Newbie here ...

I've been playing around with creating forecasts, but haven't yet seen the functionality I want ...

I want to create a new forecast that will be updated by cost center owners.

If we're in July, reviewing June actuals and forecasting for the balance of the year, the forecast should have:

• Actuals through June
• Prior month's forecast for July - Dec

It looks like when you create a forecast, you can start with only one thing ... actuals, or another forecast. Not a combination of the two.

Is there no way to do what I want without going outside the tool?

We were able to show the actuals on a separate line only because our source is laid out that way.

Are you saying that you created your forecast, baselined off the previous forecast? If so, I would expect that your June forecast would have contained Actuals from Jan-May and you make changes for the downhill months (Jun-Dec). When you create your July forecast, baselined off June, you should have Actuals from Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec should contain the changes you made in the June forecast for those months. 

Is that not the case? 

I will test this out to make sure it is not a bug but your forecast changes should carry forward month over month, assuming you baseline them that way.

What Bill describes above is what we see when we go through this process each month.  You do have to watch your sequence of events though.  Make sure your new set of actuals are loaded before you create the new forecast using the prior month's forecast as the baseline.  If you don't, it will leave a hole in your forecast for the missing month of actuals and loading actuals after the fact won't fill it.  

Sounds promising ... haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I had created a forecast from actuals, but have not yet created a forecast from a forecast. What you describe makes sense and is the behavior I'm looking for.

There are a few other things to be aware of when you start combining actuals and forecast.  They make sense when you think about it but being aware of them ahead of time can help head off some user questions:

• Actuals create detailed rows in the expense view so the Other tab in expenses becomes a combination of separate rows with the actuals and separate rows with the forecast.  
• For example, if your forecast now has actuals through June you'll see rows that look like this for 2018

• When you create your forecast, take time to think about the level at which you really need your actuals grouped by.   The more grouping criteria you add, the more actuals rows it's going to generate.   They can grow faster than Tribbles.  
• The view of Actuals vs. Forecast in the Column Chart on the Summary screen throws people at first because for actuals months, they're equal.  The previously forecasted amounts for those prior months still lives in the forecasts for those months.  
• 

• Your group by selection on the Summary Screen will affect whether you see all of your actuals in this view or just a subset of them.  If you're grouping by a dimension that is in your forecast, but not in your actuals, then there wouldn't be anything in Jan-June above.  Highly recommended that you test different views when you move into actuals so that you fully understand the behavior and can explain it.  

Good stuff George! Good stuff!