Feature
Sales forecasting in Naffes CRM: quotas and stage-based forecast categories
The Forecast page in Naffes CRM puts the team's quota, and each rep's, next to Closed Won, Commit, Best Case and Pipeline for the month, quarter or year. It is included in the Pro and Enterprise plans and in the 14-day free trial.
The question a forecast has to answer
Halfway through any quarter a sales manager asks one thing: will we hit the number, and if not, where does the gap have to come from? Answering it takes three ingredients: a clear quota per rep, a trustworthy category on every open deal, and clean closed-won figures. Naffes builds all three into the system. Admins set quotas, categories follow from each deal's stage, and a deal can only be marked Won with an amount above zero and a linked contact or company, so empty wins never inflate the closed number.
The forecast runs on visible rules, not a black-box model. Anyone on the team can see why a deal is in Commit: either it sits in the last stretch of its pipeline, or a manager put it there and their name is on the change.
How each deal gets its forecast category
Every deal has a forecast category. Won deals are Closed Won and lost deals are Omitted. An open deal takes its category from where its stage sits in its pipeline: stages in the last quarter of the pipeline are Commit, stages in the middle are Best Case, and stages in the first quarter are Pipeline. Because the rule is proportional, it behaves the same in a 3-stage pipeline as in a 9-stage one.
| Stage | Position | Automatic category for an open deal |
|---|---|---|
| Qualified | 1 of 5 | Pipeline |
| Contact Made | 2 of 5 | Best Case |
| Proposal | 3 of 5 | Best Case |
| Negotiation | 4 of 5 | Commit |
| Won | 5 of 5 | Commit while the deal is still open; Closed Won once it is marked Won |
The last row catches teams out. Dragging a card into the Won column on the board does not win the deal, because dragging never changes a deal's status. The deal stays in Commit until someone marks it Won, and only then does it count as Closed Won.
When a manager knows something the stage does not, they override it from the forecast card on the deal page: click Override, choose Pipeline, Best Case, Commit or Omitted, and add an optional reason such as 'CFO verbally committed for quarter end'. The card then shows a Manager override badge and who set it, and the Auto (from stage) option hands the deal back to the rule. Everyone else sees the category on the deal page but cannot change it.
Quotas and attainment on the Forecast page
Open Forecast
In the sidebar's Insights section, choose Forecast.
Pick the period
This month, This quarter (the default) or This year. Periods follow calendar months, quarters and years.
Set quotas
An admin clicks Set quotas, enters each rep's quota amount for the period on screen and clicks Save quotas.
Read the team card and rep cards
The team card shows quota, Closed, Commit, Best Case, Pipeline and attainment. Below it, one card per rep, sorted from highest attainment to lowest.
How to read it: the team's quarterly quota is SAR 1,200,000 and Closed Won so far is 540,000, so attainment is 45% (closed won divided by quota). Commit adds 300,000, which puts closed plus committed at 840,000, or 70% of quota. The remaining 360,000 has to come from Best Case. If Best Case holds only 250,000, the manager knows today that the team needs new deals or faster movement in Pipeline, instead of finding out in the last week of the quarter.
Tools that make the forecast easier to trust
- Forecast view on the Deals list: groups deals by close month, quarter, pipeline or owner, and shows each group's total and weighted value, its won/open/lost split and its largest deals.
- Metrics rail beside the list: pipeline value, weighted value by stage probability, won this month, win rate with average sales-cycle days, the value of at-risk deals and the number of stuck deals.
- Win probability per stage: set by admins when they configure pipeline stages, together with each stage's typical days.
- Stuck-deal flags: a deal that overstays its stage's typical days is flagged Watch, then Stuck, then Frozen (at 1x, 2x and 3x by default), so a Commit deal cannot go quiet unnoticed.
- Deal health score: a 0 to 100 score on every open deal, with a breakdown of its factors, worth a look before a manager lifts a deal into Commit.
- Ready-made dashboard: the Pipeline health and forecast template installs in one click from the dashboard gallery, and its widgets can be edited.
Where the forecast stops
- Quotas, attainment, forecast categories and overrides are on Pro and Enterprise, not Free or Starter. On other plans the screen shows a card explaining the feature with an Upgrade button.
- There is no AI- or machine-learning-predicted win probability; the forecast is stage- and rule-based.
- Only admins set quotas and override categories, and Closed Won cannot be chosen as a manual override.
- What-if scenarios, sales goals, forecast snapshots and the forecast waterfall have no screen in the app today.
- Each workspace counts in one currency with no exchange rates, and periods are calendar-based, with no custom fiscal year.
Questions
Questions 4
Does Naffes predict win probability with AI?
No. A deal's category comes from its stage position or a manager override, and weighted value uses the win probability you set on each stage. The AI deal summary can inform the call, but it never changes the category.
Who can change a deal's forecast category?
Admins only, with an optional reason saved alongside the name of whoever set it. Reps see the category on the deal page and can ask their manager to move a deal up.
Is forecasting on the Free plan?
The Forecast page, with quotas and categories, is included in Pro and Enterprise, and you can try it free for 14 days with no card. Without Pro, the Deals list still offers its Forecast view, which groups deals by close month with their weighted value. Plan details are on the pricing page.
What if we run more than one pipeline?
Each deal is categorised by its stage's position within its own pipeline, so a short renewals pipeline and a long projects pipeline each map on their own stages, and the Forecast page then totals the whole team.