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Firecast Documentation

Your complete guide to mastering business estimation and financial forecasting with AI.

Getting Started: Your First 5 Minutes
Follow these steps to create, analyze, and optimize your first financial model.
  1. Create a Project: From the main tool page, click the "New Project" button. Give your project a clear name (e.g., "E-commerce T-Shirt Store"), a start date, and a brief description.
  2. Use AI Assistance (Recommended): For the quickest start, toggle the "Generate initial model with AI" switch. Our AI will analyze your project description and create a realistic baseline of revenue and expense items. The model is regionally-aware and will generate estimates in Indian Rupees (INR).
  3. Review & Refine Your Model: The AI gives you a starting point. Click the icon on any line item to adjust its amount, quantity, or recurrence. Use the "Add Item" button to add your own line items for things the AI might have missed.
  4. Analyze the P&L Forecast: Scroll down to the P&L chart to see your financial projections instantly. Use the "Forecast Horizon" dropdown to see how your business scales over 1, 5, or even 20 years.
  5. Optimize with AI: Go to the "AI Budget Optimizer" tab. Set a financial goal in plain English (e.g., "I want to be profitable within 12 months" or "How can I reduce my burn rate by 20%?"). The AI will provide actionable suggestions on how to adjust your line items to meet that goal.
Key Features in Detail

AI Model Generation

Don't start from a blank slate. Describe your project, and our AI will generate a realistic baseline financial model, including common revenue streams and expenditures, with cost estimates tailored for India (INR).

AI Budget Optimizer

Set a high-level financial goal (e.g., "increase profit to ₹1,00,000"), and the AI will suggest specific, actionable changes to your line items. It provides clear reasoning for each suggestion, which you can review and apply with a single click.

Notes & Context

Add rich-text notes to your project to keep track of key assumptions, meeting minutes, or strategic context. This information is used by the AI to provide a more insightful analysis in generated reports.

Dynamic P&L Forecasting

Instantly visualize your financial future with an interactive Profit & Loss chart and a detailed month-on-month data table. Any change to your model is reflected immediately in the forecast.

Linked Projects

Build complex, multi-layered models by linking projects together. For example, model a "Real Estate" project and link it multiple times to a portfolio to simulate owning several identical properties without duplicating data.

Scenario Planning

Use the visibility toggle () on any line item to temporarily exclude it from all forecast calculations. This is perfect for what-if analysis, like seeing the impact of a potential new marketing campaign without permanently adding it to your main forecast.

Easy Duplication

Quickly duplicate any line item or entire project with the "Clone" button (). This is useful for creating multiple similar expenses or for templating different business model variations.

Import & Export

Export a single project or all of your projects to a JSON file for backup or sharing. You can easily import these files back into the application at any time.

Project Fields Explained
A breakdown of the main project settings that form the foundation of your financial model.

Project Name & Description

Give your project a clear, descriptive name. The description is especially crucial if you use the AI generation feature, as the AI uses this text to create a relevant and tailored baseline model for your business case.

Project Start Date

This is the official start date ("Day 0") for your entire forecast. All subsequent line item start dates and offsets are calculated relative to this single, foundational date.

Project Duration (Optional)

You can set a specific end date for the entire project. If set, the P&L forecast will not extend beyond this date, regardless of the "Forecast Horizon" setting. This is useful for projects with a defined lifecycle, such as a construction project, a specific event, or a fixed-term contract.

Forecast Horizon

This dropdown in the main header controls the overall time period shown in the P&L chart and data tables. You can use this to quickly see long-term projections (e.g., 20 years) or focus on the near term (e.g., 1 year) without changing your underlying model data.

Line Item Fields Explained
A detailed breakdown of each field available when you add or edit a line item.

Name & Description

Give your item a clear name (e.g., "SaaS Subscriptions") and an optional description for more context. Clear naming is important for the AI optimizer to understand your model.

Category

Assign the item to a category, which determines its behavior:
Revenue: Any form of income. These are positive values in your forecast.
Expenditure: Any cost or expense. The application automatically treats these as negative values in the forecast.
Linked Project: Allows you to embed another project's entire financial model into this one. This is the key to building complex, hierarchical models.

Amount & Quantity

In the line item form, you can specify if an amount is a "Per Unit" cost or a "Total Amount". If "Per Unit", you can set a quantity. The total for each occurrence is calculated as Amount × Quantity. If "Total Amount", quantity is assumed to be 1.

Recurrence, Start & End

Define how often the item occurs (e.g., 'Monthly', 'Yearly', 'One-Time'). The "Starts After" (relative) or "Start Date" (absolute) fields define when the item becomes active. The "Ends In" (relative), "End Date" (absolute), or "No End" options define the item's lifespan from its own start date.

Spread Amount

For recurring items (e.g., 'Yearly'), you can choose to spread the cost evenly across the smaller periods within it (e.g., a ₹12,000 yearly fee becomes ₹1,000 per month). This is crucial for accurate monthly cash flow analysis and avoids large, unrealistic spikes in your P&L chart.

Linked Project: Multiplier

When linking a project, you can apply a multiplier. For example, a multiplier of 5 on a linked "Office" project would simulate the cost and revenue of 5 identical offices, without having to duplicate the underlying model.

Example Scenarios
Learn how to model common business cases using Firecast's features.

Scenario 1: Modeling a SaaS Business

Model a simple SaaS product with two subscription tiers and some typical operational costs.

  1. Base Project: Create a project named "My SaaS App".
  2. Recurring Revenue: Add two 'Revenue' items using the "Per Unit" amount type:
    • "Basic Plan Subscribers": Amount ₹1,000, Quantity 50, Recurrence 'Monthly'.
    • "Pro Plan Subscribers": Amount ₹5,000, Quantity 20, Recurrence 'Monthly'.
  3. One-Time Revenue: Add a 'Revenue' item for "Setup Fees" using the "Total Amount" type with Recurrence 'One-Time' to model initial onboarding charges.
  4. Recurring Expenses: Add 'Expenditure' items for "Server Costs" (Monthly), "Software Licenses" (Monthly), and "Annual Insurance" (Yearly).
  5. Spreading Costs: For the "Annual Insurance" item, enable the "Spread Amount" toggle. This will distribute the yearly cost into equal monthly amounts in the forecast, giving you a more accurate picture of monthly cash flow.

Scenario 2: Modeling a Real Estate Portfolio

Model a single rental property and then use Linked Projects to scale up to a portfolio of multiple identical properties.

  1. Create the Unit Model: Create a project named "Standard 2BHK Apartment".
    • Add a 'Revenue' item for "Monthly Rent".
    • Add 'Expenditure' items for "Maintenance" (Monthly), "Property Tax" (Yearly, with Spread enabled), and "Initial Refurbishment" (One-Time).
  2. Create the Portfolio Model: Create a second project named "My Real Estate Portfolio".
  3. Link the Unit: In the portfolio project, add a new line item. Set the category to 'Linked Project'.
    • In the "Project to Link" dropdown, select "Standard 2BHK Apartment".
    • Set the "Multiplier" to 10 to simulate a portfolio of 10 identical apartments.
  4. Analyze: The P&L for "My Real Estate Portfolio" will now show the aggregated financials for all 10 apartments. If you update the base "Standard 2BHK Apartment" model (e.g., increase the rent), the portfolio forecast will update automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions