When a Data Explorer report runs past today, the revenue figures no longer drop to £0 for the days ahead. Instead, Data Explorer values the appointments already booked in the diary and shows them alongside your actual revenue, marked with ≈. You can see what next month is worth so far, or how this month is shaping up, in the same report you already use.
🚨 Important: This is not a forecast. Booked revenue is what's in the diary today. It changes as appointments are booked, moved or cancelled, and it doesn't predict where a month will finish. Diaries keep filling, so a month ahead will usually look lower than it ends up.
Where You'll See It
Booked revenue appears in Data Explorer → Performance when two things are true:
Your Date Range reaches past today. The Future presets (for example Next 3 Months or Last 3 to Next 3 Months) do this, or you can pick your own dates.
You've chosen at least one of these KPIs:
Total Revenue (Inc. or Ex. Capitation)
Revenue Per Hour Worked (Inc. or Ex. Capitation)
Revenue Per Hour Available (Inc. or Ex. Capitation) - Excl. Unblocked
When the report includes booked values, an Includes booked diary label appears next to Results. Hover over it for a short explanation and a link back to this article.
Hours (available, booked and unbooked) aren't estimated. For future dates they're simply the diary as it stands today.
Reading the Figures
Period | What you'll see |
In the past | Actual revenue, exactly as before. |
Part way through (for example this month) | The main figure is your actual revenue so far. The smaller ≈ figure beneath it adds what's booked for the rest of the period. |
In the future | An ≈ figure in grey: the value of the appointments booked so far. |
Hover over any ≈ figure to see how it's made up. For a period that's part way through, it shows the actual revenue up to yesterday, the booked revenue from today, and the two together.
Revenue Per Hour
The revenue per hour KPIs use the booked revenue too:
Revenue Per Hour Worked is booked revenue divided by booked hours.
Revenue Per Hour Available is booked revenue divided by available hours, so it rises as the diary fills.
For a period that's part way through, the ≈ figure is the rate for the whole period, not the two parts added together.
How Booked Appointments Are Valued
Each booked appointment is given an estimated value, using the same rules as the Diary Optimiser. Depending on what's booked, the value comes from:
the practice's usual fees for the treatments booked on the appointment, added together
for NHS appointments, the number of UDAs at the practice's UDA rate
the typical value of that type of appointment at the practice, when no treatments are attached
Exams and hygiene visits for patients on a capitation plan are valued at £0, because they're covered by the plan.
Capitation isn't booked in the diary, so for the Inc. Capitation KPIs the booked figure also includes your average capitation and plan fees from the last three months. Where this applies, the hover shows the capitation amount on its own line.
Targets
If Show Targets is turned on, booked figures are compared with your targets for reference:
For Total Revenue, you'll see how much of the target is booked so far, for example ≈ 64% of target.
For revenue per hour, you'll see the difference from the target.
Booked figures never show red, amber or green. That only applies once the period has happened, because the diary is still filling.
Chart View and Insights
In Chart View, booked values are drawn differently from actuals: hatched bars, dotted lines and hollow points. A period that's part way through shows a solid bar for the actual revenue with a hatched section on top for what's booked.
AI Insights about these KPIs end with (includes booked diary) when the figures include booked values. Insights that compare one period with another, such as your best month or a month-on-month change, only use periods that have already happened.
💡 Top Tip: Run Next 3 Months by Practice to see which practice has the least booked ahead, then open the Diary Optimiser to find the patients who could fill the gaps.
Common Questions
Why is next month so much lower than last month?
Because it only counts what's booked so far. Most diaries fill up over the weeks before, so a future month nearly always looks lower now than it will by the end.
Why did a figure change since yesterday?
Booked revenue follows the diary. New bookings, moved appointments and cancellations all change it after the overnight data refresh.
Does this change my past figures?
No. Anything before today is your actual revenue, as before.
Can I change the price used for an appointment?
Not at the moment. Values come from your practice's own fees and appointment history.