Using Sales Order Revenue Forecasting
The Sales Order Revenue Forecasting feature enables you to forecast revenue based on sales order and return authorization amounts. A revenue forecast that uses sales orders gives a more complete picture because it includes all orders whether they are billed, unbilled, or use multiple invoices.
If you use the Sales Order Revenue Forecasting feature with the Project Management feature (formerly called Advanced Projects), you can forecast revenue from variable schedules, such as revenue from projects, on sales orders and return authorizations. See Forecasting Project Revenue.
This feature allows the inclusion of sales order and return authorization data in revenue forecast reports, enhancing visibility into future revenue streams. When this feature is enabled, the following additional reports are available:
Based on the information provided in these reports, your company could take corrective action before the end of an accounting period, such as adjusting marketing campaigns, sales compensation plans, and discount strategies. Because these reports provide transaction line detail, they also allow you to analyze sales activity by customer and product.
Note that the Revenue Recognition feature must first be enabled for Sales Order Revenue Forecasting to be available. For information about the Revenue Recognition feature, see Using Revenue Recognition. For information about enabling revenue features, see Enabling the Revenue Recognition Feature.
When the Sales Order Revenue Forecasting feature is enabled:
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The revenue recognition schedules list includes schedules from both posting transactions, such as invoices, and from non-posting transactions, such as sales orders and return authorizations.
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The same revenue recognition templates used for posting transactions can be used for non-posting transactions.
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Some fields that show on schedules for posting transactions do not appear on schedules for non-posting transactions, including: Journal, Date Executed, Is Recognized, Status, and Total Recognized.
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Sales order schedules do not appear on the Create Revenue Recognition Journal Entry page because they do not impact the general ledger and cannot be linked to a journal.
For general information about working with revenue recognition, see: