What is the Express planner?

The Express planner in PMI is a forecasting tool available to properties with the Profit & loss module activated. It creates an automated monthly forecast for all non-room revenue departments and labor hours based on historical data.

What is its purpose?

The Express planner helps users to quickly and reliably create an automated forecast for non-room revenue and the labor required in all departments for the next 18 months. The PMI Planning module will use the Express planner to automatically compile a complete and coherent property profit and loss forecast.

Both steps are done in minutes, limiting managers’ effort to only reviewing and refining where applicable.

How is the Express planner forecast calculated?

The Express planner uses the most recent room revenue Live forecast and historical data to predict the future. It can only be used for a period where room revenue data is available.

The Express planner will calculate non-room revenue and labor hours for the months set. If you do not want to override any of these forecasts, set the status to ‘locked’ in Period locking (advanced settings).

Non-room revenue forecast is calculated at department, division, and total revenue levels. Express planner looks at the relationship between room revenue and non-room revenue in historical months and applies the same proportionate split based on the room revenue Live forecast. Non-room revenue is then split to division and department levels based on the historical data.

A growth percentage can be applied in settings to increase or decrease the forecast. You can also specify ‘exception departments’ that should use a different calculation basis.

Labor cost is calculated at department, division and total level using historical productivity as a basis. It takes the department’s cost driver divided by the historical productivity to get the hours forecast. The hours are then multiplied by the hourly rate set in the Profit & loss module to get the labor cost.

You can apply a productivity adjustment percentage in settings if you expect your productivity to be better or worse than the historical period. You can also set fixed departments – whose hours will not change no matter the activity in the hotel. These departments will always be forecasted the set number of hours.

For more details on how the numbers are calculated, see the article How the Express planner works.

How to use the Express planner

It is recommended to run the Express planner once a month for the coming 15 months. This ensures that your forecast is updated with the latest changes in room revenue.

To run the Express planner:

      1. Go to the Budget & forecast module.

      2. Select the Tools icon, then ‘Run Express planner’.

• • The Express planner will run for all non-room revenue departments, regardless of which Budget & forecast page you are reviewing.

       4. Select the months to include in the forecast.

3. • By default, the current and next 3 month’s forecast will not be overwritten by the Express planner. This can be adjusted in settings.
   • If a month’s forecast is set to ‘locked’ in Period locking, that months forecast values will not be overwritten by the Express planner.

5. If needed, review the Settings. 

• • The Express planner settings need to be set up the first time the feature is used. After this, they will remain the same each time you run the Express planner.
  • We recommend reviewing the settings twice a year to make any adjustments needed.
  • Any adjustments made will be automatically saved when you click save. To undo your changes select ‘Cancel’.

       6.  Select “Run Express planner”.

• This will overwrite the forecast values for non-room revenue and labor cost. View the Budget & forecast pages to see the impact. Hover over a cell to see when it was last updated, and by whom.