Distil's Revenue Forecast App takes your historical data and current Shopify sales activity, and applies our class-leading AI to create a unique revenue forecast right inside your Shopify store.
We also have another Shopify app that is used to move data between Distil and Shopify. This is our Shopify Business Analytics App, and you can read all about it here.
Use our Revenue Forecast App to keep track of month-by-month and year-end projections to understand how well your marketing efforts are working, and to see changes in the market before your competitors.
- Accurate, timely, automated monthly revenue forecasting
- Daily tracking of actuals versus the monthly forecast
- Up to 12 months of historic forecasts
- Year-end revenue projections, for the current and next fiscal year
- Store revenue seasonality
How it Works
A new data-driven monthly revenue forecast is created at the beginning of each month. These monthly revenue forecasts are created by projecting recent sales data into the current month. You can track daily progress towards the monthly forecast and also your Sales Target on the Forecast Dashboard.
Use the Forecast History tab to track the difference in year-end revenue in each month's forecast to understand how your store is performing versus expectations, and to detect early growth opportunities or changing market conditions.
When you first install the app, it will automatically create forecasts for the previous two months, and also the current month. This gives you useful data as soon as the app is installed. Going forward, the app will retain historical data from the previous 12 months.
If you have data quality issues or want to load historical data into the app, get in touch and we'll see what we can do to help.
How to Install and Set Up the Revenue Forecast App
To install the app, log into your Shopify store, then go to the Shopify App Store and search for Distil: AI Revenue Forecast. Follow the prompts to install the app.
To see the current month forecast: log in to your Shopify Store, click Apps in the left menu pane, then select Distil: AI Revenue Forecast. Previous months forecasts are available in the Forecast History tab.
Notifications
The app can notify you and your colleagues when a new monthly forecast is available (on the first of the month). To set this up, click Notifications under Apps > Distil AI: Revenue Forecast in the left menu pane, and enter the email addresses of the people you want notified.
Year-End Sales Target
You can set your year-end sales target within Settings (under Apps > Distil AI: Revenue Forecast in the left menu pane). This target is used to create insights in the forecast dashboard.
Custom Fiscal Year
You can also set a custom period for the fiscal year within Settings.
We recommend that you do this when you first install the app, as changing the fiscal year will reset the app as if it has just been installed: all historical data will be removed, and forecasts will only include the previous two months and the current month.
Status
You can see the current status of the app at the top of the main dashboard screen. If the data in the app is current then you'll see a green Up-to-date message. If it's nearly the first of the month, then you may see an Update Running or Update Scheduled message: we recommend waiting until the update has completed.
For a more detailed view of the the status of the app, click Status under Apps > Distil AI: Revenue Forecast in the left menu pane. Under Status you can also see the current status of your subscription, and book a demo if you need assistance.
Forecast Dashboard
To see the dashboard, click Apps in the left menu pane, then select Distil: AI Revenue Forecast.
The dashboard has three cards:
Current Month Realtime
This card allows you to track in real-time the performance of your Store against your Sales Target and also the current month's data-driven revenue forecast.
The bottom left of the card shows when the real-time data on this card was last updated. The values in this card are updated for every sale, giving you highly accurate and up-to-date information.
Metrics in this Card
Percentage of Sales Target
The large percentage value at the top of the card is the percentage of the revenue Sales Target that has been reached so far this month. At the start of the month this will be close to zero, and will increase as revenue is generated over the course of the month.
Tracking Metrics
Tracking metrics help you understand how your Store is tracking against your Sales Target and the monthly revenue forecast that was created at the beginning of the month.
These figures show the expected outcome at the end of the month if the sales performance seen so far this month should continue.
You can see tracking metrics as a percentage of the Sales Target and the monthly revenue forecast. The percentages are coloured green where the expected outcome is more that 5% above target, and red if more than 5% below target (and blue if in between).
The card also shows the predicted revenue for this month if the sales performance seen so far this month should continue.
Actual vs Target vs Forecast Chart
This chart shows actual sales so far this month versus your Sales Target and the monthly revenue forecast that was created at the start of the month.
