Forecast

The Forecast screen lists your items with the number of units you are expected to sell over the next week, month and three months. Each figure comes with a range: the low and high numbers you should plan between. You can also forecast any future period, such as the Christmas season or the months until your next container arrives. Use it before you write purchase orders, when you plan a season, or when you want to know which items will matter most in the weeks ahead.

SeroBooks works the forecast out from your own sales history. It uses no industry averages and nothing you have to type in. The screen also shows what each forecast is based on. Items without enough history of their own are left out rather than shown as zero.

Opening the Forecast screen

• Choose Forecast ▸ Forecast from the menu bar (Alt+O opens the Forecast menu), or
• Choose Company ▸ Planning & Budgeting ▸ Forecast.

The Forecast menu has three other screens that use the same forecast: Reorder Levels, Ship to Amazon (only when an Amazon seller account is connected) and What's Coming.

Reading the forecast, step by step

1. Open Forecast ▸ Forecast. The list loads with your best-selling items at the top, ordered by the number expected to sell in the next 30 days.
2. Read the grey bar above the table first. It tells you how much history the figures are based on (see What the figures are based on).
3. Find an item. Type part of its name or SKU in Search products… and press Enter. Click the × in the box to clear the search.
4. Read across the row. ON HAND is the stock you hold now. The NEXT 7 DAYS, NEXT 30 DAYS and NEXT 90 DAYS columns show the expected units in large type and the likely range underneath in small type, for example 22 over 18 – 26.
5. To forecast a period of your own, click Pick a period, choose the first and last days, and confirm. A PERIOD column is added to the table.
6. If you sell on Amazon, choose Everything, Our warehouses or Amazon FBA to see the forecast for one stock pool (see Choosing a stock pool).
7. To take the list elsewhere, use Export above the table and choose CSV, Excel or PDF.

The controls

Only future dates can be picked. A forecast of a past month would be a report, and SeroBooks never forecast those days. To see what did sell, use the Inventory reports or the Sales reports.

The columns

All figures are units in the item's own unit of measure, not dollars.

Click a column heading to sort by it, and click again to reverse the order. When the list has eight or more rows, a Search this list… box above the table filters the rows already on screen. It is separate from Search products…, which asks SeroBooks for a fresh forecast.

Reading the range

The small numbers under each figure are the range the true result will most likely fall inside. Use the high number when running out would be costly, and the low number when being left with extra stock would be costly.

• A narrow range (for example 98 – 104) belongs to an item that sells steadily week after week.
• A wide range (for example 20 – 90) belongs to an item whose weekly sales jump around. The expected figure is still the best single guess, but plan with the range in mind.

Ranges are narrower, as a share of the total, over 90 days than over 7 days. A heavy week and a light week inside the same quarter partly cancel out. SeroBooks never shows a range narrower than a minimum that grows with the length of the period, because an item's selling rate can itself change over time.

What the figures are based on

The grey bar above the table spells out the basis of every figure on the screen:

How the forecast is worked out

1. Your business's rhythm. SeroBooks looks at your total daily sales for up to the last two years. For Amazon sellers, that means shop and invoice sales plus Amazon orders. It learns how each weekday compares with an average day, what each holiday and shopping event has done to your sales, and, with two years of history, how each month compares with the year. It uses middle values (medians) rather than averages, so one exceptional day cannot distort what a normal Tuesday looks like.
2. Each item's own level and trend. For each item, SeroBooks takes the item's own daily unit sales, removes the business rhythm, and works out how fast the item is selling now and whether that rate is rising or falling. The trend fades out the further ahead you look, and it is capped, so a few good months are not projected into steep growth.
3. Day by day. For every future day, the item's level is multiplied by that day's weekday, month and event effects. The days are added up into the 7, 30 and 90-day totals and your custom period.
4. The range. The range comes from how much the item's own weekly sales have varied (see Reading the range).

The weekly and seasonal pattern is learned once, from the whole business, and shared by every item. A single item rarely sells often enough to show its own Saturday pattern, but your business as a whole does.

Which sales count

• Final invoices and sales receipts, less any quantities returned against them. Estimates (quotes), drafts and held sales are not counted.
• For Amazon sellers, Amazon orders for SKUs that are linked to your items, less refunded units.

Items that are left out

An item appears only if it has sold in the last two years and has about two weeks or more of its own sales history. Items with less are left out, not shown as zero, because a zero would read as "this will not sell". When nothing qualifies, the table reads No products with enough sales history to forecast. When the business has had no item sales in the last two years at all, the screen says No product sales in the last two years to forecast from.

Choosing a stock pool (Amazon sellers)

When an Amazon seller account is connected, the screen offers three views. Each view pairs one stock pool with the sales that draw on it, so that the stock and the forecast describe the same warehouse:

In Our warehouses and Amazon FBA, a line above the basis bar says which warehouse you are reading. Stock in your own warehouse cannot fill Amazon-fulfilled orders until it is shipped in. The Ship to Amazon screen plans those shipments.

If you do not sell on Amazon, these choices do not appear and the screen always shows your own stock against all your sales.

Cached figures and Recalculate

Your sales history changes once a day, so SeroBooks keeps a worked-out forecast for up to six hours and shows cached in the basis bar when it is showing kept figures. Search terms, the stock pool and a custom period each have their own kept copy. Click Recalculate to work everything out again now, for example straight after you have entered a large batch of invoices.

Permissions

The Forecast screens read your sales history and stock, so your role needs access to the Forecast module and the same access as the accounting reports. Without it, the screen shows You do not have permission for this. Ask an administrator to grant it under Users & Roles. See Set Up Users and Roles.

Tips

• Check the forecast every week or so, before you place orders. The Reorder Levels screen uses this same forecast to tell you what to order and by when.
• Use Pick a period to size a seasonal buy. For example, pick 15 November to 31 December and order against the high end of the range for items you cannot restock quickly.
• Export to Excel to share the forecast with a buyer or supplier. The export contains the rows as you have sorted and filtered them, and its heading states which stock pool and period it covers.

Common problems

Related articles

• Reorder Levels
• Ship to Amazon
• What's Coming (seasonal calendar)
• Stock Levels
• Create Purchase Orders
• Forecast menu