Guides · Forecast
If you reconcile the forecast in Excel, the CRM has already lost.
Commit is a feeling in too many teams. Probability never moves. The board says one thing, the slide says another, and leadership finds out at month-end. A forecast that is not the live opportunities is fan fiction with a logo on it.
Two numbers, both from the same rows
Unweighted is the sum of open opportunity value. Useful for “how much work is in motion.” Dangerous if you treat it as cash.
Weighted is value × probability (or stage default). Useful for a commit conversation. Dangerous if probability is a leftover from last quarter.
Both must come from the same opportunity records the team drags on the board. The moment someone types a third number into a sheet “because the CRM is messy,” you now have two sources of truth and neither is trusted.
Quota has to be the same math
Yearly target split to quarters only works if the home page, the forecast tab, and the Monday meeting read the same figures. Saleslox puts quota on My Stats from that math on purpose — so the needle after login is not a different formula than the forecast view.
If reps see one quota in email and another in the tool, they will ignore both.
Probability is a promise, not decoration
Stage defaults are a starting point (qualifying 20%, proposal 50%, negotiation 70% — pick yours and write them down). Owners may override. They may not leave a deal at 70% for six weeks with no activity. That is how weighted forecast lies with a straight face.
Pair probability with aging. A 70% deal with 18 days of silence is not 70%. It is a stalled card wearing a confident number. Professional stalled-deal alerts exist so that combination is a queue. Details in why deals stall and the product page for sales forecasting.
A forecast meeting that takes 20 minutes
- Open weighted vs unweighted for the period. No export.
- Sort open deals in the period by value. Inspect the top ten.
- Any of those ten with no next action or with aging past your threshold come off commit until they have both.
- Won this period vs quota. Celebrate later. Accuracy first.
That is the whole ritual. It matches the Monday pipeline meeting so you are not running two religions.
Screenshot from the Enterprise Plan
What not to do
- Do not add a “manager overlay” column in a sheet that nobody can audit.
- Do not average last year’s win rate onto this month’s zombie pipeline.
- Do not forecast from quotes that are not linked to opportunities. The commercial document and the card are one story, or they are two lies.
Try it on this month’s number
Put this month’s live deals on a 30-day Pro trial. If the weighted view and your current slide disagree, believe the board and go fix cards — that disagreement is the product working. First steps: first week in Saleslox.