The Waterfall dashboard
Read the Waterfall in bluprnts — where each year's revenue goes, from sales down through costs, interest and tax to what the business keeps.
The Waterfall shows where your revenue goes. It takes a year of trading and steps down through it: each fall is money spent, each landing is profit kept. It is the clearest single view of whether the shape of the business works, because it shows the proportions rather than the totals.
Find it in the left sidebar, under Forecast → Waterfall. The page is titled The Record — a forward record of the business across the whole forecast.
Chapters — one per forecast year#
Along the top, one chapter per year of the forecast, each showing that year's:
- Revenue, with a bar sizing it against the other years
- Growth against the previous year — or "opening year" for the first
- Gross margin
- Cash banked at the year end
Selecting a chapter narrows the waterfall to that year. Show the whole plan returns it to the full forecast.
Read the chapters before the chart. A plan whose revenue triples while gross margin falls is telling you something the waterfall for any single year won't.
The waterfall itself#
Seven steps, from revenue down to what's kept:
| Step | Direction |
|---|---|
| Revenue | The starting height |
| Cost of sales | Down |
| Gross profit | Landing |
| Operating costs | Down |
| Operating profit | Landing |
| Interest & tax | Down |
| Kept | The final landing |
Hovering a column gives its label and amount. The subtotals — gross profit, operating profit, kept — are the landings; everything else is a fall.
Kept is the figure to argue with. It is the same number as profit after tax on the profit and loss, shown as what survived the descent rather than as a bottom line.
The note to the record#
Below the chart, a short written note summarising what the record shows, signed with the version it was compiled from — base case, or the name of the scenario applied. It changes when the forecast changes, because it is generated from the forecast rather than written once.
Before there's a plan#
With no revenue in the selected year, the chart says so: "No revenue recorded … yet — the waterfall begins with the first sale." Add sales, or select a year that has some.
Related#
- Profit and loss — the same descent as a statement.
- Ratios and margins — the proportions the waterfall shows, as figures.
- Reading your dashboards — the other three forecast screens.