Grey 'checkpoint' flag forecast events on the Calendar
Grey flag forecast events are automatically generated and act as a 'checkpoint' from which the forecast balance is calculated, preventing the forecast generation from slowing over time 🧮
Read on to learn more about these events and what to do if you notice a grey flag balance event is incorrect.
In this user guide
Overview of Grey 'checkpoint' flag forecast events
Grey flag forecast balance events are automatically created on the day before your forecast starts. These are created so that your forecast recalculation time doesn't slow down significantly over time, as you use PocketSmith.
They are only visible when Show actuals in history is unticked.
Note
Grey 'checkpoint' flag events do not alter your forecast balance; they just 'save' the forecast balance on that day as a 'checkpoint' 🏁
What date grey flag forecast balance events are created on, and for how much
Because PocketSmith generates your forecast starting three months before today by default, these balance events get created on the last day of the month, four months ago. For example, when your forecast balance is first calculated in July, a grey flag forecast balance will be added to the Calendar on the 31st of March.
The balance inserted at this date is the same balance as would have been calculated by the forecast calculation, so it should not impact your forecast accuracy. If a change is made in your historical forecast before one of these grey flag balances, the grey flag will be automatically removed and will be recalculated the next time it's needed.
Why these balances are needed
When recalculating your forecast, PocketSmith takes the last created forecast balance for your account prior to the forecast window, then adds and subtracts the budget events in your calendar to work out your predicted account balances.
If grey balance flags were not added to your calendar, then the last created balance for the account will often be the opening balance of the account. This means that PocketSmith would need to calculate your full forecast, right from when you started using PocketSmith, every time you made a change to a budget or a bill. In turn, this would cause your forecast recalculation to get slower with each passing month.
What to do if a Grey flag forecast event has an incorrect amount
The grey flag forecast balance events should always reflect the closing forecast balance of the day before (e.g. 30th of March), plus all the budgets and bills scheduled on the last day of the month (e.g. 31st of March).
On very rare occasions, this balance might be incorrect due to an unresolved bug. If you ever see this happen for one of your grey flag balances, please get in touch and let us know—we'd love the opportunity to fix the bug 🐜
Manually override a Grey 'checkpoint' flag event
You can also manually override a Grey 'checkpoint' flag, which will turn it into a regular Blue flag forecast correction event.
Just click on the Grey flag and edit the forecast balance to suit. Click UPDATE BALANCES to save the change:
