It is possible to use the reverse planning, the simple MRP planning to break down a sales forecast for next year into purchase forecast.
So if you have a sales forecast and you want to know what the consequences is for the purchaser, you can break it down with this tool.
Now, if you have the Flexible Forecast app as well, you can do it even smarter.
So first, I have installed the flexible forecast here, and I’ll show you some forecast that I’ve added in here and how I want to break it down.
So if I look at my forecast per period, for instance, for item thousand in here, I have a Forecast 26, which is next year’s forecast that my sales people made.
They maybe made it out of forecast 25 and then modified it.
And if I look at this forecast, I can look at my forecast quantity, and I don’t have any sales and purchase anything because this is more than a year from now.
But this is the expectation for item number a thousand.
Likewise, I have on other items in here, item number 10 10, I also have forecast.
So somebody made a top level sales forecast that I want to break down so I can tell the purchasers what we’re going to expect to buy next year.
If we look at my forecast per… instead, this is still the Flexible Forecast app.
If I’m looking at my forecast and period for all items, I’ve also created a forecast 2026 for components.
And I want to view that from the beginning of June this year, because if I’m going to have a forecast starting in January next year, I might already have to buy stuff from June because I have a long lead time in here and I want to view component forecast.
Could also be self forecast. Doesn’t matter.
If I update it in here, I have no lines in here because I didn’t check my items without forecast.
So right now, I don’t have any forecast on this one.
Now in the simple MRP, I can now calculate simple MRP.
Before I show you how it works, I’ll show you how it works first and then explain a little later.
So I will take per month and we’ll do this exercise.
Start by January next year, taking this one, calculating it on location production.
I’ll show you with February what I actually did, but now let’s just take it general first.
And I use two different templates and they are put into the simple MRP line and then thrown over into the reverse planning worksheet line.
So this is all reverse planning, and here we have the four top level items.
Here will be my forecast items in January, all in the beginning of January.
And the remaining parts is actually my depending thing broken down through the full hierarchy.
So in here I could filter on replenishment system purchase, for instance, because those are the ones I want to forecast on.
And now I take all the lines here.
I have this action Convert to Forecast only available if I use the Flexible Forecast app.
Otherwise you could export this to Excel and handle it from there.
And I want to hand component to my component forecast as a component type.
Yes, I would like to do that in here.
Then I will clear the filter and delete all the other lines, all the production orders and transport and what else we had in here.
So now my worksheet is clean and I’m ready to do February.
What actually happened is this: I was calculating for Simple MRP.
I’m going to do the same with February.
So the template January, February, March and so on has two templates.
They’re exactly the same except for the dates.
The templates are called Forecast Next Year.
If I scroll a little right, it has no check mark in “run for all low level code,” but it uses a next template, which is the breakdown from planning line forecast.
So the first one is running first, then it runs the second one, and the second one has a check mark in run for all low level code.
If we look at the first one:
I have a date formula and it comes out of the box.
So you can just run it directly and only change the forecast name if you’re changing that.
Otherwise it will just calculate for next year, for February.
And if I look at demands and supply, I’ve deselected everything.
So I don’t include anything at all except my demand forecast in February next year, which is automatically calculated.
And I even exclude inventory and I don’t include planning lines.
This means the only thing I want to include in this template is forecast.
And I want to trigger on zero and I want to trigger on end inventory, meaning what is the actual demand at the end of this date.
And I want to also run suggest quantity to order, and I will suggest quantity to order up till the exact demand, meaning my forecast demand, and I run carry out actions.
So it’s putting it all over in reverse planning.
Next thing I’ll do, and this is my next template, it will run:
I’m doing more or less the same. Same period, same thing. No demands and supply, no inventory.
The only difference is I’m not having a demand forecast.
I’m not looking at an existing forecast here, but I’m including planning lines.
And this means it will take all the lines that are already in my reverse planning worksheet, all the dependent demand.
And then I have selected run in all low level codes.
So it’s running everything.
And I check my “skip the already planned.”
So the forecast line already being over there will remain and I will not plan them again.
So I will plan on all items that are not forecasted and I will run down the full low level code suggesting quantity to order, carrying out actions, putting it with the exact amount over in my journal.
If I take the first one, my February template, it will do exactly the same as in January except of course a month later and with another forecast.
And if I open my reverse planning worksheet now, filtering on purchase orders, marking all of them, converting to forecast—
Here in the background you can see the dates being different because those dates here are a month later.
So now if I go back to my item or look into my flexible forecast items in period and I update it, or if you have a normal demand forecast you’re looking at, now we can see it has forecast and all those lines here a forecast quantity.
And this is all breaking down from the top level sales forecast only as a consequence of that forecast, including nothing else.
So this is a way to break down purchase forecast from a sales forecast.