Sales forecasting helps businesses predict future sales revenue by analyzing past sales data, market trends, seasonality, customer behaviors, and more.
It gives you insights into three critical areas of your business:
In other words: a sales forecasting solution helps you map your expected revenue via sales planning. It's a great asset for any cash forecasting, too.
By answering these questions about your business, you’ll be able to determine:
Sales forecasting is fundamental to decision-making for sales teams and entire organizations.
But doing the process without sales forecasting software tools can be time-consuming, complex, and slow.
Instead of manually inputting data, conducting analysis, and pulling reports, cloud-first and powerful sales forecasting platforms automate all of this for you.
With the right historical sales forecasting software, sales teams can exchange input errors and stale data for accuracy, easy collaboration, and substantial time savings.
And executives know this: 48% of CFOs prioritize investments in predictive models and scenario analysis capabilities.
Modern, efficient sales forecasting tools can drive growth, revenue, and strategic management.
Let’s review the best on the market today.
Cube is the first spreadsheet-native FP&A software that empowers finance and sales teams to drive better planning and performance without changing how they work. Cube eliminates manual work and provides real-time insights so organizations can strategize (and forecast sales) with speed and agility.
Cube allows users to work within their favored environment: the spreadsheet. This gives users all of the benefits of a robust FP&A tool, like scenario analysis, data consolidation, and custom reporting–all within Excel or Google sheets.
In addition to forecasting support, Cube automates all other time-consuming FP&A tasks including budgeting, reporting, planning, and management. Cube is the perfect choice for mid-market companies that want a quick implementation time and scalable, enterprise-grade technology.
Features:
Pricing: Cube starts at $1,250/month for lean finance teams and $2,450/month for companies looking to scale.
Convinced?
Book your free demo with Cube today.
Pipedrive is a cloud-based Sales CRM and pipeline management solution designed to help businesses convert potential deals into successful sales. Based on an activity-based selling methodology, Pipedrive streamlines the overall sales process, from initial contact to close.
A robust interface displays each deal's progress stages and the next actionable items and their activity & goal feature lets users keep an eye on pending activities in each pipeline.
Features:
Pricing:
Pipedrive has a free trial and four pricing plans, all billed annually.
Gong.io uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze customer conversations and behavior, predict customer needs, and offer personalization on demand. Gong makes it easy to partner with the sales team to forecast future sales opportunities and ensure that resources are deployed.
Gong provides a Sales Forecast Report and automated sales pipeline for insights into your business's future performance.
Features:
Pricing: Gong’s pricing depends on various factors, so organizations have to request a custom proposal. But according to various sources, Gong.io charges an average of $1600 per user annually.
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a CRM software enabling sales teams to manage customer interactions and track deals throughout the sales process. The forecasting software can help users track critical metrics such as sales pipeline, customer segmentation, and growth trend.
Salesforce Sales Cloud also integrates with other Salesforce products, allowing users to build a comprehensive sales strategy in one place.
Features:
Pricing:
These four plans are billed annually:
Aviso Insights's forecasting algorithms use AI to analyze past sales data and identify patterns that predict future sales. Aviso Insights's Sales Forecasting Software includes trend analysis, performance tracking, and market segmentation features.
This software can integrate with existing Salesforce or other CRM systems.
Features:
Pricing: While pricing isn’t available online, sources note it’s one of the more expensive sales forecasting tools.
Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a software offered by SAP SE that assists companies in forecasting and planning. IBP is a component of the SAP ERP software and provides users with tools for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), demand planning, production planning, and inventory management.
Sales forecasting capabilities include a Sales Forecast component, which allows users to track sales trends over time and create revenue forecasts. The software also provides detailed customer segmentation capabilities, enabling businesses to gain more insight into customer behavior and demand.
Features:
Pricing: Pricing isn’t available on their website, but sources say it starts at $2,518 per monthly unit.
HubSpot is a marketing, sales, and customer service platform that provides users with the tools they need to project expected sales and revenue figures, track their progress, and analyze trends in customer behavior. With HubSpot sales forecasting software models, sales reps can create custom forecasting models that help them understand their customer's buying behavior.