You can see at-a-glance how your Store is performing against your targets, and when sales accelerate and when they slow. The chart also aids understanding of the difference between your Sales Target and the monthly revenue forecast.
Hover your cursor over the chart to see the figures for each day of the month.
Year End Totals
This card shows the latest forecast year-end revenue for the current and next fiscal year.
The metrics in this card are updated at the start of the month when a new monthly revenue forecast is generated (unlike the Current Month Realtime card, where the data in the card is updated for each sale).
Current Fiscal Year
The top part of the card shows data for the current fiscal year.
See the Forecast History tab for the month-by-month detail of the actual and forecast revenue summarized in this card, as well as seeing how these have changed with each new forecast.
The donut chart in the top right shows the percentage of Sales Target revenue that has been achieved so far in the current fiscal year.
Remember that all of the data in this card is generated at the start of the month, so actual revenue doesn't include sales generated in the current month.
Year End Total
The large currency value at the top of the card is the forecast total revenue for the current fiscal year. This forecast value is created using a combination of actual revenue from past months, and forecast revenue for the remaining months of the fiscal year. You can see this detail in the Forecast History tab.
Forecast vs Sales Target
This is the forecast revenue performance versus the Sales Target for the current fiscal year. A percentage value great than 100% indicates that your store is expected to exceed the Sales Target if the current sales performance continues, while a value below 100% indicates that the store is expected to fall short of the Sales Target.
Actual, Forecast, Remaining to Target
Actual revenue is the total sales in your store for the current fiscal year, as of the start of the current month. Forecast revenue is the estimate total revenue for the current fiscal year, and is created using a combination of actual revenue from past months, and forecast revenue for the remaining months of the fiscal year.
Remaining to target is the revenue delta between your Sales Target and the forecast revenue for the current fiscal year.
Next Fiscal Year
The lower part of the card shows data for the next fiscal year.
As there is no actual revenue data for the next fiscal year, all of these metrics are driven by forecast revenue.
Year-End Total
The large currency value in the lower part of the card is the forecast total revenue for the next fiscal year.
Forecast Change in Year-End Revenue
This percentage figure is the expected year-on-year change between the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year. This is a percentage of the current fiscal year revenue. For example, a value of 10% means that the next fiscal year revenue is forecast to be 10% higher than the current fiscal year revenue.
The percentages are coloured green if the forecast is for revenue to increase by more than 5%, and red if revenue is expected to decrease by more than 5% (and blue if in between).
Next Fiscal Year Seasonal Trend Chart
This sparkline chart is a high-level view of the expected revenue seasonality in the next fiscal year. The chart starts on the left on the first day of the fiscal year, and ends on the right on the last day. You can explore these seasonality insights in more detail in the 24-Month Forecast Chart.
24-Month Forecast Chart
This chart combines actual and forecast revenue over the previous and next 24 months to give an at-a-glance view of monthly revenue trends.
Up to five historical monthly revenue forecasts are included in the forward-looking view on the right side of the chart. These indicate how your store's revenue is trending over successive forecasts.
This is a visual and longer-term view of the information presented in tables in the Forecast History tab.
Hover your cursor over the chart to see monthly values. You can also turn annotations on and off using the check-box in the lower right.
Forecast History
This section shows a more detailed view of how the monthly forecasts have changed over time. If your forecasts are increasing over successive months then your store is riding a growth wave. This may point to effective marketing, a decline in competition, or growth in your niche.
The upper part of this section covers the current fiscal year, and includes up to five historical monthly forecasts. A bar chart at the top displays the total revenue that was predicted by each of these forecasts. Use this chart to get an at-a-glance understanding of the revenue trend for your store.
Underneath the bar chart is a table with the detail of how the predicted total revenue for the current fiscal year was created. Green cells in the table indicate actual monthly revenue, while blue cells indicate forecasts created by Distil's data-driven AI at the beginning of each month.
The lower part of the Forecast History section is more detailed view of monthly forecasts for the next fiscal year. All of the cells in the table are blue because this is all forecast revenue, with no actuals.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.