AccountManager Forecasts

AccountManager Forecasts allow users to enter and manage forecast information separate from (or instead of) Opportunity Forecasts and/or Design Win Forecasts.  Forecasts can be configured to require a small amount of information (i.e. Principal, Customer, and Dollar Amount), or more detailed information (i.e. Principal, Customer, Manufacturer and Customer Part Numbers, Product Line, Qty, Unit Price, etc).  

These forecasts can be evaluated in the associated views, reported on, or compared to actual Booking, Billing or Commission numbers in SalesAnalysis depending on your company’s configuration.  Your AccountManager administrator may have set certain restrictions in place such as allowing field salespeople to only see their own Forecasts.  See your AccountManager administrator with any questions.

Creating Forecasts

(Note:  The fields available examples below may differ from those available in your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with any questions regarding Forecast configuration).

Forecasts can be created using either of the methods outlined below:

“New Forecast” Form Entry:

1. Open the AccountManager database and go to the Forecasts view.

2. Click the “New Forecast” button in the action bar.  A new, blank Forecast form will be displayed pre-populated with the “Forecast Type” depending upon your company’s configuration.

3. Click the hyperlinks to select the End Customer, Principal, or other accounts as required.

4. If applicable, and configured for display, fill in part number and/or product line information.

5. Begin filling in the information requested in each forecast “bucket”.  (Note:  Depending on configuration, these may be monthly or quarterly buckets).

6. If desired, click the “Fill using Value 1” hyperlink to populate the remaining buckets with the information you entered in the first one.  Otherwise, click or “Tab” through the remaining fields to continue adding information.  Each subsequent field will auto-populate with the previous field’s amount, but can be adjusted if needed.

7. Save and Close the Forecast or continue adding additional information on the Detail Tabs if desired.

[Forecasts Screenshot 1]

Editable “Maintenance” View Entry:

(Note:  In order to use this entry method, you must create the very first forecast using the Form Entry method described above.  After one forecast exists, you will see the option to create additional forecasts in the Maintenance view as described below).

8. Open the AccountManager database, expand the Forecasts view, and click on the Maintenance view underneath.

9. Hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard, then click in the area indicated to begin a new forecast, and be prompted to select the Customer (or appropriate account as specified by your configuration).

10. Click in the next column (no “Ctrl” needed) to select the Principal (or appropriate account as specified by your configuration).

11. If applicable, and configured for display, click in the next columns to enter part number or product line information.

12. Click in the first forecast “bucket”.  (Note:  Depending on configuration, these may be monthly or quarterly buckets).  Enter in the appropriate dollar amount for the forecast period. See more about setting the dates and rolling forecasts in the Maintenance\Forecast Profile Help.

13. At this point, you may click or “Tab” through the remaining columns adding the forecast numbers as desired.

14. Click anywhere outside the row you are working on to automatically save the forecast.  

15. If needed, any row can be double-clicked upon in order to open the Forecast form for additional data entry similar to the Form Entry method described above.

[Forecasts Screenshot 2]

[Forecasts Screenshot 3]

Forecast Field Descriptions

(Note:  The fields available on your Forecast Forms and views may vary from those in the examples, depending upon your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with any questions.)

Action Buttons:

Header Section:

(Note:  The Account (company) links displayed in the header section may vary depending upon your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with any questions).

“Main” Detail Tab:

(Note:  The content and/or arrangement of fields on this tab may vary depending upon your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with questions).

“TAM” Detail Tab:

(Note:  The existence of fields on this tab may vary depending upon your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with questions).

Account Detail Tabs (i.e. “End Customer”, “Representative”, “Distributor”, and “CEM”): 

(Note:  The existence, content, and arrangement of these tabs may vary depending upon your company’s configuration.  See your AccountManager administrator with questions).

The account detail tabs allow you to store additional details about each company involved in this Forecast.  Each tab auto-populates with the company name when those companies are selected in the Header area.  The field names and structure of each tab is identical as described below:

“Representative” Detail Tab