Best Practices
Inventory forecasting in My Fundraising Place is very powerful and can help you make better business decisions. It requires very little data entry by you and by doing it, you will get some great benefits!
Why should you manage your inventory in My Fundraising Place?
- Deliver on your promises!
- For some businesses, having enough product on hand is a matter of luck. They were lucky enough to have the product on hand when they needed it. This luck doesn’t always last! If you don’t have enough product on hand and fail to meet your commitments then you risk losing that customer forever.
- Storage costs
- Having too much inventory will lead to higher storage costs
- Cash flow
- Accurate forecasts are important so you don’t tie up your cash in excess inventory
- Sales Planning
- By forecasting you have visibility on what to expect in terms of sales. Knowing this information will allow you to make adjustments to your sales plan instead of waiting until the end of the season to find out that your sales are down.
- Product Costs
- The more accurate you are with your inventory needs, the better Country Maid can be at having the right amount of product, at the right warehouse, at the right time. This impacts your product costs!
Don’t avoid forecasting because you are afraid that you won’t be accurate! Forecasting is just an educated guess based on the information that you know about the group. Nobody is perfect when it comes to forecasting.
Tips:
- When forecasting for a fundraiser take the following into account:
- Past performance of the group
- The reason for the fundraiser (motivation)
- The group size
- Participation rates (based on this specific group’s history or on this group type)
- The group leader’s strengths & weaknesses
- Perform Maintenance Counts once or twice per year
- Create Inventory Adjustments at least once per month
- Review your forecast accuracy by sales rep. Some reps might be too optimistic and others might like “surprises” so they forecast too low. Knowing this information can help you be more accurate with your ordering.
- Compare your flavor percentages on the program to actual percentages multiple times throughout the season