Forecast

The Forecast Report is a dedicated report writer for producing sales forecasts of your Opportunities. You can use pre-defined reports, create your own custom reports, and download reports to your screen, or export as a CSV file.

In this article you will read about:

• Pre-defined Forecast Reports (Overview Reports)
• Add and run Forecast

Pre-defined Forecast Reports (Overview Reports)

When you start with your CRM you’ll find some pre-defined reports in the overview of reports that might be useful to you. You can run these reports or edit them to suit your needs.

To run an existing report, simply select the report from the summary list and click the blue arrow in the right hand column. Then select the output type required, i.e. if you want the report to display on your screen or as CSV file. Then click Run Report.

Add and run Forecast

You can create and run a Forecast report by following these steps:

1. Add (new) Forecast
2. Set the scope
3. Set report display
4. Select fields
5. Save and run report

1. Add (new) Forecast

The Forecast Report builder can be accessed from the Reports option on the main menu. Then click on the +Add Forecast button.

When you are creating a Forecast report, this is the screen you will see:

• Cancel: Go back to the overview without saving.
• Save: Save the report to your Report Summary Table.
• Report Log: Fill in the details of the report.
• Months and Values: Choose the reporting period.
  
• Report Permissions: Determine access and permissions of the report.
  
• CriteriaFields: The fields you can report on will display the list shown in Available Fields.
  

2. Set the scope

First, complete the Report Log by giving the report a title and selecting the Scope. To report on all accounts, change the scope to 'All Accounts'. You can use the switches to select whether non-forecast opportunities should be included in the report and whether the report should be available on the company report widget on your dashboard.

In this screen:

• Title:
  The title that you would like displayed on the report.
• Scope:
  You can report on data from just your own Accounts, from your User Group’s Accounts, or from all Accounts, depending upon your security settings. Account and User data is available in each Scope.
  
• Report Owner: 
  Report Owner defaults to the creater or you can change this to another user.
• Include non-forecast opportunities:
  Set this box to No to report only Opportunities with a Forecast value. Click the toggle to Yes if you would like your report to include all opportunities.
  
• Include in dashboard widget "Company Reports": 
  Click the toggle to Yes to include the report in your dashboard widget.

Extra features available with Advanced Reporting (Enterprise plan)

• Forecast Value Field:
  Instead of using Opportunity. Value this field allows you to use any numeric field. Useful if you don’t want to use Opportunity Lines and just have a value on the Opportunity, or if you want to use another field on the Opportunity Line, such as a base or foreign currency value.
• Forecast Date Phase Field:
  Instead of using the Close Date to phase the forecast on, you can use any date on the Account, Opportunity or Opportunity Line. This is useful when you have an Opportunity that you want to split across multiple periods – you have a custom date field on each Opportunity Line and split the Opportunity over multiple lines, each with different dates.

3. Set report display

Next, select the options of how you want your report to be displayed. You can choose how many months to report on, whether you want the data displayed by month, quarter, half-year etc.

In this screen:

• Number of Months:
  Choose between 1 and 48 months for the reporting period.
  
• Unweighted Values:
  This shows the Unweighted values of the Opportunities, calculated as Quantity x Unit Price
  
• Weighted Values
  This shows the Weighted values of the Opportunities, calculated as Quantity x Unit Price x Probability
  
• Opportunity Count: 
  This shows the number of Opportunities.
  
• Months
  This shows Months as columns, starting from the Start Month up to the Number of Months selected.
  
• Quarters:
  This shows any Quarters that occur in the range of months as determined by the Start Month and the Number of Months. Quarters are determined by the Year End defined in Settings / System Settings / Company Settings.
  
• Half Years:
  This shows any Half Years that occur in the range of months as determined by the Start Month and the Number of Months.
  
• Years:
  This shows any Year Ends that occur in the range of months as determined by the Start Month and the Number of Months.
  

You can select both Months and Quarters or Half Years or Years at once to provide column subtotals.

Report Permissions

If you are using the User Permissions Levels feature you can select who has access to the report. 

• Permission Access: If you are using the User Permissions Levels feature, select who should have access to the report using the dropdown list.
• Permission Level: If you are using the User Permissions Levels feature, select what permission level you want to grant using the dropdown list.

4. Select fields

The fields you can report on will display the list shown in Available Fields. They are grouped on different tabs so you can find what you want more easily, or you can use the search box.

To build the report, drag the desired fields from the left side to the Selected Fields section on the right. These fields will form the columns of your report. For example, from the accounts tab, select the account name; from the opportunities tab, select the opportunity name, opportunity forecast, and opportunity probability; and from the users tab, select the user group and user initials.

Criteria Fields - Available Fields
The tabs show a the list of fields available to report on. Use your mouse to drag and drop the fields you wish to report on into the Selected Fields table. With the Free, Starter and Professinal plan you can choose up to 10 fields to report on from the Account, Opportunity and User records. With the Enterprise plan, you can choose up to 20 fields.

Criteria Fields - Selected Fields

Choose to subtotal your report by ticking the checkbox adjacent to the Field Name you wish to subtotal by. For example, to subtotal your opportunity by your sales people select User.Initials.

5. Save and run report

Click the Run report button to have the report run and shown in your browser window. Note that if it’s a large report containing more than a thousand lines, this could take some time and it would be better to download it as a data file.