Written by Nils R. | Oct 17, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is
a
Product Sales Forecast for a Technology Company
? Product sales forecast templates are considered planning tools and are often used by sales managers and revenue officers to estimate revenues for the remainder of the current year. Some of the key functionality in this type of input model is that it dynamically displays actual sales for each month up to the current period and the user can input the forecast for the remaining months. There is also a variance column showing the difference between the bottom up and the top down forecast. Also (not visible in the screenshot example below), when the user enters the percent increase (or decrease) in the top left cell of the form, it calculates a top-down forecast based on last year's actual sales plus this percent change. Each product and/or service is listed in the rows. You find an example of this type of input model below.
Purpose of
Product Sales Forecast Models Companies use Product Sales Forecast Models to easily capture product and service forecasts during any period of the year. When used as part of good business practices in a Sales department, a company can improve its pipeline visibility and revenue estimates as well as reduce the chances that the company misses profit and margin budgets because of poor revenue insights. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Example of Product Sales Forecast for a Technology Company[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here
Who Uses This Type of
Input model
? The typical users of this type of input model are: Budget Managers, Revenue Officers, Sales Executives.
Other
Input model
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Product Sales Forecast Models Progressive Sales Departments sometimes use several different Product Sales Forecast Models, along with detailed sales reports, sales dashboards, budget models and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
