Sales Forecasting Software - Top 10 Solutions for 2024

Sales forecasts are a valuable source of insights – they help you smartly plan resources and make business decisions by providing future revenue estimations. Unfortunately, less than 50% of sales leaders and sellers have high confidence in their forecasting accuracy. Sales forecasting software helps minimize the risk of errors by relying on robust data and AI-powered algorithms to process it.

However, with so many options available, selecting the right sales forecasting software can be challenging. It’s not only about finding a solution that fits the current needs but also adapts and scales as the business grows.

In this article, we explain the significance of sales forecasting for businesses and give tips on choosing the most suitable sales forecasting tool for your business.

What is Sales Forecasting Software?

Sales forecasting software is a technology that helps you predict future revenue by processing your previous and current sales data, such as lead volume, pipeline value, average length of a sales cycle, and close probability. Sales forecasting tools enable companies to predict future trends and help leadership formulate effective growth strategies. For larger companies, sales forecasts can also influence the decisions of potential investors.

The accuracy of sales forecasting reports depends on the quality and comprehensiveness of your sales data and the forecasting method you choose. They aim to answer the following questions:

• What is the expected revenue in a particular period (month, quarter, year)?
• How did actual sales compare to predicted sales?
• What factors affected the actual revenue?

Sales forecasts influence businesses’ decisions to allocate resources, change sales quotas for employees and evaluate sales performance, hire new staff, detect errors in the sales process, and manage costs.

7 Key Features of Sales Forecasting Software

There are two ways to incorporate sales forecasting into your business intelligence: purchase a separate sales forecasting solution or invest in a sales force automation solution that incorporates sales forecasting features. In either case, you need to know what features to look for in a sales forecasting tool to ensure accurate and reliable predictions.

Here's a list of such features:

1. Pipeline overview provides a snapshot of all ongoing deals and their respective stages in the sales process, offering visibility into potential revenue streams and helping businesses predict future sales performance more accurately.
2. Data import and integration features allow businesses to incorporate relevant information from various sources, such as CRM systems, marketing platforms, and financial databases, into their forecasting models. This ensures that forecasts are based on comprehensive and accurate data.
3. Dynamic forecasting based on real-time data is essential for sales forecasting as it enables businesses to adapt to changing market conditions, optimize resource allocation, and make timely decisions. Ensure your sales forecasting software can process and analyze real-time sales data and offers multiple models and methodologies of data analysis. This means that you need to seamlessly integrate your sales force automation and forecasting tools if you've purchased them separately.
4. Customization empowers businesses to tailor their sales forecasting models to their unique requirements, improving the accuracy of the forecast. The ability to tweak or build entirely new sales forecasting models allows you to change the data points in the basis of your forecasts and explore what factors affect your predictions and results the most. This feature will be especially valuable for companies with complex sales processes.
5. Customizable visual reports provide a clear and intuitive way to present complex data, making it easier for stakeholders to understand trends, patterns, and insights, facilitating informed decision-making and strategy development.
6. Collaboration tools facilitate communication and collaboration among team members, enabling them to share insights, discuss strategies, and collectively work towards more accurate and informed sales forecasts. Collaboration fosters alignment across departments and ensures that diverse perspectives are considered, ultimately leading to more robust forecasting outcomes.
7. Scalability allows businesses to adapt and grow without disruption. As operations expand, the forecasting process must accommodate increased data volume, complexity, and diversity. A scalable system ensures that forecasting models can handle larger datasets, incorporate new variables, and support growing user bases, enabling businesses to maintain accuracy and effectiveness over time.

To demonstrate how these features work in action, we rounded up a list of ten sales forecasting solutions that can provide reliable predictions for your company.

Best Sales Forecasting Software in 2024

Some of the solutions featured on this list are straightforward sales forecasting platforms designed with a single purpose in mind, while others are versatile CRM and ERP systems that serve as centralized hubs for a company's overall operations and feature sales forecasting capabilities.

