Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning
Keep the original revenue commitment, latest forecast and approved revised target distinct. Document changes with matched scope, evidence, decisions and a reconciled bridge.
Sales-plan change control lets a team revise its assumptions without losing the commitment it originally approved. New evidence can reduce the forecast while the target stays fixed. A subsequent target revision is a separate decision. Keeping those records distinct makes performance reviews and resource choices more intelligible.
The budget-versus-forecast guide explains the underlying distinction. This guide concerns the version records, change bridge and approval evidence used for a sales plan.
Retain the original approved plan, the current forecast and the current approved target. Give each an ID, effective date, reporting perimeter, revenue basis and owner. Store the input assumptions and relevant source controls with the published output.
The forecast may update frequently as evidence changes. Approved targets follow the organization's decision rights and review process. Neither should quietly overwrite the original plan; that version remains useful for evaluating the assumptions made at approval.
Use consistent account, product and business-unit mappings or document their changes. An acquired division or disposed product line changes the perimeter, so it should not appear as ordinary selling progress or deterioration.
Distinguish commercial evidence, resource changes, source corrections, scope changes and approved commitments. A lost customer can affect the forecast. A delayed hire affects capacity. A corrected duplicate invoice alters data quality. A formally approved target change alters the commitment.
Record change ID, reason, evidence date, affected period, prior value, proposed value, financial impact, proposer, approver and decision status. Do not store a proposed adjustment in the approved target simply because it appears in a planning meeting's draft.
Apply the existing versioned-metric definitions to measurement changes. Changing the definition of revenue is different from changing the assumptions about future revenue.
The following annual values are synthetic USD millions on one matched revenue basis.
| Forecast update from original plan | Impact |
|---|---|
| Original plan | 12.0 |
| Customer-loss evidence | −0.7 |
| Delayed hiring and ramp | −0.4 |
| Additional expansion opportunity | +0.2 |
| Latest forecast | 11.1 |
The bridge is 12.0 − 0.7 − 0.4 + 0.2 = 11.1. The forecast is $0.9 million below the original target. The table explains the revised expectation; it does not approve a $0.9 million target reduction.
Avoid counting the same loss in two components. If the delayed hiring assumption already removes an expansion opportunity, a separate reduction for that opportunity would double count the impact.
Suppose a reviewer subsequently approves a $0.5 million target adjustment for a defined scope or commercial decision. The revised target is $12.0 million − $0.5 million = $11.5 million.
| Review comparison | Amount |
|---|---|
| Original target | $12.0m |
| Approved target | $11.5m |
| Latest forecast | $11.1m |
| Forecast gap to original | −$0.9m |
| Forecast gap to current approved target | −$0.4m |
Both gaps are useful. Showing only the current gap hides the original commitment; showing only the original gap ignores the approved decision. Retain the approver and rationale with the adjustment instead of making the target equal the forecast automatically.
Keep an immutable copy or controlled snapshot of each published version with its assumptions and source extraction date. Microsoft's Show Changes guidance identifies tracking limitations, including changes it does not display. A change pane is not a complete business approval register.
Microsoft's scenario documentation supports alternative input sets and notes that scenario summary reports do not update automatically after inputs change. Regenerate and identify the output version when publishing a revised review.
Identify whether the decision changes territory assignments, role capacity, hiring dates or quotas. A company target adjustment does not automatically authorize every downstream compensation or account-ownership change. Record those decisions with their own responsible owners.
Use the quota-overassignment guide to reconcile changed target and assignment totals. Preserve effective dates so prior-period results remain interpretable.
Conclude each update with original versus current commitments, forecast evidence, approved changes, unresolved assumptions and named actions. Use the sales-planning overview to connect those actions to the broader plan. Discuss a bounded version-comparison review with Covirage; a useful analysis does not substitute for the customer's own approval authority.
No. The forecast describes the expected outcome. The target changes only through the organization's agreed approval process. Keep both visible so reviewers can decide what action or revised commitment is warranted.
Preserve the original published version and identify the correction. A separate restated comparison may be useful, but record the correction and scope so it is not confused with a commercial decision or an approved target reduction.