10.10. Sales Forecasts

SocrateCloud offers the possibility to register sales forecasts and compare them with actual values. Sales forecasts may be split using the following structure:

• Organization and Year (accounting calendar year)

  • Product and Period (accounting calendar period)

    • Customer or Sales Representatives

Organization and Year

The Sales Forecast window, located in the Quote-to-Invoice > Sales Setup menu, is used to enter sales forecasts. The following fields are available:

• Calendar - accounting calendar used to determine the periods for which the sales forecast is entered;

• Year - accounting calendar year for which the forecast is entered;

• Forecast Calculation button - starts a process which determines the actual sales, at current date, based on the sales forecast structure. The process will update specific fields in the Products, Business Partner and Representative tabs;

Product and Period

The Products tab is used to split the sales forecast by product and period. The following fields are available:

• Period - accounting calendar period for which the forecast is entered;

• Family Type, Product Family, Product Category Product, etc - selection filters used to define the products for which the sales forecast is entered;

• Amount, Quantity - sales forecast values, for the period and products corresponding to the parameters selected in this tab;

• Margin % - sales forecast percent value for the calculated amount margin %;

• Calculated Amount, Calculated Quantity - values updated by the Forecast Calculation process which represent the actual amounts (depending on the selected Margin %) and quantities;

• Amount Difference, Quantity Difference - difference between the forecasted and calculated values for amounts and quantities;

Representative

The Representative tab is used to split the sales forecast by product, period and representative. The following fields are available:

• Representative - the representative for which the forecast is entered;

• Amount, Quantity - the sales forecast values corresponding to the representative and the parameters selected in the Products tab;

• Margin % - sales forecast percent value for the calculated amount margin %;

• Calculated Amount, Calculated Quantity - values updated by the Forecast Calculation process which represent the actual amounts (depending on the selected Margin %) and quantities;

• Amount Difference, Quantity Difference - difference between the forecasted and calculated values for amounts and quantities;

Customers

The Customers tab is used to split the sales forecast by product, period and business partners. The following fields are available:

• Business Partner Group, Business Partner, Contact, etc. - selection filters for the customers for which the forecast is entered;

• Amount, Quantity - sales forecast values corresponding to the parameters selected for customers and the parameters selected in the Products tab;

• Margin % - sales forecast percent value for the calculated amount margin %;

• Calculated Amount, Calculated Quantity - values updated by the Forecast Calculation process which represent the actual amounts (depending on the selected Margin %) and quantities;

• Amount Difference, Quantity Difference - difference between the forecasted and calculated values for amounts and quantities;

Starting with v14.06, operating sales forecasts for customers can be done using the Forecast Form window:

Note: Any changes made using this window must be saved by pressing the Save Changes button otherwise all changes will be lost!

Import Forecasts

Sales Forecast can be imported, using the import structure called Import Sales Forecast. The structure contains all the sales forecast columns, which can be identified as follows:

• by Search Key

• by Name where there is no search key (e.g. Family Type, Product Family, Calendar Period)

Sales Forecasts Reports

The Business Partner Sales Forecast report, located in the Quote-to-Invoice > Sales Setup menu, can be used to view a list of sales forecasts and their associated actual sales, grouped by customer .