Introduction
Inside the Budget & Forecasting settings page, you can manage budget and forecasting settings, budget modes, check if forecasts are available, and more.
A quick forecasting setup guide
Budget settings must be configured. The budget template must be set to "Monthly budgets" in order to use forecasting features.
Forecasting settings (Sales variable and Business rules) must be configured.
A department must have an "Available" status in the Status list.
Bulk enable all from the Overview page or pick departments from the Status list and click Actions > Enable Forecasting.
Data requirement: To enable forecasting a department must have a minimum of 60 days of historical data (hourly level). This should include both sales data (net sales/gross sales) and traffic data (number of customers or number of visitors).
Forecasting horizon: With 60 days of data a department will get a forecast 14 days into the future for both sales and traffic. With each extra day of historic data (from 60 - 61 days) the forecast horizon will increase by 1 day (from 14-15 days). The maximum horizon is 24 months for both sales and traffic forecasts.
Settings Structure
The Overview
Status list
Budget settings
Forecasting settings
Department overrides
The Overview
The overview page provides a short summary of active budget modes, forecasting availability, and settings configuration. You can also "Enable all" available departments with a single click. Bulk enabling will deploy client-level settings to all departments.
Status list
The status list can be used for:
Managing budget modes.
Customizing settings for a department.
Forecasting availability status.
Forecasting horizons.
Forecasting Status.
Available 🔷: Forecasting is available for this department and can be activated by switching the department to the forecasting budget mode.
Enabled ✅: Forecasting is enabled for this department
Unavailable ☹️: Forecasting is unavailable for this department. This can be because of missing data, opening hours settings, or missing weekly balance configuration. Alternatively, If data has recently been imported the AI models might not have finished processing the data.
NB: Once a department's forecasting status becomes Available we automatically show the traffic KPI and provide the option to enable the planning score in the schedule.
Forecasting Horizon
To see a department's forecasting horizon hoover the department status to show the tooltip. Each forecasting variable will show a horizon from 14 days to 24 months. N/A will be shown if a forecasting variable is not available. Recommended/selected variables are highlighted in white.
Budget settings
The budget settings manage when the Financial year starts and the type of budget template you will use. Forecasting features are not compatible with period-based budgets.
Forecasting settings
Main highlights:
Enabling Forecasting can only be done once all forecasting settings are configured.
Settings are client-level and are deployed for all departments once saved.
Forecasting settings will be kept disabled from configuration until at least there is one department with the forecasting status "Available" to prevent unnecessary and false configuration beforehand.
Department-level customization is done inside the overrides page (Accessed from the Status list).
Sales variable
SameSystem's machine learning engine will provide daily and monthly sales predictions of the selected variable.
Checks and calculations are done beforehand meaning that only eligible variables are available to select.
Once selected the setting in the Weekly balance configuration page "Use as turnover in budget pages" is updated based on your selection.
NB: Selection can be made only once. Contact support if you want to change this setting.
Business rules
Capacity calculation method: This defines how traffic recommendations inside Schedule's Day view are calculated:
Manual: employee capacity must be defined manually.
Auto (Machine Learning): Coming soon.
Employee capacity (Manual): This defines how many customers or visitors an employee can handle within one working hour. This setting must be defined for both variables (Clients and Visitors). If a tab for one of the variables is disabled then this means none of the departments use that variable and it can be skipped.
For more advanced Employee capacity configurations different intervals can be defined. Fx. if footfall increases each employees could serve more/fewer visitors. This can be configured for as many different busyness intervals as needed.
Example: Forecast predicts 50 visitors in an hour interval. Employee capacity interval between 41-80 visitors is set to be 10. The calculation will convert 50 visitors into 5 recommended sales hours (5 employees) for that hour interval.
Minimum employees: This defines a minimum number of employees to be on the floor at any time, regardless of what a forecast recommends.
Department overrides
Client-level forecasting settings can be overridden to better match the department’s needs.
Overrides can only be accessed for departments that have forecasting enabled.
Department overrides are accessed through the Status list by clicking the edit icon in the overrides column.
If a department is saved with a custom configuration it will display a checkmark in the status list.
Traffic variable - the selected variable is used to calculate hourly suggestions inside Schedule's Day View for each individual department (department-level setting).
A data check is done beforehand and only eligible variables are available to select.
The setting automatically picks the best option.
Business rules: The remaining settings are similar to client-level Business rules settings described above but will affect only a selected department.
Restore defaults: Restores department-level settings to client-level configuration.
Permissions
Forecasting settings (Permission: Forecasting setup) - the defaults are:
Administrator: Full access, all shops.
Regional manager: Full access, shops that are part of his/her group (can be found here)
Remaining titles: No access
Full access: Access, read, write.
No access: Menu entry not available, no access.
Limited access: No access.
Forecasting hub (Permission: Forecasting hub) - the default are:
Administrator: Full access, all shops.
Regional manager: Full access, shops that are part of his/her group (can be found here)
Shop manager: Limited access, own shop/s
Remaining titles: No access
Full access: Access, read, write.
No access: Menu entry not available, no access.
Limited access: Access, read, write (write only daily budgets). Monthly numbers are accessible but not permitted to do changes and Save. Daily budgets always auto-index (alter remaining days) if changes are done for a day).
Help & Support
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