With TRESIO, you can create a variety of planning scenarios for insightful financial outcomes while meeting the pressing need for adaptable strategies in today’s dynamic business landscape. In a constantly evolving market, the ability to simulate, evaluate, and refine scenarios can be the deciding factor between stagnation and success, making the scenario screen an indispensable tool for proactive and effective financial planning and forecasting.
Managing Company Scenarios
Open Scenarios in the sidebar. On the “Manage company scenarios” screen, you can create various planning scenarios that, once configured according to your company’s requirements, show you different financial outcomes and help you choose the right strategy for your business.
Please note that this screen is only intended for scenario creation. If you want to configure a scenario by entering different planning data, navigate to the Planning screen.
What the “Manage company scenarios” screen shows:
- Color – users can select any color for easy differentiation
- Name – the scenario name should be unique
- Comment – user’s comment
- Enabled – if disabled, it will not be shown in the dropdown list at the top of the screen until it is reactivated on the “Scenarios” screen
You can add a new scenario or duplicate, edit, and delete existing scenarios.
Adding a New Scenario
When creating a new scenario via New, you assign a hierarchy to the scenario by selecting a parent scenario in the belonging to field.
Important: This selection determines not only how the scenario is displayed in the hierarchy, but above all how the planning data for this scenario is managed. There are two fundamentally different approaches:
1. Link a scenario to an existing scenario (field “belonging to” filled in)
All planning data from the parent scenario is automatically taken over. You can add additional planning data that only applies to this scenario and adjust the inherited planning data by percentage (see section further below).
2. Create a standalone scenario (field “belonging to” left empty)
The new scenario itself becomes a main scenario and does not inherit any planning data from another scenario. You enter and manage the planning data for this scenario completely from scratch and independently, just like the original Main Scenario. This way, each company can run several independent main scenarios.
Which approach you choose depends on the purpose of the scenario: A variation of an existing scenario (e.g. “Best Case” as a variant of the Main Scenario) should be linked – a completely independent scenario with its own assumptions (e.g. a separate project) should be created as standalone.
Duplicating a Scenario
How Do Scenarios, Planning Data, and Other Tools Work Together?
Scenario planning in TRESIO works exclusively through Planning. A scenario you create here can only be populated with values via Planning, and then evaluated in TRENDS and Forecast.
Other tools such as Loans, HR Planning, or Subscriptions are not themselves scenario-capable. You can enter loans, personnel costs, subscription revenue, and practically anything else you need for your scenario planning directly in Planning without any issues, and adjust it per scenario.
All other company data – e.g. bank accounts, loans, HR planning, invoices, and subscriptions – remains unchanged in every scenario. This data is not duplicated or adjusted per scenario, but applies company-wide, regardless of which scenario you have currently selected.
Adjusting Planning Data in a Linked Scenario
When you select a scenario in the Planning screen that is linked to another scenario (e.g. “Best Case”, linked to “Main Scenario”), the table shows two additional columns:
- Attributes – an arrow symbol indicates that this entry was taken over from a parent scenario
- Scenario – shows which scenario the entry originates from (e.g. “Main Scenario”)
On the right-hand side of the table, you see a percentage for each inherited entry, which you use to adjust the amount relative to the parent scenario:
- 100 % (grey) – the amount is taken over unchanged
- positive value (green, e.g. + 50 %) – the amount is increased relative to the parent scenario
- negative value (red, e.g. – 25 %) – the amount is reduced relative to the parent scenario
- – 100 % – the amount is set to 0 without the entry being deleted
Please note: Inherited planning data cannot be deleted in a linked scenario. If an entry should not be considered in the current scenario, set the percentage to – 100 %.
In addition to adjusting inherited planning data, you can also add completely new planning data in a linked scenario that only applies to that scenario.
Managing Planning Data in a Standalone Scenario
In a standalone scenario (field “belonging to” empty, e.g. “Project”), you manage planning data just like in the Main Scenario: you add entries via New and edit or delete them normally. There is no percentage column and no link to another scenario – all data is fully independent.
Switching Between Scenarios
If you want to change your current scenario, simply navigate to one of the screens mentioned above and select a different scenario from the SCENARIO dropdown list in the bar at the top of the screen.
Evaluating Scenarios in TRENDS and Forecast
Once you have populated or adjusted a scenario via Planning, you can switch between scenarios in TRENDS and Forecast using the SCENARIO dropdown list at the top. The table and chart then show the values for the selected scenario – so you can see at a glance how the different assumptions of each scenario affect your liquidity planning.
Use Case Example: Revenue Scenarios with Different Percentages
A customer wanted to map three revenue scenarios for their company: a Main Scenario with CHF 130’000 in revenue, a Best Case with CHF 195’000, and a Worst Case with CHF 97’500. Expenses remained the same across all three scenarios, as they are based on fixed costs and existing invoices. The goal was to compare the resulting profit depending on the scenario.
Here is how the example was implemented:
- The Main Scenario corresponds to the Main Scenario that already exists in TRESIO by default. Revenue and expenses were first entered here in Planning.
- Two new scenarios were created for Best Case and Worst Case, each selecting Main Scenario in the “belonging to” field. This meant all planning data from the Main Scenario was automatically taken over – re-entering it was not necessary.
- To go from CHF 130’000 (Main Scenario) to CHF 195’000 (Best Case), the revenue entry was adjusted to + 50 % in the “Best Case” scenario.
- For the Worst Case, the same revenue entry was adjusted to – 25 %, resulting in CHF 97’500 instead of CHF 130’000.
- In Forecast, you can then switch between the three scenarios using the SCENARIO dropdown list to directly compare the resulting profit..
Main Scenario:
Best Case Scenario:
Worst Case Scenario:
