Ordering Forecast

Hello everyone,

I'm new here. I have a few questions regarding Ordering forecast. Here are the questions:

1) How can I forecast the ordering (monthly), given that I have only the past sales datas (number that are sold) of the products?
2) Do I need extra informations to forecast the ordering?
3) And How can I program it in the excel?

I really appreciate your help. Thanks.

Have you tried the forecast function? With historic month and corresponding data the forecast function will predict a future months orders based on a straight line method.

No, I never tried it before. I tried to search it in google but I don't really know how to use it. Do you have any sample using the forecast function to predict the stock ordering? It would be a great guide for me.

Thanks and I really appreciate your help.

First step is to look in the help section for the syntax. I'm not in front of computer on the iPad at the moment but from memory =forecast(x, xrange, yrange) where xrange and yrange are the historic records and x is the predicted value you want. In your example you'd have an xrange say months 1 to 6 and a yrange being the orders for those months and if you wanted the orders for month 8 then insert 8 into the x value.

Send me a copy of your spreadsheet and I'll see what I can do

Try this.

Your data doen't look very 'predictable' as you can see by the chart but the formulas I've put in for month 11 and 12 will use the first 10 months of data to forecast the 11th and 12th month using a linear interpolation.

have a look at how the forecast function is structured and if you put in other numbers into the first 10 months see how the 11th and 12th month forecast chnages.

Thanks so much Crooza,

I have another question, Is that possible to predict until february, the next year with the data provided?

Absolutely. If Jan to October this year is 1 to 10 then Feb next year will be 14. Simply put 14 into the formula (or in the example I provided change either the 11 or 12 to 14) and it will forecast for the 14th Month.

You need to recognise though that this is linear interpolation (using the trend line or line of best fit through your existing data source). The further out you predict the less certainty you'd have in most instances.

Thanks again Crooza.

Your advice is really helpful. ^^