Adjust values in a forecast

An adjustment provides sales managers or sellers the ability to estimate the final amount that they expect for a forecast's opportunities to bring in at the close of the forecast period. Sales managers have the ability to adjust their own or a direct report's forecast. For example, if the sales manager thinks that one of their direct report's best-case opportunities might have more value than the proposed value, they can increase the value in the forecast. On saving the adjustment, the changes will be rolled up to the parent record and up the hierarchy.

Why should you adjust values?

When to adjust: Your forecast automatically pulls data from your opportunities. However, you may have pipeline knowledge that isn't yet captured in the system — for example, a verbal commitment from a customer, a deal that paused and is expected to return, or a known risk on a high-value opportunity. Adjustments let you account for these factors without waiting for opportunity data to be updated.

When NOT to adjust: If underlying opportunities are outdated, update the opportunities directly instead of masking the issue with an adjustment. If a deal fell through, close the opportunity as Lost — don't adjust its value to zero.

Adjust a value in a forecast

To make adjustments, a forecast column must be set as editable. While configuring a forecast, the forecast owner must identify and set the editable columns through the Allow adjustments option in the Layout section of the forecast configuration. To learn more, see configure columns.

The following types of adjustments can be made to a forecast value:

• Direct Adjustment: You changed a specific cell value directly (for example, increased Pipeline from $10K to $15K). This change rolls up to your manager's totals. A direct adjustment can be reverted.

• Indirect Adjustment: Someone else in the hierarchy made an adjustment that propagated to your row. For example, your manager adjusted their own total, and that change is reflected in your values. Visible in the adjustment History tab.

• Calculated value: The system-computed value when no direct or indirect adjustments have been made.

To adjust a value in a forecast

1. In the Sales Hub site map, select Forecasts and then open a forecast.

2. Hover over the cell that you want to adjust.
   A pencil icon appears — select it to open the adjustment dialog. The pencil icon appears only on columns that your admin sets as adjustable in the forecast configuration. Learn more in configure columns in a forecast.

   

3. On the Adjustment tab, enter the value and add a note for the adjustment. For example, the Pipeline column is configured as adjustable and you know that Nicolas Frizzell has a pipeline revenue of $20,000 instead of the existing value, $11,752.16. Enter the value as 20000. You can see that the actual system-calculated value for the forecast, based on existing data, is $10,000.

4. Select Adjust.
   The new value is displayed in the Pipeline column for Nicolas Frizzell. The adjusted value is also rolled up to the top of the hierarchy from Nicolas's manager.

5. You can roll back the value if you think it was inappropriately adjusted from the system-calculated value. Open the adjustment dialog box, and then select Reset.

6. In the dialog that appears, specify the reason for resetting the value and select Reset.

   The note is added to the history of adjustments for reference for other users and the value is rolled back to the system-calculated value. The indirect adjustment values that are added to the top of the hierarchy are also rolled back.

7. To view the history of the adjustable forecast, open the adjustment dialog box and select the History tab.

Can't find the feature in your app?

There are a few possibilities:

• You don't have the necessary license to use this feature. Check out the comparison table and the licensing guide to see which features are available with your license.
• You don't have the necessary security role to use this feature.
  • To configure or setup a feature, you need to have the Administration and customization roles
  • To use sales-related features, you need to have the Primary sales roles
  • Some tasks require specific Functional roles.
• Your administrator hasn't turned on the feature.
• Your organization is using a custom app. Check with your administrator for exact steps. The steps described in this article are specific to the out-of-the-box Sales Hub and Sales Professional apps.

Related information

Project accurate revenue with sales forecasting
View a forecast