For large companies, the latter is preferable for multiple reasons. The volume and complexity of their sales operations often become a challenge for a single-purpose forecasting tool. Besides, large companies are more likely to utilize sophisticated CRM software as is

No matter which system you choose to go with, make sure it meets all the requirements listed in the previous section.

1. Creatio

Sales Creatio is a comprehensive sales management platform based on no-code technology that streamlines your entire sales cycle, from lead generation to repeat sales. It incorporates features such as opportunity management, lead scoring, and sales productivity tools.

With Creatio, you can centralize your customer data on one platform and utilize flexible tools and various filters to customize your forecasting models. The no-code platform allows for the quick creation of processes, workflows, and analysis models for your sales team using prepackaged drag-and-drop components, which means that you can create custom business apps and models without a line of code.

A screenshot of a sales forecast by Creatio

Creatio provides robust tools for sales forecasting based on various criteria. Users can predict sales volumes and revenue by sales representatives, accounts, and industries, and compare these indicators across different periods. Additionally, custom forecasts can be created for any data, with the option to set up additional indicators, periods, and regions for more precise analysis.

Key configurations available for sales forecasting analysis include:

• Multiple forecasts on any entity, such as opportunity, order, or subscription, with options for monthly, quarterly, or annual forecasts.
• Forecasts by custom sections and periods, including day, week, six months, or default periods like month, quarter, or year.
• Forecasts based on opportunity amount, specified in any currency, along with drill-down entities and snapshots.
• Custom rules for calculating metrics, ensuring flexibility and accuracy in forecasting.

Forecasts are accessible through multiple customizable dashboards, catering to various business needs. Additionally, Creatio employs AI and machine learning technologies to analyze sales data and provide recommendations. Users can build and train machine learning models for predictive data analysis based on historical data and pipeline information.

Creatio demonstrates its sales forecasting capabilities in this success story with the client Visiven.

Pricing

Creatio offers a free trial and a composable pricing model that lets you purchase separate Creatio products. The core Creatio platform costs $25 per user/month and Sales Creatio costs $15 per user/month.

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive positions itself as a sales automation software with robust forecasting capabilities. The platform offers a customizable Forecast View, allowing users to monitor their sales projections regularly for swift adjustments and strategic planning.

A standout feature, available exclusively with the Professional and Enterprise plans, is the Insights Revenue Forecast tool. This feature provides accurate estimations of future revenue, empowering users to make informed decisions with confidence. Pipedrive boasts an extensive array of integrations, facilitating seamless connectivity with various digital business tools, thereby enhancing workflow efficiency. It's especially praised for its integration with the Google ecosystem, so if your company often utilizes Gmail or other Google services, Pipedrive can be a perfect sales and email automation solution.

Pricing

Pipedrive offers the following pricing options:

• Essential Plan: $14.9 monthly
• Advanced Plan: $24.9 monthly
• Professional Plan: $49.9 monthly
• Enterprise Plan: $99 monthly

3. Abacum

Abacum is the first financial planning and analysis (FP&A) platform on this list. It's tailored to empower finance teams in their reporting, planning, and integration.

Its hallmark lies in streamlining financial planning and analysis processes in real-time, which reduces reporting time, ensures data consistency, and prioritizes insights delivery.

Among its standout features, Abacum offers robust capabilities in revenue forecasting, headcount planning, and operational expense budgeting. Additionally, the platform facilitates rapid creation of financial reports and execution of scenario analysis, outpacing traditional methods in speed and efficiency.

Abacum boasts a comprehensive suite of integrations with platforms such as Salesforce, Netsuite, Google Sheets, Workday Adaptive, Tableau, Xero, Snowflake, and Personio, enhancing its versatility and compatibility across diverse business ecosystems.

It's a great companion to your existing software ecosystem to provide robust sales predictions and reports and empower your financial department.

Pricing

Abacum offers custom pricing available on request.

4. SKU Science

SKU Science is a designated platform for sales forecasting, equipped with advanced capabilities tailored to meet the dynamic needs of modern businesses. Leveraging state-of-the-art technology and robust data analytics, it empowers organizations to make informed decisions and drive growth through accurate sales projections.