Features:
Pricing:
These plans are all billed annually:
Workday Adaptive Planning allows users to forecast, budget, and model. In addition to its forecasting capabilities, Workday offers several other features, including tracking KPIs, creating what-if scenarios, and collaborating with colleagues in real-time. Its finance and HR applications help businesses connect financial and “people” data for insights.
Features:
Pricing: Pricing isn’t listed on the website, but sources say pricing starts at $15,000 per user.
OnPlan is a sales forecasting and budgeting solution that allows businesses to create financial models using what-if scenarios and SaaS benchmarks. With features like rolling financial forecasts, template management, scenario planning, performance tracking, and budgeting. OnPlan helps administrators create models for sales marketing and staffing processes via predefined dashboards and templates.
The app includes a roles and permissions management module to give employees different access levels for collaboration purposes.
Features:
Pricing: For essentials, pricing starts at $12,500 per year. For the other levels, organizations must get a custom quote.
Jirav is a cloud-based financial planning and reporting solution that gives businesses the tools they need to examine historical business data, build accurate financial models and plans, and forecast financial operations accurately using pre-built templates. It helps businesses develop custom dashboards to visualize data and centralize all their financial data operations with built-in connectors.
Features:
Pricing:
Monday Sales CRM allows sales managers to get an overview of all their team's deals in one place. The drag-and-drop platform offers sales templates, embedded workflow analytics, and customizable reporting. It helps sales teams see what their pipeline looks like, how much revenue is coming in, which deals each representative is working on, and how much capacity the team has.
Features:
Pricing:
Freshsales by Freshworks is a Salesforce automation solution for lead management, marketing insights, and customer relationship management. The platform also enables organizations to automate repetitive tasks by designing custom workflows with event-based triggers.
Freshsales by Freshworks allows teams to construct sales pipelines that match their geographical location, team size, processes, and other criteria.
Features:
Pricing:
Intuendi is an inventory management and demand planning solution that reduces the likelihood of stockouts, minimizes excess inventory, and increases sales. Intuendi integrates with existing ERP, POS, and inventory solutions to organize data in one place.
It also provides customizable reports to help you analyze historical trends, identify seasonality patterns, and create long-term forecasts.
Features:
Pricing: Intuendi does not list pricing but offers a free trial.
Bitrix24 is an online workspace that offers over 35 business tools, including a CRM. The Bitrix24 CRM helps teams manage leads, track contacts and transactions, and automate business processes.
Bitrix includes a sales planning tool to help users create projections, analyze trends, and compare actual performance against goals.
Features:
Pricing:
These four pricing plans are all billed annually:
SalesKen uses AI for lead generation and client communication through calls, emails, chats, and web conferences. Teams can monitor their sales pipeline and determine customer intent. Managers can also manage client interactions, schedule follow-ups, and identify prospects.
Features:
Pricing: SalesKen lacks transparent pricing.
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based business management platform to streamline and simplify sales, marketing, and customer support. Sales forecasting software is a critical component of Zoho CRM, providing insights and analytical capabilities to help you accurately predict future sales performance. Sales forecasts can be generated based on your historical data or current market trends, enabling you to prepare better for upcoming products and services.
Features:
Pricing:
All of the pricing plans are billed annually:
Anaplan connects information from disparate systems, with real-time tracking of sales pipelines and forecasts. The software also provides predictive analytics to enable businesses to identify growth opportunities and maximize resources. Additionally, Anaplan features automated dashboards that show performance at a glance, helping users make faster decisions.
Features:
Pricing: Pricing isn’t listed on the website, but according to various users and sources pricing can start between $30,000 to $50,000–and then rise.
Oracle NetSuite is a cloud-based finance software offering ERP, accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), human resources management (HRM), and commerce solutions designed by Oracle. Oracle NetSuite is a unified suite of enterprise-grade applications for all business management with a customizable platform, analytics, reporting, and global infrastructure.
Oracle NetSuite CRM+ offers sales force automation, e-commerce, customer data management, partner relationship management, and marketing analytics. The software's analytic functionality can integrate back-office metrics and data with front-office operations - giving upper management a complete view of their organization.
