Long Business Systems, Inc. (LBSi)

Management Software Solutions Management Software Solutions

We help businesses manage for success

Cleveland – Columbus – Cincinnati - Pittsburgh

Using ForecastsPresented by: Vicki Smith

� Why Forecast

� Benefits of Forecasting

� Challenges of Forecasting

� Forecasting Methods

� Standard Forecasting

� Advanced Forecasting

Why Forecast?

� Ensure you have inventory on hand to meet customer

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� Helps you determine your optimal inventory levels

� Understand what drives your sales

� i.e. Seasonality, recent history or something else?

�Vendor planning and negotiations

� To increase sales and customer satisfaction

Challenges of Forecasting

� One forecasting method may not work for all products

� Too many products to efficiently review and manage

� Bringing in customer provided forecasts

� Base forecasts on Orders or Sales for history?

� How far back in history to look?

� Note: Need at least 24 months to predict seasonality

� Speed or time to generate forecast for review

� Integrating with current planning system

Which methods?

� Many to choose from:

� Various moving averages, seasonality and other methods

� Take existing history and forecast, compare to manual

methods, observations and history

� Model top or key items in your product groups

Testing needs to be fairly quick � Testing needs to be fairly quick

� Don’t get hung up on mathematical algorithms

� Pick a hand full of items

� Always have the ability to manual forecast or “no” forecast

� Visit these LBSi links for more information:http://www.lbsi.com/software/sap-forecasting

http://www.lbsi.com/software/enhancements/forecasting

Standard SAP Forecasts� New Advanced Settings

� SAP will generate your forecast based on history

� Generate based on history for sales order or deliveries and AR Invoices

� Two methods to choose from: Simple Average or Monthly Average

Advanced ForecastingMore robust forecasting model:

� More forecasting methods to better predict trends or seasonality

� Use Sales (A/R Invoices and A/R Credits) or Bookings (Sales Orders)

� Queries to value your forecast using the SAP Business One price lists

� Plan for more than one forecast at a time

� Consider history for up to 36 months

� Forecast by warehouse� Forecast by warehouse

� Use different forecast methods for:

� item group, item or item/warehouse

Tip: Using My Menu

� Create a your own menu for quick access to frequently used screens, forms, reports or queries

� Go To: Tools > My Menu then Add to My Menu or Organize

� Create to add reports or queries to your menu

� Organize to sort your menu and move or add folders

Don’t forget about the “Idea Place”

� You can submit your ideas and suggestions to SAP

� Go to: https://cw.sdn.sap.com/cw/community/ideas/sme/b1

Thank you for taking time to participate in the SAP Business One User Group Meeting.

Please take a few minutes to respond to our survey and provide us with feedback and suggestions going forward.

o We are always looking for new clients to work with. And we would like to find more clients and partners like you – companies that are engaged, smart, and focused on their future.

o Can you help us out by referring LBSi to someone who could benefit from our services?

Next Meetings:

o Tuesday, Sept 11, 2012

o Financial Report Templates

o Tuesday, Oct 9, 2012

o TBD

Long Business Systems, Inc. (LBSi)

Cleveland – Columbus – Cincinnati –Pittsburgh

Presentation by Vicki Smith, contact the following for Presentation by Vicki Smith, contact the following for further information:

Keith Taylor, Vice President

email: keith@lbsi.com

Phone: 440-846-8500 ext 26

www.lbsi.com