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Sample Excel report for inventory optimization

This page illustrates and documents a sample sales forecast report produced by Salescast. This sample report should give you a good insight into actual output of Salescast. Reports can be tailored to fit your needs, don't hesitate to contact us.



Download sample report: salescast-northwind-sample.xlsx

Big Picture

Salescast is typically scheduled for daily, weekly or monthly batches. Each time, Salescast starts by retrieving the latest information from your existing IT system - primarily the historical sales data. Then forecasts are produced, and finally Salescast creates a consolidated report gathering not only sales forecasts, but also key inventory optimization metrics.

This page documents a typical Excel report produced by Salescast. More details are provided below for each section. Depending on the information present in your IT systems, your mileage may vary. Salescast might produce reports with extra columns (not detailed here) and eventually less. We typically adjust the integration process to get the most of the information currently available in your IT systems.

Context data

The data columns, in gray in the schema here above, represents the context, that is to say all the information retrieved from your IT system.

a) Item ID: identifier for each product or SKU.

b) Product Name: human-readable title for the product.

c) Stock On Hand: number of units readily available.

d) Lead Time: delay expressed in days between reorder and renewed stock availability. This value typically depends on your supplier.

e) Service Level: desired probability of not hitting a shortage. This value represents the performance goal in term of stock availability. Read more on setting the right service level.

f) History: aggregated sales (per day, week or month) over the last 12 periods. Those values are provided to facilitate quick validation of the sales forecasts.

Forecast and optimization metrics

The forecasts are produced by Lokad. Based on those forecasts, Salescast infers a few inventory optimization metrics. Those are represented over an orange background in the schema here above.

1) Stock Cover: the number of days left before stock-out if no reorder is made. This value is inferred from the demand forecasts and the stock on hand.

2) Lead Demand (short-hand for lead time demand): the number of units that will be sold during the lead time. This value is inferred from the demand forecasts combined with the lead time.

3) Reorder Point: The number of units that should trigger a replenishment order when the stock on hand gets strictly lower than the reorder point value. This value is inferred from the demand forecasts combined with lead time and the service level. The reorder point is the sum of the lead demand plus the safety stock.

4) Accuracy: The expected accuracy of the forecasts delivered by Lokad. This value is a percentage, and included between zero and one. The higher the value the more accurate forecasts are. We have the following relationship Accuracy = 1 - MAPE, where MAPE is the Mean Absolute Percentage Error. The expected accuracy is computed by Lokad - like the forecasts themselves - through advanced statistical analysis. Check Measuring forecast accuracy for more details.

5) Forecasts: The actual demand forecasts produced by Lokad. Check our Forecasting Technology page for more details.