Migration guide
Export Forecast’s standard reports as CSV, map them to Pike templates, and connect the ledger Forecast exports invoices to. Budget five to six weeks to cutover.
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Forecast exports its standard reports as CSV: the Task Report, the Project Portfolio Report and the Time Registered Report. Each maps to a Pike template once you flatten its groupings.
Forecast’s help centre names no export for people, clients or allocations. Pull them through the Forecast API (persons, clients, allocations), or take clients from your ledger and people from your user list.
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Forecast exports invoices to Xero, QuickBooks Online, e-conomic and Sage Intacct, and syncs with HubSpot, Pipedrive and Salesforce. Pike connects to each, so connect the same ledger and Pike imports your invoice history from it.
Forecast locks an invoice once it exports to Xero, and Xero sends later edits back to Forecast. The ledger Pike reads records the final version.
Entity map
Column one uses Forecast’s screen names. Forecast is now part of Accelo, and your Forecast login, data and integrations are unchanged by the rebrand, so the exports below still apply.
Pike: Customers
Carries over: Client profiles, linked to the matching customer in Xero, e-conomic or HubSpot where you connected them.
You set in Pike: Customer number. Take it from the linked ledger customer.
Template columns: customerName, customerNumber, taxVatId, mainCurrency
Pike: Projects
Carries over: Name, project ID, client, stage (Opportunity, Planning, Running, Halted, Done), budget type (Fixed Price, Time and Materials, Retainer, Non-billable), budget, rate card, start and end date.
You set in Pike: A project lead and team. Projects in the Opportunity stage become Pike deals.
Template columns: projectNumber, title, customerNumber, status, billingType, budgetAmount, startDate, endDate
Pike: Phases
Carries over: Phase name and project. Check whether your Task Report export includes phase dates.
You set in Pike: Start and end dates where the export leaves them out.
Template columns: projectNumber, phase, startDate, endDate
Pike: Tasks
Carries over: Title, project, phase, assignees, status, estimate in hours or points.
You set in Pike: A status mapping, and hours for projects that estimate in points.
Template columns: title, projectNumber, phase, assigneeEmail, status, startDate, dueDate
Pike: Members
Carries over: First and last name, email, role, department, active state, internal hourly cost.
You set in Pike: Workspace role, team and cost profile.
Template columns: email, displayName, team, position
Pike: Time entries
Carries over: Date, person, project, phase, task, time and billable time in minutes, notes, approval status (Not submitted, Submitted, Approved).
You set in Pike: Divide minutes by 60. Set `billableStatus` from billable time, and import internal time on an internal project.
Template columns: date, hours, email, projectNumber, taskTitle, note, billableStatus, approvalStatus, invoiced
Pike: Allocations
Carries over: Person, project, start and end date, minutes per weekday, notes.
You set in Pike: Sum the weekday minutes and divide by 60 for hours per week.
Template columns: email, projectNumber, startDate, endDate, hoursPerWeek
Pike: Expenses
Carries over: Expense items on each project. Check whether your report exports include them.
You set in Pike: Expense categories.
Template columns: date, amount, projectNumber, email, category, description
Pike: Invoice history (from your ledger)
Carries over: Pike has no CSV template for invoices. Forecast exports invoices to Xero, QuickBooks Online, e-conomic and Sage Intacct.
You set in Pike: Connect the accounting system and run Import data. New invoices go out from Pike from cutover.
Forecast sets one rate card per project, and project financials use the rates the card stores now. Pike reads one `hourlyRate` per project, so take the rate of the role that logs most hours on each project and add task rates in Pike where other roles bill differently.
Forecast stores an internal hourly cost per person with an effective date, visible to Admins and Controllers only. An Admin copies the current cost into each Pike cost profile before the pilot.
Map Fixed Price to `fixedFee`, Time and Materials to `timeAndMaterials` and Non-billable to `nonBillable`. Forecast budgets Fixed Price projects in money, and Retainer projects in periods with a price or hours target, which fit a Pike retainer.
The plan
The same steps as the main migration guide, with this tool's screens and settings.
Week 1
Migration owner, finance
Week 1 · Migration owner, finance
The files you export in week one are what Pike imports. Freeze edits in Forecast before you export.
Done when: Every Forecast export in one dated folder, and a cutover Friday on the calendar.
Week 1 to 2
Operations lead
Week 1 to 2 · Operations lead
Work in copies of the Forecast files. Most of the work is minutes, budget types and stages.
Done when: Every project row has a number, a customer number, a billing type and a budget.
Week 2
Workspace admin
Week 2 · Workspace admin
Admins set up Pike before the first upload, so imported projects have a team and a rate on day one.
Done when: Finance sees the ledger’s invoices in Pike. Every billable person has a cost profile.
Week 2 to 3
Workspace admin
Week 2 to 3 · Workspace admin
Upload under Workspace settings → Integrations → CSV. Pike reports a row it cannot match with its line number.
Done when: Client, project, person and last-month hour counts match Forecast.
Week 3 to 4
Delivery lead, finance
Week 3 to 4 · Delivery lead, finance
CSV has no ongoing sync, so the pilot team moves fully to Pike while everyone else works in Forecast.
Done when: One invoice sent from Pike. Pilot time in Pike matches approved timesheets.
Week 4 to 5
Migration owner
Week 4 to 5 · Migration owner
Close Forecast on Friday evening and upload every hour registered there since your first export.
Done when: Time admin shows every active member by Monday afternoon. Forecast shows no time after Friday.
Week 5 to 8
Finance
Week 5 to 8 · Finance
Done when finance closes a month without opening Forecast.
Done when: Month closed in Pike. Final Forecast exports saved with two owners.
Rebuild
Questions
Forecast exports only the first layer of a grouped report. Remove the groupings, or group by nothing, and export again.
No. Accelo states that Forecast logins, data, projects and integrations are unaffected by the brand change, and forecast.app now redirects to Accelo.com. The reports and API in this guide apply as before.
Forecast shows only approved time in Invoicing, but project actuals and budgets count all registered time. Map Approved to `approved`, Submitted to `submitted` and Not submitted to `draft`.
Not through CSV. Forecast exports invoices to Xero, QuickBooks Online, e-conomic or Sage Intacct, so connect that ledger to Pike and Pike imports invoice history from it.
The Forecast API lists allocations with minutes for each weekday. Sum the minutes, divide by 60 and upload them to the Pike allocations template as `hoursPerWeek`.
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