Utilizing sophisticated algorithms and machine learning techniques, the platform delivers precise forecasts that enable businesses to anticipate market trends, optimize inventory management, and capitalize on emerging opportunities. SKU Science offers customizable forecasting models, allowing users to tailor predictions to their specific requirements and adapt to changing market conditions with ease.

The platform leverages historical data and real-time insights to generate forecasts that reflect current market dynamics with precision. In addition to that, SKU Science enables users to conduct scenario planning and "what-if" analysis, allowing them to simulate different business scenarios and assess the potential impact on sales forecasts.

It seamlessly integrates with existing systems and data sources, including CRM platforms, ERP systems, and e-commerce platforms. This ensures smooth data flow and enables businesses to leverage their existing infrastructure for sales forecasting purposes.

It's a perfect platform for companies looking for a powerful sales forecasting tool to integrate into an already-established sales automation ecosystem of software.

Pricing

SKU Science offers three pricing options:

• Launch for $349 monthly
• Core for $749 monthly
• And custom pricing calculated together with a customer

5. Zoho Finance Plus

Zoho Finance Plus is designed to streamline and optimize various financial operations, including accounting, taxes, sales, expense reporting, payments, and invoicing.

It's an intuitive, all-in-one platform that meets diverse business needs. Key features of Zoho Finance Plus include data synchronization across departments and applications, enhancing operational efficiency and agility. Some sales automation features such as contact management and inventory management are also offered. It's a cost-effective mobile-friendly solution that offers centralized financial management capabilities.

Integrations encompass a variety of Zoho products, ensuring seamless compatibility and enhanced functionality. Besides, you can easily integrate it with Zoho Books, a cloud-based accounting solution. Zoho also offers standalone applications for users who prefer more tailored solutions to their specific requirements.

Zoho Finance best fits small and mid-size businesses with simple sales processes that are searching for intuitive, easy-to-use financial planning software.

Pricing

Zoho Finance Plus costs $249 per month.

6. Anaplan

Anaplan is a comprehensive financial planning and ERP system which empowers users to generate precise revenue predictions driven by real-time data, enhancing decision-making across their organization.

You can forecast sales with remarkable granularity, analyzing data by geography, product line, or account. Moreover, the software provides insights into the health of the sales pipeline, enabling users to focus sales resources on the most promising opportunities for consistent revenue growth. Leveraging Predictive Insights, organizations can optimize their strategies and allocate resources effectively.

Anaplan further enhances forecast accuracy by integrating third-party data with historical sales patterns, including trends and seasonality. This holistic approach ensures forecasts accurately reflect the current selling environment, empowering organizations to make informed decisions and stay ahead in today's competitive market.

Pricing

Anaplan offers three pricing tiers with the exact numbers available on request. That said, it's an enterprise-level solution, so you can expect to be on the more costly end of the SaaS spectrum.

7. Salesforce

Salesforce is renowned for its comprehensive technology suite encompassing sales, customer service, and marketing automation products. Within this suite, Sales Cloud serves as the company's sales tool, providing pipeline management and forecasting solutions.

Equipped with out-of-the-box KPIs and quick filters, Sales Cloud promises real-time visibility into sales pipelines, enabling users to focus on the most promising opportunities. Additionally, the platform facilitates the transformation of one-on-one status updates into coaching sessions, allowing teams to leverage real-time customer data for learning and improvement.

Salesforce provides a range of support software to complement your entire tech stack. For existing Salesforce customers, maintaining software in-house offers seamless integration benefits. However, for those without a CRM system, it's important to note that certain advanced features are exclusive to higher-tier plans.

Pricing

Salesforce's Sales Cloud offers 5 plans:

• Essentials: $25 per user/month
• Professional: $80 per user/month
• Enterprise: $165 per user/month
• Unlimited: $330 per user/month
• Einstein 1 Sales (includes powerful AI capabilities): $500 per user/month

8. Gong.io

Gong.io's sales forecasting software aggregates data from various customer touchpoints, including calls and emails, and applies AI algorithms for in-depth analysis.