Features:
Pricing: Pricing isn’t listed on the website. But customers and reviewers have reported that Oracle NetSuite license costs include a $999/month licensing fee and an additional $99/month for each user.
Mediafly InsightSquared provides sales intelligence solutions to help sales teams operate more effectively. It gives sales operations leaders the tools they need to produce forecasts, understand pipeline trends, and maximize impact.
InsightSquared allows sales leaders to manage their teams by tracking progress at every stage of the buying process, predicting revenue, and reviewing what's working for top accounts and opportunities.
Features:
Pricing: Pricing is currently not listed on the website but sources note the average price ranges from $65 to $95 per month per user.
The key features outlined in this section serve as a guide for FP&A decision makers seeking to maximize the value of sales forecast tools.
Accuracy: Sales forecasting software must employ robust algorithms and predictive analytics to analyze historical data, market trends, and relevant variables. Accurate forecasts enable informed decision-making, helping organizations allocate resources effectively, set realistic targets, and adapt confidently to market changes.
Integration: Sales forecasting software must seamlessly integrate with CRM and ERP platforms for efficient data consolidation and analysis. By effortlessly pulling data from these systems, FP&A teams gain comprehensive insights into sales performance, customer behavior, and relevant metrics without manual data entry.
Automation: FP&A decision makers prioritize the level of automation in data processing, forecasting, and reporting. Sales forecast tools should automate tasks like data collection, cleansing, and analysis, allowing finance professionals to focus on strategic analysis.
Scalability: Sales forecasting software must seamlessly scale with the company's growth. It should accommodate increases in data volume, user base, and complexity of forecasting models. Scalable solutions future-proof FP&A processes, ensuring they meet evolving organizational needs without disruption.
Collaboration: Effective collaboration between departments is crucial for accurate sales planning. Features like shared dashboards, real-time updates, and collaborative forecasting tools enable seamless teamwork. Sales forecasting software fosters cross-functional collaboration, leveraging collective expertise for more accurate forecasts.
Cost: When evaluating sales forecasting software, cost is a significant consideration for FP&A decision makers. They should assess affordability relative to features, functionality, and potential return on investment. While cost matters, it's crucial to weigh long-term benefits and value. Investing in high-quality software can lead to improved accuracy, efficiency, and strategic decision-making, making it a worthwhile investment for FP&A teams.
By recognizing and addressing these three pitfalls, organizations can improve the accuracy and reliability of their forecasts, leading to better decision-making and strategic outcomes.
Being Overly Optimistic or Pessimistic Projections
Sales forecasting requires a balance between optimism and realism. Overly optimistic projections may lead to unrealistic expectations and overcommitment of resources, while overly pessimistic projections may result in missed opportunities and underinvestment. It's important to base forecasts on realistic assumptions and to consider a range of scenarios to account for uncertainty and variability in market conditions.
Overreliance on Historical Data
One of the most common mistakes in sales forecasting is overreliance on historical data. While historical data can provide valuable insights into past trends and patterns, it may not always accurately reflect future market conditions or changes in customer behavior. Relying too heavily on historical data without considering other factors such as market trends, competitive dynamics, and external influences can lead to inaccurate forecasts and missed opportunities.
Ignoring Qualitative Factors
Another mistake to avoid is ignoring qualitative factors in sales forecasting. While quantitative data such as sales figures and market trends are important, qualitative factors such as customer feedback, industry insights, and expert opinions can also provide valuable insights into future sales performance. Failing to incorporate qualitative factors into the forecasting process can result in incomplete or skewed forecasts that fail to capture the full picture of market dynamics.
Accurate and reliable sales forecasting software is essential for competitive sales teams and outstanding company-wide performance.
But migrating to an entirely new platform takes time, energy, and manpower that your team might not have.
Cube’s native integration with Excel and Google Sheets lets you access your data without changing where you work–making it easy for anyone to use and adopt.
Sales and FP&A teams can forecast, budget, plan, and collaborate quickly and confidently. Book a demo today to witness firsthand how Cube can significantly improve your sales forecasting process.