How to Build a Revenue Operations Strategy That Will Grow Your Company
The old way of running a company involved a sales operation that largely operated by itself: they took leads from…
Last updated on Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Sales forecasting helps companies predict their future sales to determine their expected cash flow for the coming quarter. It should be part of every smart business plan.
Sales forecasting takes into account historical sales data, your current sales pipeline, and your sales cycle length.
Businesses use a variety of tools and methods for forecasting sales. Sales forecast templates are handy, because you can customize them for your individual business needs. Best of all, they are often free!
Free sales forecasting templates provide an excellent starting point for accurate sales forecasting. But they’re not the only tool for the job.
Accurate sales forecasting can help everyone, from small business owners to Fortune 500 companies thrive. A reliable sales forecast gives your sales team goals to shoot for. It can help motivate every sales rep on your team to increase their conversion rate to match predicted sales.
Sales forecasting can also motivate your sales team to bring in new business to increase monthly sales.
Sales forecasts help generate predictions about total sales and total revenue for a designated time period. It can help your company:
Your sales forecast can also help you set unit prices, as the total cost of goods may depend on the quantity of materials purchased.
Sales forecasting gives C-level executives, sales managers, and finance and accounting departments solid data on which to base business decisions. It also contributes to the accuracy of other financial projections, including projected cash flow analysis and burn rate across a specific time frame.
Some companies use a Microsoft Excel template or Google Sheets to forecast sales. While these tools provide a good starting point, they are not without some hidden dangers.
Let’s look at a few of the pros and cons of gathering accurate sales projection data using spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets.
Pros:
Cons:
In fact, typos have led organizations from large universities to Fortune 500 companies into costly spreadsheet errors resulting in the loss of millions of dollars or more. For instance, the infamous “London Whale” incident cost JP Morgan $6.5 billion in losses and fines.
If you’re looking for great sales forecast templates for Microsoft Excel, you can find many examples to download. We’ve searched out more than 25 handy free sales forecast templates for you.
If you choose to take this direction to create your sales forecasts, you can download and customize sales forecast templates to meet your company’s needs.
Businesses can use a variety of sales forecasting methods, depending on the size and age of the company, the size of the sales team, the typical pipeline, and even the quality of monthly sales data.
Let’s explore a few examples of sales forecasting methods.
Business leaders and sales managers can use a variety of tools for sales forecasting, including the observations and predictions of the sales teams, as well as accounting spreadsheets and CRM data.
Team communication plays a significant role in sales management tracking. Sales team members must strive to be honest and objective with their sales manager about:
That’s why using historical data can lead to more accurate sales forecasts, which are more useful in business planning. With this in mind, some common sales forecasting tools can help create more accurate predictive analytics.
Unlike sales forecasting using spreadsheets, revVana integrates with your Salesforce CRM tools to provide actionable insights and manage your sales data in real time to generate revenue forecasts. revVana uses accurate data about units sold, total sales, and pricing to provide more accurate sales forecasting.
Schedule a free demo of revVana today to discover how more accurate sales revenue forecasting can lead to increased revenue for your organization.