Sales Budgets
Sales Budgets let you plan, month by month, how much you expect to sell of each item over a year: quantity and price, per item. You can build them by hand, line by line, or let AdmCloud generate them automatically from your sales history. Afterwards you compare them against what you actually billed in the Sales Budget Reports, to see whether you're above or below your target.
What is it and what is it for?
A Sales Budget is a per-year document that spreads, across that year's accounting periods, the quantity and price you expect to sell of each item. It's used to:
- Set a sales target per item, month by month, to later compare against what you actually billed.
- Split the budget by Sales Rep, Customer, Customer Class, Sales Territory, Location or Destination, matching how you organize your sales force.
- Save you the work of calculating the target by hand: AdmCloud can project it for you from your sales history (average, linear regression or statistical time-series analysis).
The Sales Budget is separate from the Accounting Budget (by ledger account, division, department or project): they share the same periods screen, but one is organized by item and customers/sales reps, and the other by ledger accounts and analysis dimensions.
How to use it
- Go to Sales > Sales Budgets. Before creating your first one, make sure you already have Accounting Periods defined for the year you want to budget; without them AdmCloud can't spread the budget month by month.
- Click New and pick the year to budget from the dropdown (only years that already have accounting periods configured are offered).
- Fill in the header: Name, Subsidiary/Location if it applies, Currency and Exchange Rate, and optionally Sales Rep, Customer, Customer Class, Sales Territory and Destination, depending on who you want to assign this budget to.
- On the items tab, choose the Business Line (Item Class) to load its items and enter, for each one, the expected quantity and price for each period of the year. Use the Copy button on the first column to repeat the same value across the rest of that item's periods, and Copy Table / Paste to move values from a spreadsheet.
- Save with Save or Save and Continue Editing if you're going to keep entering lines.
- If you'd rather not calculate the projection by hand, use Automatic Generation from the list (see the next section) so AdmCloud creates the whole budget for you from your historic sales.
Automatic budget generation
Instead of entering quantities by hand, you can ask AdmCloud to project a full year's budget from your sales history, from Sales > Sales Budgets > Automatic Generation.
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Subsidiary | Required if your company has more than one subsidiary; determines which sales history is analyzed and which subsidiary the generated budget is assigned to. |
| Location | Optional; limits the sales history analyzed to that location (and its sub-locations). |
| Business Line (required), Family and Brand | Narrow down which items go into the generated budget. You can also point to a single Item. |
| Projection Method | Item Default, Linear Regression, Average or, if your company has the feature enabled, Single Spectrum Analysis (time series). |
| Months to Analyze (1-36) and Year to Project | How much history to use as the base and which year the budget is generated for. |
| Exclude Deviations Beyond (Sigma) | Discards months with unusually high or low sales before calculating the average or regression. |
| Adjust Out-of-Stock Days | Corrects the projection by accounting for days the item was out of stock, so its real demand isn't underestimated. |
If you choose a single Item (or you're in a test/development environment), AdmCloud generates the budget right away and takes you straight to its Details. If you generate it for a whole Business Line, the calculation can take a while and runs in the background: AdmCloud sends you to the Processes screen so you can follow its progress and open the budget once it's done.
Key capabilities
- One budget per year, with its items automatically spread across the accounting periods defined for that year.
- Manual line-by-line entry, with copy/paste between periods and to/from the clipboard (spreadsheet).
- Automatic generation from sales history, with three or four statistical projection methods.
- Optional segmentation by Sales Rep, Customer, Customer Class, Sales Territory, Location and (if you use Transportation) Destination.
- Duplicate an existing budget from its Details, to start from one already built instead of from scratch.
- Sales Budget Reports (by item or by sales rep, in units or amount) reachable from the same list, to compare what was budgeted against what was actually billed.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the budget in the list; it's required. |
| Subsidiary | Which subsidiary the budget belongs to; only appears if your company has subsidiaries enabled, and is required to create a new one in that case. |
| Location | Location the budget applies to, if you segment by location. |
| Currency and Exchange Rate | Currency the budget's prices are entered in and its exchange rate; both are required. |
| Sales Rep | Sales rep the target is assigned to, if you budget by sales rep. |
| Customer / Customer Class | A specific customer or a customer category the budget applies to. |
| Sales Territory | Territory the budget applies to, if you organize your sales by geographic zone. |
| Destination | Only visible if your company uses the Transportation module (TMS); links the budget to a delivery destination. |
| Business Line (Item Class) | Filters which items are listed on the entry tab; it isn't saved as part of the document, it's only used to find items. |
| Quantity and Price per period | For each item and each accounting period of the year, the expected quantity to sell and the expected price; the amount (quantity × price) is calculated for you. |
Validations when saving
- The Name is required.
- The Currency must exist and be active; the Exchange Rate must be greater than zero (if you leave it at zero, AdmCloud sets it to 1 automatically).
- If you set a Sales Rep, Customer, Location or Destination, each one must exist and not be voided.
- You can't save (or delete) a budget on a subsidiary marked as read-only.
- To create a new budget when your company handles subsidiaries, you must have a subsidiary selected in your session.
- To generate a year's budget, that year must have at least one Accounting Period defined; if not, AdmCloud tells you so when you pick the year.
- In Automatic Generation: the Business Line is required, Months to Analyze must be between 1 and 36, the Year to Project must be valid, and the Sigma exclusion can't be negative.
Availability and permissions
- This feature must be enabled by AdmCloud for your company. If you don't see the "Sales Budgets" option in the Sales menu, contact AdmCloud support to have it turned on.
- Viewing, creating, editing or deleting Sales Budgets requires the "Sales Budget" permission on your user group, at the appropriate level (View, Edit, or Full to delete).
- The Destination field only appears if your company has the Transportation (TMS) module active.
- The Single Spectrum Analysis projection method only shows up in Automatic Generation if your company has that feature enabled; otherwise you'll only see Item Default, Linear Regression and Average.
- The Subsidiary field only appears if your company has subsidiaries enabled.
Tips and common mistakes
The year I need doesn't show up when I click "New". First check that an Accounting Period is defined for that year; the year dropdown only shows years that already have periods configured.
I have a lot of items and entering them one by one is slow. Use Automatic Generation so AdmCloud proposes the quantity for each item based on your sales history; then open the generated budget and only manually adjust the items you need to correct.
Automatic Generation doesn't finish right away. If you generated it for a whole Business Line (not a single item), the calculation runs in the background; check its progress in Processes instead of waiting on the same screen.
The Sales Budget doesn't post any accounting entry or affect your inventory: it's just a reference target you later compare against your actual sales in the Sales Budget Reports.