Financial Model
The automatic baseline forecasts calculated in your Financial Model are Clockwork's best guess on how these accounts should be projected. In each account, Clockwork analyzes up to 3 years of historical information, with recent data weighted more heavily, looking at trends, seasonality, and other predictable patterns and relationships.
Baseline projections in the Financial model are the white "Forecast" cells you see for each revenue and expense account, and you can also see these projections summarized visually on your Dashboard.
If a business hasn't experienced any recent shocks or major changes to the operating model, Clockwork's baseline forecast should be quite accurate without any human intervention. However, Clockwork will never know as much as you do about your future plans, which is why you'll always need to dial it in with your own Assumptions in certain areas of your model.
Assumptions override Clockwork's baseline forecast and can be added/edited/removed at any time by Employee or Admin users on your account.
The following guides dive into more detail on how assumptions can be used:
Cash Flow Model
The Cash Flow Model's baseline forecast is primarily driven by 3 things:
The revenue and expense projections in your Financial Model (including any assumptions you've added yourself)
Company-specific cash timing behavior that Clockwork learns from your historical data (e.g. how long it takes to collect sales and pay expenses)
Your own assumptions around balance sheet activity and expected collection/payment behavior for existing invoices and bills
You can learn more about the cash flow model, how each row is calculated, and how to customize the forecast here: Using the Cash Flow Model