Forecast entries are among the few entries in Business Central you can modify or delete

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In Business Central, forecast entries are among the few entry types you can actually modify or delete after they have been created. Most entries in the system are locked once posted, but forecast entries give you room to correct mistakes.

You can change individual fields on a forecast entry, such as the salesperson, directly from the entry. You can also delete an entry that was created incorrectly and then re-enter it with the right values.

If you import forecast data from Excel and the import turns out wrong, you can go into the forecast entries, remove all filters, and delete entries by their entry number. Every forecast entry is created with a unique entry number, which makes it possible to clean up bad data this way.

Forecast entries can be modified or deleted in Business Central

Unlike most entries in Business Central, forecast entries are not locked after creation. You can modify or delete them, which is genuinely useful because it is easy to end up with bad forecast data.

Here is a typical example. Say you have an item with different quantities forecasted, and instead of 32 you want 40. That part is no problem. But you forgot to fill in the Location field at the top, so the location ends up blank.

The 32 could have been spread across different locations, while the last eight you just entered sit on a blank location. That mix is exactly the kind of error that creeps into forecast data.

How to correct a single forecast entry

If you drill down on the forecast, you can see the individual entries, including the last one you made. From there you can change some of the fields directly. For example, you can change the salesperson on the entry.

In the scenario above, where the location was wrong, the cleaner option is to delete the incorrect entry, fill in the Location field at the top, and enter the forecast again. The point is that you can adjust the forecast even on a historical entry, which keeps your data accurate.

How to clean up a bad Excel import of forecast entries

Importing forecast data from Excel is convenient, but a bad import can leave you with a lot of incorrect entries. When that happens, go into the forecast entries, remove all the filters, and delete the entries by entry number.

This works because every forecast entry is created with its own entry number. That gives you a reliable way to identify and remove exactly the entries that came from the failed import.

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