Understanding Forecast Setup

Sales managers can use forecasts in PeopleSoft Sales to predict sales for a specific time period. You create a forecast in PeopleSoft Sales by uniquely identifying a forecast name and a time frame. The forecast name is a user-defined text field that describes characteristics of the forecast. The time frame specifies a particular week, month, quarter, or year.

For example, suppose that the current date is April 1, 2004, and you are forecasting the sales of freezers for the third quarter of 2004 (July 1 to September 30). You generate forecasts monthly, so you expect to forecast again on May 1, 2004, and June 1, 2004. You can create three forecast names to meet your forecasting needs:

• Freezers: Apr

• Freezers: May

• Freezers: Jun

For the time frame, you must set up quarterly time frames in 2004. When you create a forecast, you select one of the forecast names and the third quarter 2004 time frame.

You use the Time Frame component to set up time frames.

See Defining Holiday Schedules, Time Frames, and Sales Quota Rollups.