Fourth Analytics: Sales Forecast Dashboard

Overview

Fourth Analytics allows users to export dashboards, reports, and graphs so that the data can be further analysed and shared within the business. 

The Sales Forecast dashboard displays data from Fourth's WFM Scheduling module and is available to Enterprise IQ customers.

• Customers will need to use the FA Admin app to assign users to the ’02.Sales Forecast’ Group to view the dashboard - see here for more information
   

The Sales Forecast Dashboard contains a set of Tabs:

• Overview Tab
• Daypart Sales
• Scheduling
• Revenue Stream
• WAPE
• SPLH
   

Available Sales and Hours Types

Data feeds into Fourth Analytics once daily from the core application – Workforce Management (WFM), Scheduling module.

Sales Types

The sales data is updated for the last 2 weeks and the next 7 weeks, so users can use Analytics to review future sales forecasts.

Types of Sales Transactions:

• Actual Sales
• System Forecast Sales
• Manager Forecast Sales

Actual Sales – Actual Sales are exported to analytics by location, hour, and revenue type (i.e., Drink, Food, Other)

System Forecast – This is the demand forecast generated from the Scheduling module. This is exported to analytics by location, hour and revenue type

Forecast Sales – This is the manager's forecast that can be manually entered into Scheduling. If the manager has not updated the forecast, this will be the same as the System Forecast. This is exported to analytics by location, hour and revenue type
 

Hours Types

Labour Hours data is updated daily for the last 2 weeks and the next 4 weeks.

Types of Hours Transactions:

• Actual Hours
• Scheduled Hours
• Suggested/Required Hours?

Actual Hours – Actual hours recorded within the Scheduling module.  This does not include breaks

Scheduled Hours – Forecasted Hours are entered by the manager within the Scheduling module

Suggested/Required Hours – Suggested/Required Hours are the number of hours the Scheduling solution recommends to meet the level of expected demand. 

• Suggested Hours are based on the Manager Forecast Sales
• Required Hours are based on the Actual Sales

Overview Tab

The Overview tab provides an outline view of the key productivity metrics. Use the reports to identify focus points and navigate to the relevant tab for more information. 

As the tab displays the last 6 weeks' worth of data, it provides insight into trends and is a useful one to schedule for emailing to relevant users.

Daypart Sales

These reports help determine whether managers are forecasting sales accurately and how customer behaviour is changing compared with the same time last year.

Scheduling

These reports help determine whether managers are scheduling in line with Sales demand.

• The Labour Cost is the basic wage, excluding cost elements like NI, Pensions and Holiday Accrual
• When viewing today’s date or future dates, the manager forecast is used in place of Actual Sales

Revenue Stream

This report displays Sales by Revenue Stream as configured in the Scheduling module.
i.e. Food or Beverage Sales.

• Revenue Stream Types are prefixed as follows:
  • "A_" for Actual
  • "M_" for Manager Forecast
  • "S_" for System Forecast

WAPE

Use this dashboard to measure the accuracy of the Manager’s and System Sales Forecast vs Actual Sales.

When comparing Actual and Forecast Sales, some days Actual Sales will be higher and other days will be lower than Forecast.
Being higher than Forecast on some days and under Forecast on others means the weekly variance hides the variability of the daily variance.

WAPE removes the “netting off” of higher and lower variances, clearly identifying on which day of the week there is a large difference between Actual and Forecast Sales.

SPLH

These reports show Sales Per Labour Hour (SPLH) analysis that measures the amount of sales revenue generated for every hour of labour worked. It helps businesses assess labour productivity by showing how efficiently labour hours are being utilised to drive sales.