The "Use Monthly Schedules" setting is defined on the Project Type or in the project settings of a specific project. This setting allows expense forecasts to be applied to specific months, instead of to a whole year. This article describes the differences in behavior when that setting is enabled and expenses are tracked on a monthly basis.
Adding Expense Forecasts to Project Requests
When this setting is enabled, adding an expense forecast will have two steps. First, the Add Expense Forecast window will display, including the Expense Date Range. Fill in the required fields and click Generate.
Once you click Generate, the page will distribute the Expense Amount between all of the months in the defined range, splitting it based on the number of organizational working days. You can optionally adjust the specific monthly forecasts. When complete, click save.
Expense Forecasts in Windows Budget and Capacity Planner
After expense forecasts have been configured on a project or request, they will be included in Windows Budget and Capacity Planner (WBCP). They will behave differently depending on the "Use Monthly Schedules" setting. When expenses are defined monthly, WBCP will use the exact expense forecast to in the Budget grid. Shifting a project or request will keep the expenses in the same place relative to the project's other forecasts (i.e. role forecasts).
If expenses forecasts are tracked on a yearly basis, you can still use the budget part of WBCP, but it will make some assumptions for you. Since each expense forecast only applies to a calendar year, it will automatically distribute that expense across the whole calendar year, in the context of the WBCP report. Then, when you shift by a month at a time, it will shift the distributed expense forecast. So a one month shift will move an expense that went from January to December so that it now goes from February to the next January.