How is the forecast built?

The forecast is built from your own orders. Each day ahead copies the same weekday one year earlier, so a Saturday stays a Saturday. Those orders then grow at the pace your store has now. Last, the same engine as your P&L prices every order with your own costs.

The pace compares your recent orders, up to 13 weeks of them, with the same days a year earlier. Say you had 1.300 orders in those weeks, and 1.000 a year before. The pace is then +30,0%, so each day ahead gets 30,0% more orders than last year. The pace never goes below 25% or above 300% of last year, so one odd month cannot run away with it. Refunds move with their own day, so the returns ahead look like last year's. Why this works is set out in forecasting sales from your own orders.

Costs follow your rules, exactly as on the P&L. Product costs, shipping rules and payment fees apply on their own dates. A cost saved with a future start date counts from that day on. Overhead comes from your overhead book, to the day. Ad spend is planned per platform. A platform that ran a year ago grows at its own rate, and one that barely ran then repeats its last four weeks. A platform with no spend in the last four weeks counts as paused and stays at zero. Marketing spend on the Overhead page carries on as you set it up. Last year's Black Friday season repeats too, unless you switch it off.

A store with less than a year of orders has no season yet. Its forecast repeats the last four complete weeks, weekday by weekday, for this month and the next three. The forecast starts once a store has four weeks of orders. Before your first forecast is ready, the page says “Your forecast is being prepared” and fills in by itself.

This month mixes both: the days up to today are your real figures, and the days left are forecast. The forecast is rebuilt every day and after every sync, and the old one stays on screen until the new one is ready. It covers one store at a time. With several stores selected, a store picker in the header shows which one. The cards start with EBITDA at month end and What the forecast assumes, and every month in full sits in the Forecast P&L. About this forecast shows these rules with your store's own numbers, and how accurate the forecast is says how far to trust it.