Capacity Forecasting: Make Revenue You Can Actually Deliver

Revenue forecasts often ignore one thing. Can the business deliver the work if it comes in?

Capacity forecasting answers that. It connects sales plans to real limits in people, time, and supply. Do this well and you cut missed dates, stressed teams, and budget drift.

This guide covers what it is, why it matters, and a simple way to start inside Salesforce with revVana.

What is capacity forecasting

Capacity forecasting is a plan for how much work you can deliver in a period. It looks at people, skills, equipment, vendors, and lead times. Then it tests those against expected demand.

It is not only an operations task. It is a revenue task. A forecast that ignores delivery limits is not a forecast. It is a guess.

Why it matters

• Real promises. Sales can commit with confidence.
• Happier customers. Work ships on time.
• Healthy teams. No burnout. Less idle time.
• Cleaner budgets. Fewer rush hires and emergency spend.
• Smarter growth. Targets reflect real capacity, not wishes.

Common mistakes

• Pipeline data lives in Salesforce. Capacity data lives in spreadsheets. No shared view.
• Planning starts after the deal closes. Too late to hire or shift work.
• Static files. By the time you update them, they are old
• Decisions based on gut feel. Not on data.
• No feedback loop. Actuals never flow back into the model.

The core idea

Forecast demand. Forecast capacity. Compare the two.

• If demand is greater than capacity, choose. Shift timelines. Add resources. Reduce scope.
• If capacity is greater than demand, choose. Pull work forward. Reassign teams. Adjust goals.

The simple model

Start with a short horizon. Next 13 weeks works for many teams.

For each week:

• Demand: expected hours or units from open deals, renewals, projects, or consumption.
• Capacity: available hours or units after vacations, maintenance, and known downtime.
• Gap: capacity minus demand.

Track four basic metrics:

• Utilization: used capacity divided by available capacity.
• On-time delivery rate: work delivered as promised.
• Forecast bias: average over or under prediction.
• Time to staff: how long it takes to add capacity.

Step-by-step setup in Salesforce with revVana

1. Pull the pipeline: Use opportunity data and probabilities. Include renewals and expansions. Include projects already sold. Translate bookings into delivery effort or units.
2. Map products to effort: Create simple rules of thumb. Example: “Package A needs 40 hours of implementation.” “SKU B requires 2 machine hours per unit.” You can refine later.
3. Load current capacity: People, roles, skills, locations. Equipment or vendor limits. Planned time off. Maintenance windows. Keep it current.
4. Create trigger points: When an opportunity hits 60 to 70 percent, start resource planning. This gives HR and finance time to act. It also gives operations time to resequence work.
5. Run scenarios: Build three cases. Base. High. Low. Ask simple questions. What if a shipment slips by two weeks. What if a key engineer is out. What if the large deal closes early. See the impact on delivery dates and margins.
6. Publish one view: Show demand vs capacity by week. Show the gap. Show the first constraint by role or asset. Keep it simple so leaders can act.
7. Close the loop: Compare plan to actuals every month. Update rules of thumb. Update staffing lead times. Reduce bias over time.

Best practices that help

• Plan before close. Do not wait for a signed order to start.
• Use live data. Move off static spreadsheets. They break and they lag.
• Align on definitions. What counts as available hours. How to treat partial allocations. Make it clear.
• Build a skills inventory. Know who can do what and where.
• Make templates. Repeatable work should have a repeatable plan.
• Run regular retros. What did we promise. What did we deliver. Why. Fix the model, not just the schedule.

What to connect

• Salesforce opportunities for demand.
• Projects and orders for committed work.
• HR and scheduling for availability.
• ERP or manufacturing for machine time and suppliers.
• Finance for cost and margin targets.

revVana brings these into one forecasting layer inside Salesforce. You see bookings, pipeline, and capacity in one place. You can adjust plans and watch the revenue impact in real time.

Example use cases

• Services teams. Translate deals into role hours by week. Spot skill gaps early.
• Manufacturing. Convert orders into machine time and labor. Check parts lead times.
• SaaS with consumption. Forecast usage by cohort. Check support and infrastructure limits.
• Project-based work. Phase the plan. Lock key roles. Create a buffer for long-lead tasks.

Signals your plan is working

• Fewer last-minute hires.
• Higher on-time delivery.
• Stable utilization between 75 and 90 percent, depending on your model.
• Lower variance between forecast and actual.
• Faster decisions in sales reviews because capacity is clear.

A short checklist

• Do we see pipeline and capacity in one view.
• Do we have trigger points to start staffing.
• Do we model three scenarios.
• Do we update rules of thumb monthly.
• Do we measure bias and fix it.
• Do finance, sales, and operations use the same numbers.

Good revenue plans respect capacity. When you connect the two, you make promises you can keep. You protect margins. You build trust with customers and your own teams.