Running Account Revenue Forecasts

Account forecasts include revenue from services credits, using records on the following objects:

  • Services Credits Allocation
  • Services Credits Customer Purchase

Prerequisites

For services credits to be included in account revenue forecasts, an administrator must take the following action:

  1. Select Include Services Credits on the active revenue forecast setup record.
  2. [Optional] Configure the Exclude from Forecast Account Field setting on the active revenue forecast setup record.

For more information on setting up account revenue forecasts, see Including Services Credits in Services Forecasts.

Warning:

Services Forecasting is Beta functionality in this release. Further development is required to deliver a fully functional solution. Contact Certinia Support.

Running a Revenue Forecast on an Account

To run an account revenue forecast:

  1. On an account record, click Actions | Services Forecasting | Run Services Forecast.

  2. On the Revenue Forecast Batch Status related list, refresh the page to check the status of the forecast in the Revenue Forecast Processing Status field:

    • If a status of "Pending" or "Processing" is displayed, refresh the page to update the field until it shows "Complete".
    • If a status of "Error" is displayed, check the Revenue Forecast Batch Logs related list to view the details.

For information on viewing the data generated by Revenue Forecasting, see Viewing Revenue Forecast Records.

Calculating Revenue from Services Credits Customer Purchases

For a services credits customer purchase record to be included, the record must:

  • Look up to the account being forecasted.
  • Have a value of more than 0 in the Services Credits Available field.

  • Have a recognition method of one of the following:

    • Deliverable
    • Equal Split: Months
    • Equal Split: Months/Actual Days in Part Periods
    • Equal Split: Months/Part Periods
    • Equal Split: Days
    • Equal Split: 4,4,5

The following calculation is used to calculate the total revenue on a services credits customer purchase record:

Total revenue = Value in the Services Credits Available field * Value in the Internal Value per Credit Number field

Using the appropriate recognition method:

  • The Deliverable calculation uses the total revenue for a services credits customer purchase record in the month that contains the services credit expiry date.
  • The Equal Split calculation uses the total revenue between the start date and expiry date on the services credits customer purchase record.

For Equal Split calculations, for each monthly time period, a revenue forecast record is generated containing a revenue forecast type that covers the relevant services credit customer purchases. The fields on the revenue forecast type record are completed as follows:

  • Account: Lookup to the account related to the services credits customer purchase.
  • Time Period: The monthly time period this equal split portion of revenue applies to.
  • Revenue Source: Services Credits: Unallocated.
  • Revenue Type: Forecast.
  • Scheduled Revenue: Monthly amount from equal split calculation.

For more information, see Services Credits Customer Purchase.

For Equal Split calculations that contain a closed monthly time period, the total revenue from unallocated services credits is spread between the first open time period and the expiry date. This means there is no revenue pending recognition within the closed time period. For more information on expiring services credits, see Expiring Services Credits.

Note:

If there are no open time periods, any scheduled revenue is lost.

Calculating Revenue from Services Credits Allocations

For a services credits allocation record to be included, the record must:

  • Look up to the account being forecasted.
  • Have an allocation type of Expiry.
  • Have a recognition method of Deliverable.

For each monthly time period, a revenue forecast record is generated containing a revenue forecast type that covers the relevant services credits allocations. The fields on the revenue forecast type record are completed as follows:

  • Account: Lookup to the account related to the services credits allocation.
  • Time Period: The monthly time period containing the created date of the services credits allocation record.
  • Revenue Source: Services Credits: Expired.
  • Revenue Type: Actuals.
  • Revenue Pending Recognition: The value from the Internal Value of Credits Number field on the services credits allocation record.

For more information, see Services Credits Allocation.

Troubleshooting

To check the progress of the jobs:

  1. From Setup, select Environments | Jobs | Apex Jobs.
  2. Check the queueable jobs starting with RFQ or RFQA.

If an Async Apex job has exceeded Salesforce platform governor limits:

  1. Select the Revenue Forecast Setup tab.
  2. Edit the revenue forecast setup record that is set to Active.
  3. Reduce the value in the Account Batch Size field.
  4. Save the revenue forecast setup record and run the batch job.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until Salesforce limits are no longer exceeded.
Tip:

If you reduce the value in the Account Batch Size field to 1 and the batch job is still exceeding Salesforce platform governor limits, reduce the value in the Account Scheduler Batch Size field and keep reducing it until the batch job completes successfully.

In some circumstances, a revenue forecast batch job can fail to complete successfully and not report the error. This might happen if, for example, you abort a batch job that is in progress. If this happens and you want to run the job again, you must first check that the process has definitely failed. If it has, delete the relevant revenue forecast batch lock record before running the job again.