Closing the Gaps Between Salesforce Pipeline and Revenue Forecasts

Closing the gap between pipeline and revenue forecasting is a persistent challenge for many businesses. Often, Salesforce opportunities give teams a view into potential deals, but the ability to convert these pipelines into accurate revenue forecasts is where things get murky. With fragmented processes, manual data entry, and last-minute changes, companies risk leaving money on the table. By leveraging revVana, organizations can bridge this gap, creating a seamless flow between committed revenue and real-time forecasts.

Tracking Committed vs. Actual Revenue

A common pain point for companies is keeping tabs on committed revenue after a deal closes. Often, the forecasted revenue at close doesn’t match up with what’s delivered due to production delays, product mix changes, or evolving rollout schedules. With revVana, businesses can track revenue forecasts and actual revenue in real time, with full visibility into any changes that occur post-close.

This real-time tracking is visualized on an intuitive dashboard, allowing teams to see what revenue was committed and paid at close compared to how it fluctuates based on post-deal realities. This insight lets businesses understand where revenue gaps are happening, log those changes with reason codes, and gain operational insights into where improvements can be made.

Success Story: Streamlining the Forecasting Process

A global manufacturer in the construction space had been manually managing revenue schedules for fixed-duration projects, a process that took up 40% of their sales team’s time. Because the manual data entry was so time-consuming, forecasting accuracy suffered, impacting finance and inventory planning.

By implementing revVana Plan and Insights, they created a single, editable worksheet that allowed teams to adjust opportunity and revenue timing in real-time. By simply shifting the start date of an opportunity or line item, the forecast would automatically adjust. This eliminated the need for hours of manual updates and reduced the time spent on revenue management by 75%, allowing the sales team to focus on what they do best—selling.

The impact extended beyond the sales team. With accurate, real-time data flowing into finance and demand planning, the company significantly improved inventory controls, reducing missed shipments and better aligning supply with demand.

Addressing Recurring Revenue

Many companies also struggle with forecasting recurring or run-rate revenue—revenue that comes in regularly from existing accounts. This revenue is often managed outside Salesforce in siloed spreadsheets, creating a blind spot in the broader revenue forecast.

revVana allows teams to integrate run-rate revenue forecasting into the same system as their opportunity forecasts, all within Salesforce. By viewing recurring revenue alongside other metrics, such as quotas, actual sales, and targets, businesses gain a complete view of their revenue profile. This data is available in real-time, empowering sales and finance teams to make informed decisions quickly.

Real-Time Forecasting at Scale

For a life sciences company in New Jersey, forecasting was a nightmare. Each quarter, they generated 500 spreadsheets to track revenue forecasts, a process that took weeks to complete. Changes during the quarter—whether in new opportunities or their significant run-rate business—meant constantly updating spreadsheets and consolidating data, leading to inaccuracies.

After adopting revVana, they eliminated spreadsheets and moved to real-time forecasting within Salesforce. Now, the company uses revVana’s forecasting tools, combined with Einstein predictive analytics, to track both opportunity and run-rate revenue in one place. Instead of spending weeks consolidating data each quarter, they get real-time insights into their revenue forecast, enabling more accurate predictions and faster reactions to changes.

Closing the Forecasting Gap

For many businesses, the gap between what’s in the pipeline and what ends up as actual revenue is where forecasting breaks down. revVana helps close that gap by providing real-time visibility, seamless integration with Salesforce, and eliminating manual processes that bog down forecasting accuracy.

If you’re ready to get a clearer picture of your revenue and optimize your forecasting process, reach out to schedule a call. Together, we can help you turn your pipeline into predictable, reliable revenue.