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Census Forecasting

Census Forecasting

Forecasts of Net Fee Income will be prepared for key censuses - November and March (used for Q2 Outturn).

Typically an initial forecast will be calculated centrally and will then be amended on an exception basis by FMs, where material changes are expected. The forecast will be included in Census Pack reports. The 2 key forms on PBCS are for Forecast Input (amending, rather than inputting from scratch) and Forecast Review. Forms for Parameter input will typically be used centrally only, although there may be cases where local input is appropriate & will be agreed mutually.

General Approach to Forecasting

Fee Income: Parameters are defined for each Level and for EU and NonEU, which are based on historic patterns of income from a given census to the July census. If July income for a particular level historically has been 99% of the November level, then we use a parameter of 99% when forecasting from the November census. We set default parameters centrally based on university-level data and PBCS allows for specific parameters to be set for individual schools. As the calculated forecast can be amended, we generally do not define school-level parameters.

In forecasting Fee-Related Expenditure, we generally take the prior year's Q4 outturn as a starting point and scale that up or down individually for each school/level/EU/NonEU based on changes in the underlying Fee Income. So if fee income for GT NonEU for a school is 120% of last year's July income, we forecast GT NonEU Fee-Related Expenditure at 120% of the Q4 Outturn level. The calculated forecast can be amended by FMs.

Account

Where available, the Account in the Point-Of-View may be used to select All Gross Fee Income, Fee-Related Expenditure or Net Fee Income (or individual accounts within those summary accounts) as required.

The account is not stored in a User Variable, and so the arrow on the POV bar must be clicked to apply the change. The yellow shading when an account is selected indicates that this is the case.

CensusFcst-POVAcct.png

Input may be performed for a single school, or for all of the children of a college by selecting the SFSchool variable. Data must be entered by campus and usually FMs will only make amendments to the Dublin campus - forecast for other campuses will have been calculated automatically and will only need attention if they represent material amounts.

The accounts within Gross Fee Income and Fee-Related Expenditure are displayed, together with sub-totals. Major Registrations and Student FTEs are also displayed but generally the calculated forecast is considered to be fine for these items.

Non-Registration Generated Input is included as a level and if any general adjustments are to be entered, they should be entered here. As the Gross Fee Income forecast will be reported by level, it would usually not be appropriate to enter a single adjustment for Fee Income, but it may be convenient to do so for Fee-Related Expenditure.

The usual data inputting conventions apply and you must click on the Save button to save the data.

CensusFcst-Input.png

This form enables review of the census forecast, with comparisons against several datasets available.

Actual census data is shaded, as per census reports, in pink. The working forecast is shaded gold. Variances are shaded teal.

Groups of data

  • The first block of data compares the working forecast against the current census.
  • The second block compares the working forecast against the Budget (Year 1 of Five Year Plan).
  • The third block compares the working forecast against a Snapshot. Usually the snapshot will hold the central forecast, FMs will be advised if this is changed.
  • The fourth block compares the working forecast against the prior year's July census.
  • The fifth block compares the working forecast against the prior forecast of this year (if there was one - ie from Feb onwards).

CensusFcst-Review.png

This form enables review of the forecast by campus. Usually an FM will not be concerned with the breakout by campus and so is unlikely to use this form much. However if there is material income for a campus other than Dublin, it is worth reviewing the breakout quickly to ensure that the calculated forecast is reasonable.

The form displays the current census, the working forecast and the variance. The Total For All Campuses is shown and can be expanded to show individual campuses.

CensusFcst-ReviewByCampus.png

Videos

2 brief videos about census forecasting are available

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