With Gong.io, users gain total visibility into their pipeline, enabling them to track the progress of each deal and forecast future outcomes accurately. Additionally, the platform helps identify potential risks, such as discussions around budget, deals stuck in a stage, or lack of engagement from decision-makers, allowing users to adjust forecasts accordingly.

Gong.io offers a user-friendly interface where users can access real-time information on specific forecast categories, deals, products, or teams all in one convenient screen. This consolidated view allows users to focus on strategic decision-making and devise effective strategies to close deals successfully.

Pricing

Gong.io's pricing is available on request and is calculated based on the number of users and features needed.

9. Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning is a robust enterprise performance management (EPM) software renowned for its versatile feature set.

It offers advanced scenario planning and analysis tools, making it a valuable asset for forecasting financial and operational outcomes under various production and demand conditions. The platform can run what-if scenarios, enabling users to assess the impact of different strategies.

Standout features of Workday Adaptive Planning include work-anywhere deployment, facilitating seamless collaboration among remote and geographically diverse teams. Powered by data and AI-driven financial planning, the platform offers predictive analysis capabilities, enhancing decision-making processes. Additionally, the platform's interactive data visualizations provide an effective means of sharing insights with stakeholders.

Workday Adaptive Planning boasts a comprehensive range of integrations, including the Workday software suite and over 600 third-party app integrations. Custom integration support is also available for users seeking tailored solutions (with associated fees).

Pricing

Workday Adaptive Planning offers a free trial. The pricing is available on request.

10. Aviso AI

Aviso is an AI-powered sales forecasting tool that leverages a unified forecasting approach combining human judgment with advanced predictive sales forecasting AI. That ensures precise insights into sales performance.

Aviso offers comprehensive insights into your deals, enabling sales teams to identify discrepancies and resolve them. Users have the flexibility to customize forecast views based on various parameters such as product, segment, or geography, facilitating tailored analysis.

By seamlessly integrating with your CRM, Aviso extracts and stores data separately, allowing users to create multiple forecast views. Leveraging AI and big data capabilities, Aviso goes beyond traditional forecasting methods by making predictions based on both sales and pipeline performance, enhancing accuracy and strategic decision-making.

Beyond sales forecasting, Aviso provides software products for remote sales collaboration and advanced revenue operations.

Pricing

The pricing is available on request.

Types of Sales Forecasting Software

There are two primary types of sales forecasting software:

Sales pipeline forecasting software evaluates existing opportunities and calculates win rates to prioritize them effectively. It factors in variables such as the opportunity's stage, estimated cost to close, and average sales cycle length. This method emphasizes pipeline management and determines historical win rates based on opportunity value, age, and assigned sales representatives. It focuses on realistic deals rather than those with prolonged pipeline durations or removed close dates. This software suits companies with significant monthly sales variance.

Historical sales forecasting software analyzes past company performance to project sales levels for upcoming periods. It emphasizes historical trends and product/service seasonality but does not consider current pipeline opportunities. This software is most suitable for small businesses with minimal monthly sales variance.

How to Choose the Right Sales Forecasting Solution?

Here are three steps to deciding which sales forecasting software you should purchase:

1. Define your goals. To select sales forecasting software that aligns with your business objectives, analyze past performance reports to establish clear, data-driven goals for sales success.
2. Utilize historical data. Leverage historical, seasonal, and territorial data to develop actionable business goals. Identify trends and gaps in past sales forecasts to inform your decision-making process.
3. Assess CRM and EPR requirements. Evaluate your CRM needs and decide whether you want to invest in a standalone sales forecasting system. If so, ensure seamless integration with your chosen sales forecasting tool and your CRM software.

These steps can help you identify the best sales forecasting solution to meet your business needs and drive sales growth effectively.

Generate Precise Sales Forecasts with Creatio

To ensure accurate sales forecasts that help you make smart decisions, invest in a solution that incorporates all the vital sales forecasting features and can be easily adopted into your sales process. Creatio's no-code tools allow you to modify your sales pipeline and build sales forecasting models empowered by AI and machine learning. Sign up for Creatio's free trial to get valuable business insights that help your company grow.