Forecast Roll-Up Template: What Every Sales Manager Submits Before the Call

What is a forecast roll-up template supposed to produce?

One number per manager, the deal-level evidence behind it, and the named risk that would break it. Most roll-ups produce only the first part. A spreadsheet arrives with a total, the total gets added to other totals, and by the time it reaches the CRO nobody can reconstruct which deals it depends on.

The template below fixes that by forcing three things into the same submission: the number, the deals carrying it, and the delta from last week. A number without a delta hides slippage. A delta without deals hides who moved. The submission takes a manager about fifteen minutes once the deal grid is clean, and it makes the forecast call a conversation about changes rather than a round of reading figures aloud.

What fields belong in the manager roll-up?

Nine fields, and none of them is a weighted probability sum. Weighted pipeline does not appear because a stage percentage applied to a deal value produces a number that matches nothing. If you want the reasoning behind that, the weighted pipeline breakdown covers where the math fails.

What has to be true before a deal enters commit?

Commit requires evidence a third party could verify, not rep confidence. Set the bar in writing and apply it identically across every team, or the word means something different in each region.

A workable bar has four conditions. The economic buyer has engaged directly, not through a champion relaying messages. The procurement and legal path is known with named steps. A close date has been confirmed by the buyer rather than assigned by the rep. The deal amount matches an issued quote.

Deals that fail any condition sit in best case. That single rule usually shrinks commit by a meaningful amount in the first period you enforce it, and the resulting number is far closer to what actually books.

How should week-over-week change be shown?

As four movements, listed by deal, not as a single net delta. A net change of zero can hide a large deal falling out and two others being added to cover it. Close date changes deserve their own column and a running count per deal. At ORM the rep changing a close date is the best single signal of deal slippage, and a deal that slips from one period into the next is less likely to close even when it stays in commit. A deal with three pushes on record is a different asset from a deal with none, and the roll-up should show that difference.

What do you do with the gap between the roll-up and the target?

Name where the closing revenue comes from before anyone accepts the gap as manageable. Revenue in a period arrives from three places, and each carries different risk. Teams over-trust the carry-over line because it is visible in the CRM and under-model the in-quarter line because it is not. They also understate what pulling deals forward costs. A gap covered by pull-forward is a gap moved, not a gap closed, and the roll-up should say so in the named risk field.

How does the manager number get reconciled with the model?

Reconcile the two numbers deal by deal, then submit one. Never average them. When a statistical model and a manager disagree, the disagreement is the useful part. It points at specific deals where the manager knows something the data does not, or where the manager is carrying a deal the data has already written off.

Manual forecasting done well lands around 90 percent accuracy on new and expansion business, but it consumes a large amount of manager time and it goes stale the moment conditions change. ORM targets 95 percent without manual adjustment, holding from day one through day ninety of the quarter and updating as the period progresses. The reconciliation step is where a manager earns the override: state which deal, state why, and let the record settle it at period end.

How do you know the roll-up is working?

Score submitted against actual by week of the period, per manager, every period. One number for the whole team hides the two managers who are causing the variance.

Plot each manager's week-one submission, week-four, and final submission against what booked. A manager whose early number lands close every period is inspecting deals. A manager who converges only in the last week is reporting outcomes after they happen, which arrives too late to change anything. That view also exposes the direction of the error. Consistent under-calling is sandbagging, consistent over-calling is optimism, and the two require different coaching. The forecast accuracy definition sets out how to calculate the score so it stays comparable across teams of different sizes.

Run this for two quarters and the roll-up stops being an administrative task. It becomes the record of which managers can see their business, which is the thing you actually needed to know. For the underlying build, start with how to create a sales forecast.