Acumatica Manufacturing Edition – Forecasting with Production Scheduling Software
The new 2017 R2 Acumatica Manufacturing Edition is key to enabling manufacturers to manage the order-to-production-to-cash process. It all starts with telling the system what to produce and when. There are two ways to do that and this article will cover the first – creating a sales forecast of end items to sell. A subsequent article with cover the second approach which is the creation of a master production plan.
The Acumatica Manufacturing Edition enables users to generate a 12-month sales forecast based on actual sales history. That sales forecast is then used by the Acumatica production scheduling software to create a production plan and a purchasing plan. The system generates action messages to buy components and produce products to meet the forecast.
Forecast Generation Steps:
- In the Generate Forecast screen determine how many years of historical sales to use. The system looks at actual sales for those years and generates a 12-month forecast.
- Make sure to mark Calculate by Month to get the monthly forecast amounts.
- Note also, checking the Dependent box means that once the forecast is created, the quantities on Sales Orders will reduce the forecast by those quantities.
- Leave the other parameters with default values at this point and hit the Calculate The system creates a first-pass forecast.
- Get Sales, Engineering, Production and Finance in the same room and review the resulting sales forecast and agree to the forecast – or decide it needs to be modified.
In a previous life, I worked in a top finance role for an electronics manufacturer and our production manager started discounting the sales forecast by 10 or 15% because “they always miss the forecast”. Unbeknownst to him the sales team changed tactics and generated more demand. But we couldn’t ship product for the additional orders. From that point forward we had monthly sales and operations planning meetings and agreed what the forecast would be.
In your meeting talk about various internal and external factors in the business. Is the market for your products expected to grow next year? Will some products decline while others may increase? These decisions and other decisions important factors in the forecasting process. They can affect cash and inventory levels and the ability to deliver product to customers and therefore the bottom line.
- If you need to make changes choose the expected Growth Rate for the coming forecast period, either positive or negative, to be applied against historical sales.
- If you need to generate the forecast by product line, use the Item Class field to filter to each product line. Use the Growth Rate factor click the Export to Excel and make your modifications there. Then use the Load Records from File function to bring the revised forecast back in.
- When you are ready hit the Process All button and the system will load the records into the Forecast screen where it is ready for MRP to use.
This is the first step in taking full advantage of the production scheduling software features in the New Acumatica Manufacturing Edition. We will cover more steps in the process in future posts. To learn more:
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Stratotech Partners, LLC. – Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Stratotech serves Acumatica customers in the Seattle metropolitan area and northwest region. Stratotech’s expertise allows them to focus on small to mid-sized manufacturing companies who are outgrowing existing systems and looking for lower cost cloud-based alternatives. Stratotech is a certified Acumatica cloud ERP and Smartsheet provider. These are leading cloud platforms for collaboration and project management.
Stratotech Partners, LLC is an Acumatica Value Added Reseller (VAR) partner. Our experienced consultants provide cloud-based business management software to enable small and mid-sized companies to accelerate their businesses. Acumatica is built on modern cloud and mobile technology and has a unique customer-centric licensing model. Our specialties include business management applications such as Financials, Distribution, CRM, and Project Accounting, on a robust and flexible platform.
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