Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting is the foundation of business success, so it’s critical that finance and sales are aligned on planning and execution. But even with the importance of every sales forecast–hit the numbers, grow the company–these two teams still rely on manual methods and rigid spreadsheets to complete the task.

Sales and finance struggle, at least quarterly, to gather and evaluate historical sales productivity figures, seasonality data, ramping schedules, and budget data to build a sales forecast. These inputs provide a realistic look at possibilities and paint picture for what sales can accomplish. It also provides finance the basis for broader business planning.

Unite to Create More Accurate Sales Forecasts

Continuous Planning software lets finance avoid the risks of manual, spreadsheet-based sales forecasting. First, it easily integrates with sales, CRM, marketing, and other systems to automatically gather up-to-date sales and pipeline data. Second, it increases resulting sales forecast accuracy and confidence by eliminating the errors so common with manual data transfers, spreadsheet formulas, and data aggregations. It also leverages automation and pre-built templates to enable fast creation of reports, forecasts, and dashboards. 

With all of the required data easily available, finance can spend less time chasing it and more time analyzing it. The end result is more accurate sales forecasts, better predictions of commissions and bonuses, more equitable sales territories, and faster evaluation of the downstream impact of changing sales outcomes. 

Planful helps finance better collaborate with sales while creating sales forecasts. The teams can quickly send messages with built-in chat capabilities and post assumptions directly in forecasting templates to keep everyone on the same page. Workflow can also be used to manage reviews and approvals, run a status report to see progress, and use automated updates to let contributors know when action is required.

Make better decisions and plans by leveraging Planful for more insightful and more detailed sales forecasts. Key features include:

• Automated data collection from sales and marketing systems
• Flexible planning and forecasting capabilities
• Powerful multidimensional modeling engine
• Familiar web, Excel, or mobile interfaces
• Easy to use reporting and analysis
• Scalable, secure cloud architecture
  

Learn how Planful helps finance and sales unite and make the most of their time. Discontinue wasting resources manual data collection and complex spreadsheets, while increasing the accuracy of your sales forecasts, all with Planful.