Salesforce Forecasting is the way of predicting the expected sales revenue for an organization. It can be either revenue or quantity based, or by both. Forecast can be projected in monthly or quarterly basis and will gross roll up the forecast amount to the manager based on forecast hierarchy. The forecast can be drilled down to display the list of opportunities that aggregate the forecast amount and also display the individual forecast amount of the subordinates.
The forecast manager can override the forecast amount of their immediate subordinates as well as the subordinates can override the forecast amount of the immediate users below them in the forecast hierarchy. The overridden amount will not affect original opportunity amount.
Each Opportunity has a stage and it is mapped to a forecast category. Considering a ten stage opportunity life cycle, the following table shows how it will be mapped to forecast category. The omitted category will not displayed in forecast.
Table 1.1 Opportunity Stage Mapping with Forecast Category
Let’s take a scenario in which a company named Universal Generators sells generators to the customers, and wants to forecast based on revenue and quantity in monthly basis. The following screenshot shows the forecast hierarchy.
Fig 1.1 Forecast Hierarchy
The following screenshot shows how the Revenue and Amount based forecasting is set up for Universal Generators. It can be accessed by clicking your name->Setup->Customize->Forecast->Setting.
Fig: 1.2 Forecast Setting
Scenario 1:
Displaying the revenue and quantity forecast for Northern Sales Rep who doesn’t have any direct reports.
Here, the Northern Sales Rep has one Opportunity. The opportunity stage Needs Analysis is mapped to forecast category Pipeline. The opportunity has 3 units of Sony product at the rate of $3000 each, and total amount is $9000.
Fig 1.3 Opportunity of Northern Sales Rep
The revenue and quantity forecast for Northern Sales Rep for the month of March 2014.Here it shows the revenue and quantity forecast and also the opportunity that belongs to the forecast.
Fig 1.4 Northern Sales Rep Forecast
Scenario 2:
Displaying the revenue and quantity forecast for Northern Sales Manager. This forecast includes the manager’s own opportunities and Northern Sales Rep’s (a subordinate to the manager) opportunities.
Here, the Northern Sales Manager has one opportunity. The opportunity stage Needs Analysis is mapped to forecast category Pipeline. The opportunity has five units of Sony product at a price of $3000 each and total amount is $15000.
Fig 1.5 Opportunity of Northern Sales Manager
The forecast for Northern Sales Manager for the month of March 2014.Here it clearly shows the opportunities of the subordinates are rolled up to their forecast.
Fig 1.6 Northern Sales Manager Forecast
Here the Northern Sales Rep’s opportunity is rolled up to Northern Sales Manager’s forecast.
Table 1.2 Forecast calculations for Northern Sales Manager
Scenario 3:
The Northern Sales Manager can override the forecast amount of Northern Sales Rep. Here, the forecast amount of Northern Sales Rep under My Best Case column is $0, as highlighted in the below screenshot.
Fig 1.7 Northern Sales Rep Forecast without overriding
Northern Sales Manager now can click on the pencil icon to override the value of Northern Sales Rep’s My Best Case value. Once clicked, the following screen will appear for overriding the forecast amount.
Fig 1.8 Forecast Overriding Window
The Northern Sales Manager can override the amount by 1000 as highlighted in the above image. Once the change is successfully saved, the My Best Case category of Northern Sales rep will be overridden but the overridden value is not visible to the Northern Sales Rep.
Here, from Northern Sales Manager forecast tab it will get overridden as highlighted.
Fig 1.9 Northern Sales Rep Forecast with overriding
Conclusion
Salesforce Forecasting is an effective tool to predict the expected revenue of any Sales organization. If used properly, it provides an accurate picture of when and from where an organization is going to make its revenue. Besides, the Salesforce forecasting can be classified into Customizable and Collaborative forecasting. This article completely focuses on Customizable Forecasting. Territory management supports only Customizable forecasting, and it can also forecast based on territory. Once an organization has enabled multiple currencies, the forecast amount is displayed in the personal currency of the user who runs the forecast.
