Treating Missing Actuals Differently

LFSO and the budgeting modules treat actuals differently when creating forecasts. LFSO uses the latest available actuals to forecast the specified time period. The budgeting modules forecast missing actuals and use the resulting forecasts to forecast the specified time period. For example, suppose that at the beginning of week 44, actuals are available for week 43, and LFSO and both modules are forecasting for week 47:

  • LFSO looks backward from week 47 to find actuals upon which to base the forecast. LFSO does not calculate forecasts for the time periods that are missing actuals. The actuals for week 43 and earlier are used to calculate the forecast for week 47.
  • The budgeting modules require data from a specified number of weeks before the forecast week (the number of weeks depends on the plan-generation algorithm). If a required week does not have actuals, then the budgeting modules create a forecast for that week first. Then the modules use that forecast instead of the missing actuals. In this example, they create a forecast for week 44. The forcast for week 44 is then used to create a forecast for week 45. Then the forecast for week 45 is used to create a forecast for week 46. Finally, the forecast for week 46 is used to create a forecast for week 47.

Results may vary

Because LFSO and the budgeting modules use different methods for calculating forecasts, the resulting forecasts may be different. If there is one week or more with missing actuals between the current date and the forecast start date, then calculations by LFSO and the budgeting modules can produce different forecasts.