Item Group Forecasting

Calculate forecasts from Item Sales History and feed the Requisition Worksheet.

Item Group Code and Item History (Sales) can be used to calculate a simple sales forecast to help with purchasing decisions, which can then be used in the Requisition Worksheet.

Note: Bevica Item Sales History is a separate extension. Please contact your system administrator or your TVision contact if you would like further information or would like to install Bevica Item Sales History.

Prerequisites

Posted Item transactions Sales History Item Groups assigned to items.

Creating a Forecast

1. Go to Bevica Setup
2. On the ribbon go to Related > Operations > Forecasting > Calculate Forecast from Item History
3. Set the following fields:

Field	Usage
Production Forecast Name	The Demand Forecast you want to use
Delete Existing Forecast Entries	If re-using a forecast you can clear it first
Location Filter	If you want to filter entries only by a particular Location
Start Date	The date of the first forecast entry. Should always be 1st of a month
No. of Periods	The number of future periods to forecast
Period	Months only
Item Group Code Filter	The item group you want to forecast for. Filter from available fields
Item Sales History Filter	Filter from available fields

Then select OK.

The selected Demand Forecast will be populated with entries from the Item Sales History table plus the forecasted values. The 'Description' field on the Demand Forecast Entries shows Forecast where it is a forecasted value and for item history values shows the item history entry no.

Sales for individual items are in the history entries, but forecasted entries use the 'Replenishment Item No.' from the Item Group Code.

Prediction Rules

Four prediction rules are available:

• Quantity +/- takes the sales from the same month in the last year then adds or subtracts the Percentage value.
• 12 Month Average calculates the average over the last 12 months of sales, then applies the percentage variance.
• 3 Month Average calculates the average over the last 3 months of sales, then applies the percentage variance.
• 3 Month Weighted Average calculates the average over the last 3 months of sales but allows a bias to be entered for the most recent month by using the value.

Prediction Rules Examples

Assuming we have the following settings:

• Percentage = 0%
• = 0.7

And that we're forecasting for 3 future months starting from 1st February 2022.

Month	Sales	Quantity +/-	12 Month Avg.	3 Month Avg.	3 Month Weighted Avg.
Jan-21	67	Actual	Avg.
Feb-21	70	Actual	Avg.
Mar-21	67	Actual	Avg.
Apr-21	58		Avg.
May-21	98		Avg.
Jun-21	66		Avg.
Jul-21	96		Avg
Aug-21	69		Avg.
Sep-21	53		Avg.
Oct-21	55		Avg.
Nov-21	53		Avg	Avg.	Actual
Dec-21	59		Avg.	Avg.	Actual
Jan-22	96		Avg.	Avg	Weighted Actual
Feb-22		70	70	69.3	78.4
Mar-22		67	70	69.3	78.4
Apr-22		58	70	69.3	78.4

Calculations being:

1. Quantity +/- Feb 2022 = Feb 2021
2. 12 Month Average Feb 2022 = SUM(Feb 2021 to Jan 2022) / 12
3. 3 Month Average Feb 2022 = SUM(Nov 2021 to Jan 2022) / 3
4. 3 Month Weighted Average Feb 2022 = (Jan 2022 * 0.7) + ((1 - 0.7) * (Dec 2021 + Nov 2021)) / 3

Requisition Worksheet

Stockkeeping Units

Items must have a Stockkeeping Unit (SKU) for the location(s) that the demand forecast will be used for. The SKU should be location specific and not split by variant code.

Refer to this article: Set up stock keeping units

You can run a Create Stockkeeping Units report to generate SKU's for multiple items.

Planning Parameters

The planning system in Business Central is complex and can involve a lot of trial and error testing to understand it fully. Details can be found here:

• Setup best practices supply planning
• Design Details Supply Planning

Note that the requisition worksheet shares functionality with the planning worksheet which is used in manufacturing processes. In the standard documentation these references are sometimes interchanged.

We would recommend the following setup on the Planning FastTab of the Item or SKU. We also recommend understanding what the function of the fields is:

FastTab	Field	Setting	Notes
Replenishment	Replenishment System	Purchase
	Vendor No.	Not blank	Vendor should have a lead time
Planning	Reordering Policy	Lot-for-Lot
	Dampener Period	1M	To fit with the forecast periods
	Include Inventory	Yes
	Lot Accumulation Period	1M
	Rescheduling Period	1M

Running the Requisition process

1. Go to Requisition Worksheet and select Process > Calculate Plan from the ribbon
2. Set the appropriate parameters on the options, making sure you choose the correct Use Forecast value.

   1. The Item filter should be set to the replenishment item from the Item Group Code if you want to filter to a specific item
3. The Vendor set on the Item (or SKU) is used as the Vendor No. and the Variant Code (duty type) on the requisition worksheet comes from their default duty code setting.

   1. To have multiple vendors for an item it should be set in the Item Vendor Catalogue
4. Once you have the plan then use the standard functions to create or amend purchase orders in bulk: Requisition Worksheet