Written by Nils R. | Feb 22, 2021 8:00:00 AM
What is
a
Sales Budget Simulation Dashboard
? Sales Budget Simulation Dashboards are considered planning tools and are used by sales executives to model what the sales budget target should be before and after final approval. Some of the main functionality in this type of simulation dashboard is that it automatically combines actual year-to-date sales with forecast and provides interactive sliders where the user can simulate changes to various sales drivers. These drivers are seen on the left side of the dashboard and include: 1) Price increase, 2) Increase in sales headcount, 3) Increase in (average) deal size, 4) Increase in number of qualified opportunities, and 5) Increase in win ratio. Once the sliders have been adjusted by dragging them left or right, the dashboard displays the new sales target to be used in the budget process, and the user clicks the "Open Budget form" button to open the detailed input form for the sales budget. You find an example of this type of simulation dashboard below.
Purpose of
Sales Budget Simulation Dashboards Companies use Sales Budget Simulation Dashboards to enable sales executives to quickly and easily model the total annual sales budget prior to the budget input process. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Sales department, an organization can improve its sales budget accuracy, and it can reduce the chances that a pure bottom-up sales process misses realistic targets because of lack of sales modelling in the beginning of the planning process.
Sales Budget Simulation Dashboard
Example Here is an example of a Sales Budget Simulation Dashboard with interactive sliders to model the total sales target. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2175"]
Sales Budget Simulation Dashboard Example[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here
Who Uses This Type of
Simulation dashboard
? The typical users of this type of simulation dashboard are: Sales executives.
Other
Dashboard
s and Reports Often Used in Conjunction with
Sales Budget Simulation Dashboards Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Sales departments sometimes use several different Sales Budget Simulation Dashboards, along with sales budget input models, sales dashboards, sales reports, CRM pipeline reports, budget summary dashboards, financial statements with trended budget figures 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
