Types of Forecasts
In sales organizations, forecasting is a key instrument for strategic planning, assessing performance, managing company finances, and making informed decisions. It's crucial to ensure that the forecasting system is finely tuned, allowing stakeholders to access accurate and timely figures without the need for intensive processing of detailed forecast data.
Common Types of Forecast Roll Up
The two most common ways to roll up forecasts are:
Simple forecasting - where deals are exclusively categorized within their assigned forecast category. This method is useful when you don’t need to roll up the numbers. For example, you may want to know the forecast for separate product lines or churn.
Aggregate or Cumulative forecasting - where each forecast category combines deals that are mapped from multiple categories
How Rafiki forecasting works
At Rafiki, we use aggregate forecasts.
In order to achieve an aggregate forecast, we set up our forecast categories like this:
Our Commit forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields Closed-won and Commit
Our Most Likely forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields Closed-won, Commit, and Most Likely
Our Best Case forecast category includes deals in the CRM forecast fields Closed-won, Commit, Most Likely, and Best Case
Benefits of Aggregate Forecasting
Here are some reasons we suggest implementing aggregate forecasting:
Comprehensive Pipeline Overview: Aggregate forecasting offers a holistic view of your sales pipeline, including the outcomes of deals, whether won or lost. This approach ensures visibility of deal movements across categories without reducing the overall category totals.
Predictive Range Insights: It allows you to estimate a realistic forecast range, such as predicting outcomes between 'Commit' and 'Best Case' scenarios, giving a clearer picture of potential sales outcomes.
Streamlined Reporting: With aggregate forecasting, you can quickly access up-to-date numbers without the need for constant recalculations as time progresses. This means that you always have ready access to current data for quick assessments, saving time and effort.