Sage CRM

Question

Hi community, 
 
 I'm curious about how to solve the following requirement. 
 - Creating and reviewing a custom forecast per each customer individually 
 
 I'm aware of the forecasting feature showing all the open opportunites for me and me my team. It's a nice feature which is helping in sales but I can't set a quota for an individual customer. 
 
 So, how can I set an individual forecast per each customer? 
 Say, I want to set my revenue goal for customer A to 50,000&euro; for customer B to 35,000&euro; and for C to 40,000&euro;. 
 Is there a way to set these individual goals per customer and keep track of that? 
 
 I thought of two solutions: 
 1. Creating an opportunity with the goal value and link all "real" opportunites to to that goal. 
 2. Customizing - Create a new tab with new fields for year and number. 
 
 I'm glad for your input and ideas 
 
 Thanks 
 Simon

Basil N Malik · Accepted Answer

Both Sage CRM and Matthew Shaw have solid suggestions. If you want traceability of YOY performance of forecast vs. actual - what the Sage CRM team suggests is the better path forward. It allows you to set automation standards around each fiscal year's settings. If retrospectives/historical references aren't needed, what Matthew suggested is solid, but would require discipline around your operating procedures to ensure that a deadline is set for each fiscal year's conclusion to run a report against performance, create your outputs, and adjust forecasts on a customer by customer basis (either manually or programmatically). Qmulus used to have an automatic report delivery tool that could likely be a big benefit for automating reports if you don't have something like Sage Alerts and Workflows. Things you do NOT want to do... a) break native functionality (once broken in any system, it's hard to unbreak), and b) trying to find a middleground between the two options. The middleground option will place an unnecessary burden of customization with diminishing returns for something you don't even know will be used (lots of "best of intentions" turn into stagnant customizations). If you want a practical approach, try Matthew's method first. See how the team handles the minor customizations and uses the data. It's less immediate impact on the CRM and easier to unwind if the team ultimately doesn't use it. However, if they use it heavily, great! Explore whether the method Sage CRM offered is viable for what the team wishes (history is a BIG gain if you want YOY analysis over time). Converting the features Matthew suggested to the one that Sage CRM offered gains the benefit of clarity from having been used and allows you to manage investment in customization upfront.

Sage CRM · Answer

Hi Simon 
 I don't think using the "super" opportunity is good idea as it will mess up pipeline and forecasting features. I think adding a child entity called something like "Target" under the company may be a better idea. You could have a a different financial target record for each financial year - allowing a history to be kept. And the opportunities would also be a child of the target. This keeps all the existing reporting, pipelines and forecast feature but then adds the ability to see how targets against individual companies are being met over the years.

Sage CRM - Forecast per customer

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