Atlas makes it easy to model future ownership structures without rebuilding charts from scratch. With Draft Mode, you can draft, iterate, and collaborate on pro forma structure charts, all while staying connected to live entity data. When your deal is finalized, you can seamlessly publish your draft into final data in Atlas.
This article walks through how to draft, iterate, share, and publish a pro forma chart in Atlas.
When to Use Pro Forma Charts in Atlas
Draft chart capabilities are ideal for pro forma charting when you need to model and visualize potential future structures, including:
- New entity formation, where you want to design and review a proposed structure before entities are formally created, including evaluating ownership paths, entity types, and jurisdictional setup.
- Portfolio reconstruction or reorganization, such as roll-ups, internal restructurings, or changes to holding company structures, where you need to compare a future-state structure against the current live structure.
- Scenario exploration, where you want to test alternative structures and ownership arrangements without impacting live data.
- Early-stage deal planning, where legal, tax, and finance teams need a shared visual to review and align on a proposed structure before execution.
Note: Atlas pro forma charts are not yet designed to fully support highly complex mergers & acquisitions that require multiple phased or sequential steps. While not possible today, full support for these workflows is coming in future iterations.
With Draft Mode in Atlas, you can:
- Draft future structures quickly from live data
- Iterate as deals evolve without losing accuracy
- Share securely across teams
- Publish confidently into final Atlas data
This workflow eliminates redundant manual work and keeps your structure charts aligned from initial planning through final execution.
Draft: Create a Pro Forma Chart in Atlas
Draft mode allows you to quickly reflect proposed changes to existing structure charts, avoiding the need to manually recreate every entity in diagramming tools before starting your pro forma scenarios. Configure a master structure chart to create the right starting view for pro forma work by expanding or collapsing entities and adjusting chart preferences, so you can add to an existing structure rather than starting from scratch. In Draft Mode, you’ll have tools to add new entities and relationships to model future structures and states.
Iterate: Refine and Evolve Your Pro Forma
Pro forma charts are designed to evolve alongside your deal process and update as you refine the structure to support your optimal strategy. As your deal progresses, you can continue refining the draft by updating key details such as Entity names, Tax treatments, Ownership relationships and more.
Reopen and Continue Editing a Pro Forma Chart
Any draft charts will be accessible for iteration in future sessions. Existing (live) entities remain connected to Atlas data, so that updates to official entity details automatically reflect in your draft and you avoid manual rework when live data changes.
Saving a chart allows you to keep editing and make changes easily, adding new entity and relationship details as they become available or refine your structure based on deal changes.
Share: Collaborate Across Teams
Use Atlas as a shared workspace for your legal, tax, and finance teams—without relying on emailing PDFs or PowerPoint decks to solicit opinions, reviews, or approvals. Share the chart directly in Atlas with other users.
User Limitations
We have included certain limitations for users surrounding drafting and sharing charts. These permissions ensure that drafting and publishing charts remains limited to select users while still allowing other teams to review new changes.
Users who have a chart shared with them, collaborators, can:
- View the chart
Collaborators cannot:
- Enter Draft Mode
- Save changes
- Publish the chart
View Only and Restricted View Only users can:
- View a Draft chart shared with them
View Only and Restricted View Only users cannot:
- Enter Draft Mode
- Publish the chart
Publish: Turn Your Pro Forma Charts into Live Data
Once your deal is finalized and any offline formation steps are complete, you can convert your pro forma chart into final data in Atlas, without manual re-entry to create entities and any new relationships.