Forecasting software solutions allow you to gather both quantitative and qualitative data about your business. You can use these applications for a variety of things, such as understanding historical cash flow in your business or market research.
We’re going to identify multiple solutions and how you can choose them to learn more about the future of your business.
Introducing Forecasting Software Solutions and Their Benefits
Multiple software solutions exist that can help with forecasting, such as:
- Cash Flow Frog, which has the ability to project cash flow and run current statements
- Pipedrive, which offers insights and reports on your business’ pipeline
- Anaplan, which is designed to help you forecast sales
- Spotio is another option that focuses on sales activities and forecasts
In fact, you can fit most solutions on the market into two main category types.
Types Of Forecasting Software Solutions Available in The Market
If you want to begin forecasting for your business, you’ll find two main options:
- Historical solutions that look at your past data to understand your:
- Overall sales, costs
- Monthly, quarterly and yearly trends
- Sales pipeline solutions that will look at:
- Cash flow
- Sales cycles
- Etc.
Many solutions focus on one main task, such as internal sales data being used to understand cash flow and company growth. You can also integrate third-party data into the mix, such as connecting the solution to QuickBooks or other products.
Analyzing The Features of Different Forecasting Software Solutions
Understanding the power of an inventory forecasting software solution is easy, but it’s important to conduct an in-depth analysis of the product:
- Does the product have a CRM tool?
- Can you run custom reports?
- Can you analyze future data and past data?
- How many projections can you run?
- Are there limitations that you need to know about?
- Are collaborative tools built into the product?
Additionally, forecasting software solutions come in a wide range of different prices. Learn about the pricing options and how much each additional user will cost.
Assessing The Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Software Solutions
Now, you’ll need to look at the advantages and disadvantages of each product. However, this will depend on the tool itself and its main purpose. For example:
- An inventory forecasting tool will help you keep more liquidity while also reducing waste.
- Cash flow forecasting tools will help you better understand your cash inflows and outflows for a specific period of time. However, these tools will not help you manage your inventory because that’s not what they were designed to do.
- Sales pipeline tools also have advantages and disadvantages, such as being able to analyze sales pipelines, allowing for in-depth project management and more.
It’s important that before you begin the difficult task of training employees on these new solutions that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of them. You may be surprised to learn that you may need multiple forecasting tools, such as one for inventory and one for cash flow, because a single solution may not suffice.
How To Choose the Best Forecasting Software Solution for Your Business?
If you want to find the best solution for your company, you’ll want to test out the software. You can do this in a few ways, depending on what the developer offers. You may be able to access a free trial or schedule a demo.
Demos are a great way to view software, but keep in mind that a member of the sales team is likely to try and make the sale.
You want to have everyone that will use the software be part of the demo and any potential training that is offered. Even a new, efficient means of doing something can have a lot of drawbacks if the learning curve is too high.
What To Look for When Comparing Different Options
When you’re comparing different options, it’s important that you focus on:
- Support: What level of support does the developer offer to help you overcome any issues you may have with the product?
- Usage level: Does the solution offer packages for your usage level? Many companies focus primarily on enterprise products, so it may be difficult to find a forecasting solution as a small business.
- Trial: Your team will need to adopt the new software. It’s important to have access to a trial to learn if the software works for your team or not.
- Pricing: What is the base pricing for the product, and will there be options to add more “seats” to the app in the future?
- You’ll want to spend a lot of time comparing each software option to find one that will work well for you.
In Conclusion
Whether you use an inventory forecasting software solution or cash flow forecasting software, you’ll find that these solutions will help guide your business. Over time, you’ll have access to real-time insights in ways that were otherwise not possible.
