How Do I Set Up Forecasting?
The Sales Module is a powerful and easy-to-use analytics tool to organize Manager Projections, Actual Numbers, and System Generated Forecasts. Sales numbers can be referenced and viewed on employee schedules, and analyzed using the Sale Analytics tool – a simple solution to ensure that complex schedule forecasts are kept in check.
Sales Module Tab
Create Sales Types for Your Business
Sales Types allow you to enter specific number sets to forecast and analyze as necessary. Sales Types can include:
- Gross Sales
- Net Sales
- Customer counts, plates, or covers
- Inventory Items, such as khaki pants sold, steaks to prepare, lobster sales, or booked hotel rooms
- Any other number that makes sense for your business …
You can create and maintain as many Sales Types as you would like – there are no limits.
To create your first Sales Type, Choose the “Sales Types” sub-tab from the “Sales” tab.
Sales Type Creation – Choose a Type
While creating a Sales Type, enter a Description for the Sales Type. This should be an easily identified name such as Gross Sales, Inbound Calls, Customer Count, Covers, or Takeouts and Deliveries. Choose an appropriate Type for your Sales Type:
- Currency for numeric values, such as Gross Sales, Net Sales, or Tips.
- Inventory for values pertaining to inventory or stocking, such as specific stock levels or item level inventories.
- Other for other types of values.
Sales Type Creation – What to Compare To?
The Sales Module can compare number values against Labor Hours, Labor Costs, or Scheduled Shifts, as needed for your business:
- Labor Costs are the total costs of the scheduled labor, and in the case of (2) employees for a (2) hour shift at $10 each, would be $40 in labor costs.
- Labor Hours are the total number of hours scheduled, and in the case of (2) employees for a (2) hour shift would be 4 labor hours.
- Scheduled Shifts are the number of unique shifts scheduled during the time frame, and in the case of (2) employees for a (2) hour shift would be 2 scheduled shifts.
Choose the “Comparison To” that is most appropriate to your business needs. You can change this later.
Sales Type Creation – Projection Level and Desired Ratio
The Projection Level controls the granularity of the sales numbers. For some businesses, sales numbers will be input and calculated at the department level. However, most businesses will calculate sales numbers per location (the default). Projection Level’s cannot be changed once the Sales Type has been used.
The Desired Ratio is the ratio of the labor comparison to the projections, forecasts, and actual numbers.
Example: If the “Comparison To” is set to “Labor Cost”, and the Desired Ratio is set to “20%”, the Sales Module will notify you when the ratios go above 20%. Assuming the labor cost goes above 20% of the Sales Type, the software will warn you that the ratio is too high. The Sales Module can, optionally, enforce the labor ratios, so that costly schedules are not posted for staff members.
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