Forecasts play a crucial part in the financial planning of your business. Sales forecasting is projecting the short-term and long-term sales performance of a company.

Sales forecasts are  an important measurement of your company's growth and success. Factors such as previous sales forecasts and revenue, competition, economic conditions, sales team and their performances, industry trends are considered while predicting monthly or quarterly sales targets. If your company meets consecutive sales forecasts, then you are assured that the company is growing!

Forecasts in Zoho CRM provides a real-time insight to tracking sales and helps your organization fine-tune the sales processes and monitor sales pipeline. It provides an overall picture of the company's sales pipeline, as well as individual performances of the sales team.

Understanding Forecasts in Zoho CRM

• You have to define the start and end month of your organization's financial year, before you create forecasts.
• The new Forecasts are based on either Role Hierarchy or Territory Hierarchy. We recommend you to switch to the new improved forecasts for more forecasting options. See Also: Switch to New Forecasts 
• Role Hierarchy- You can create forecasts based on the role hierarchy in your organization's CRM account.
• Territory Hierarchy - You can create forecasts and set targets for territories and it’s users based on territory hierarchy, only if territory management is enabled in your organization's CRM account. Check the availability of this feature in your Edition. See Also: Territory Management 
• Details you will need, to create a sales forecast the very first time:
  
  • Forecast's Period (Monthly/Quarterly).
  • The month the Financial year begins.
  • Field values based on which forecast targets are set.
• You can create one forecast for every quarter/month.
• In each quarterly/monthly forecast, you can set targets for the following:
  
  • Roles/Territories
  • Roles/Territories Managers
  • Users in the roles/territories