CRM Forecast: Sales Forecast

See what this month or this quarter is likely to close: open deals weighted by win probability, compared with what has actually been won, in total and per salesperson.

The Sales Forecast answers one plain question: how much money is this period likely to bring in, and how much has already landed? It takes the open deals that are expected to close in the period, weights each one by its win probability, and puts the result next to the deals actually won in the same period — so a forecast is never just a hopeful total, it is always shown against reality.

Step 1: Open the forecast and pick the period#

1. Open CRM → Forecast. The page opens on This quarter by default.
2. Use the This month / This quarter switch at the top right to change the period. The exact start and end dates of the period in view are printed under the page subtitle.
3. Everything on the page — the four cards, the chart and the per-salesperson table — recalculates for the period you picked.

Step 2: Read the four headline numbers#

• Forecast (weighted): the open deals expected to close in this period, each counted at amount × win probability, added up. A deal worth 100,000 at a 30% win probability counts as 30,000 of forecast.
• Actual: the total value of deals actually won in this period — money that is already in, not weighted by anything.
• Attainment: actual divided by forecast, shown as a percentage per currency. Over 100% means the team has already won more than the weighted forecast said.
• Open deals: how many open deals the forecast is built from — the count behind the weighted number.

Watch the small line on the Open deals card: it also reports the pipeline without a close date — how many open deals have no expected close date, and how much they are worth. Those deals are NOT inside the forecast, because the system cannot tell which period they belong to. If that number looks big, the fix is on the deals themselves: open them in CRM → Deals and set an expected close date, and they join the forecast of the period they land in. This is the Docklify forecast page doing its bookkeeping honestly — CRM → Forecast (/crm/forecast), fed by CRM → Deals.

Step 3: Compare forecast with actual, currency by currency#

The “Forecast vs actual” panel draws two bars per currency — the blue bar is the weighted forecast, the green bar is the actual won amount. Amounts in different currencies are never added together: each currency gets its own forecast, actual and attainment figures everywhere on the page, so a mixed-currency pipeline never produces a meaningless blended total.

Step 4: Break the forecast down by salesperson#

• The “By salesperson” table gives one row per salesperson: open deals, weighted forecast, actual, attainment and number of deals won — click a column header to sort by it.
• A Team total strip above the table repeats the whole team’s forecast, actual and attainment, so the per-person rows can always be checked against the total.
• Deals with no owner do not disappear: they collect in an “Unassigned” row, which is your reminder to assign them in CRM → Deals.

When the numbers look off#

• Forecast lower than you expect: check the undated pipeline line on the Open deals card first — deals without an expected close date are counted there, not in the forecast.
• A deal is missing entirely: it must be an open deal with its expected close date inside the period shown at the top of the page. Won deals appear under Actual for the period they were won in.
• The page says “No forecast data in this period”: there are no open deals closing and no deals won in that period yet — switch the period or check back after deals are updated.

Docklify features used in this article#

• Sales forecast page with This month / This quarter switch — CRM → Forecast (/crm/forecast)
• Weighted forecast, actual and attainment cards (per currency) — CRM → Forecast, top cards
• Undated pipeline reminder (open deals without a close date) — CRM → Forecast, Open deals card; fix the dates in CRM → Deals
• Forecast by salesperson with team total and Unassigned row — CRM → Forecast, By salesperson table