Forecasting

If your organization does use Deals, the Forecasts tab is a great way for both users and administrators to get a quick summary of revenue over the course of a given calendar year.

By default, the forecast chart shows different views for months and quarters of the year and how your organization has performed financially, or is expected to perform in the coming months.

Forecasts tab overview

As mentioned in the Deal Creation section, forecasting uses a combination of Deal elements to generate the chart.

The revenue and close date are the most critical; if a Deal does not have a specified close date, or the revenue projection is wrong, obviously the forecast will be skewed or inaccurate.

After that, the next critical element is the probability entered with the deal. The probability is expressed as a percentage, or chance of closing within the projected close date. As the probability changes, either based on the stage of the deal, or arbitrarily by the user, it automatically adjusts the forecast amounts equally. A $10,000 Deal with a 75 percent probability of closing will show up in the forecast as a $7500 revenue projection.

Notice also the various lines in the actual bar chart that express the linked relationships.

The forecast, closed amounts, and pipeline dynamically adjust as deals are entered, probabilities change, or a deal closes (or is lost). If a deal closes, the forecast amount will increase (as the probability has reached 100 percent), while the pipeline will shrink, since the revenue is no longer "in the pipeline" but closed.