In fresh produce, it doesn’t take long for a bad forecast to become an expensive problem. Nothing will cut into margins like product sitting in the field, expiring in the warehouse, or being rejected on a customer dock. With effective sales forecasting, your produce operation can schedule, pick, pack, process, and ship the optimal product mix to maximize both customer orders and company revenue. And, with produce-specific variables like actuals or equivalents, and the need to use multiple variables to look at specific forecast lines, a Sales Forecasting tool built for the produce industry is a must-have.
Key Takeaways
Getting the best possible sales forecast in place helps produce operations to profitably plan for and profit from every crate or pallet sold. When integrated into a full MRP process, having the right Sales Forecasting functionality on-hand positions your operation for field-to-shelf excellence. Here’s why effective sales forecasting matters:
- Keeps product moving through your supply chain by syncing production forecasts with customer demand
- Reduces over-supply
- Minimizes costly stockouts
- Helps to maximize margins by shipping the optimal mix to priority customers
How sales forecasting improves produce supply chain planning
Sales forecasting functionality in an ERP system allows you to help your cross-functional team to work toward a shared target. Accurate forecasting benefits a produce operation in many ways, from limiting labor down time, whether in the field or on the line, to reducing out-of-spec or out-of-date product in the supply chain.
Reduce product over-supply
Product over-supply can force your FOB prices down. By syncing your harvest curves with planned customer orders and accurate produce demand planning, your company will be better able to know when to harvest, when to process, and to plan for timely sale of quality product, without having to add deep discount your product to move it.
Minimize stockouts and protect customer relationships
Nothing erodes customer relationships with foodservice and retail customers alike than being unable to fill orders. With Sales Forecasting functionality, your firm can plan to get the right amount of quality product packed and shipped to customers in sync with incoming orders, driving volume and helping you to avoid leaving money on the table.
Maximize margins with the right product mix
When your best quality product is at its peak, ensuring that it gets to priority customers at a strong price is essential. Effective sales forecasting enables produce operators to ship an optimal mix to its priority customers, boosting margins in the process. In addition, shipping an efficient assortment to customers who carry multiple items both drives volume and limits markdowns.
Improve produce sales forecasting with Famous ERP
Ready to put better Sales Forecasting into action today?
What C-suite and IT leaders should look for in produce ERP sales forecasting
When selecting an ERP partner for your produce operation, ensuring the chosen system offers both the flexibility that your team needs to operate in the modern produce industry and accurate visibility to both sales forecast data and real-time inventory is vital. And the question isn’t whether a system can forecast—it’s whether it can forecast the way your business actually works.
A produce-specific partner like Famous ERP:
- Let’s you forecast for the realities of produce, in actuals or equivalents
- Allows for manual data entry when historical data is poor or non-existent
- Syncs with sales and inventory management to give a complete view of what’s in your supply chain
This will help you to over-deliver for customers and out-perform your competitors.
Sales forecasting in Famous ERP: Frequently asked questions
What is a typical sales forecast built on?
With Famous ERP, sales forecasts are calculated based on criteria selected by the user, which in turn determines which invoice product information is included in each sales forecast run. But for new customers, or those operations that don’t have any historical information for a product to accurately forecast sales, a user can manually enter information to populate a sales forecast for a future period. Each sales forecast run includes a breakdown of quantity, cost, FOB, and profit by item. This in turn rolls up to an overall forecast for the targeted period.
How would sales forecasting functionality from Famous ERP help me to compare sales forecast to actuals?
With Famous ERP, the Sales Forecast vs. Actuals report has the following features:
- Compares the forecasted values for a single sales forecast run to the actual values for the same forecasting range.
- Provides a comparison of the following values for each forecasting period within the forecasting range across quantity, cost, FOB, and profit by item.
What mobile tools would help to better connect my sales team, customer delivery, and the overall sales forecast?
The Famous Sales App now offers the ability to create new sales orders, whether from scratch, using a standard order, or from an existing order. And, with a few quick taps, your sales reps can easily adjust sales orders or sales loads on the fly from a customer’s DC or in response to an urgent buyer email, right from their phone – no laptop required.