Reading the sales forecast

What the expected figure and the likely range mean, what drives them, and what the notes on a day are telling you.

3 min readUpdated Today
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Sales > Forecast shows what each site is expected to take over the next fourteen days, built overnight from that site's own history, the calendar and the weather. It is per site, and it is for owners unless the owner has let managers see sales.

The two figures

Expected is the central figure: the single number the day is most likely to land near. Likely range is the band around it, from a low to a high. Roughly eight days in ten land inside the range; the other two are the wedding nobody told the forecast about, or the Tuesday it snowed.

Neither is a promise. The page says "expected" and "likely", never "will", and the words are chosen on purpose.

Where it comes from

The site's own takings, weighted by day of the week, the trend over recent weeks, the time of year, the weather forecast and bank holidays. The line under the chart says which sources the takings came from: Square, entered by hand, or imported.

The chart and the table

On the chart the solid line is what was taken, the dashed line is the expected figure and the shaded band is the likely range. The table underneath has a row per day: Taken, Expected, Likely range, Orders, and for anyone who can see labour cost, Rostered wages.

The Notes column carries three things: Closed for a day inside a closure period, Settling for a recent day the till may still add to, and No weather forecast when the weather service had nothing for that day and the forecast went without it.

In short

A short written summary sits above the table: the headline for the week, what is driving it, what to be careful of, and where it can see one, a staffing suggestion. It is written in the account owner's language, and the page says so if that is not yours.

Labour, next 7 days

If you can see labour cost, a card shows rostered wages for the coming week as a share of expected sales, against your target. The target comes from Settings > Sales; leave it blank and 30% is used and the card says so. The full report is in The labour cost report.

Windows

The page opens on the next 14 days. This week and Last 4 weeks show the forecast against what was actually taken, which is the quickest way to get a feel for how it has been doing at your site.

Out of date, and rebuilding

The forecast is rebuilt every night. If the page says "built on" a date that is not today, the overnight run was missed and tonight's will catch up. Rebuild now does it on the spot. Export CSV gives you the table with the low and high as columns.

No forecast for a site? The page says why, and the reasons are all in How accurate is the forecast, and when it says no.

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