forecast my cash flow?.
How do I create a Forecast?
You can create an automatic projection for a category based on your historical data and industry averages, instead of you entering a figure manually.
- Open Forecast and click into a single category or subcategory (Flash Forecast isn't available at the parent-category or all-categories level).
- In the side panel, click the pencil icon next to the target. If that period already has a figure set, the button reads Autofill targets instead, and generating a new one will overwrite it.
- This is only available for the current month — for past or future months, you'll see a note explaining this instead of the button.
If you need full control over your numbers — in that case, set your target manually instead.
How to customize it?
You can tailor the view to your needs using the filters at the top of the section:
- Forecast scenario: Select which forecast scenario you want to analyze (for example, the main forecast or an alternative scenario you've created).
- Period: Choose the time breakdown for your analysis — month, quarter, or year.
- Accounts: Select one or more accounts to include in your analysis, including external ones if connected.
- Show/hide expected transactions: Toggle whether expected and overdue amounts are included in your forecast, or view actual-vs-target only.
💡 Good to know:
- You can hover your mouse over the chart bars to see detailed information about each cash flow movement, including how much is actual vs. expected vs. overdue.
- You can click on different segments to open the side-panel for more detailed information and actions you can take
- Hovering over a month displays a summary of that month's inflows, outflows, and balance.
- Forecast and forecast scenarios are included with the Smart plan and above.