Forecasting demand in Katana helps you maintain optimal stock levels by predicting future sales using both historical data and manual inputs.
Whether you're preparing for a seasonal spike, a sales event like Black Friday, or launching a brand-new product, demand forecasting ensures your inventory is ready.
Note: The Planning and Forecasting add-on can be added to the Standard plan, and is automatically included in all other plans.
What is forecast demand?
Katana automatically analyzes your historical sales data to calculate forecasted demand for each item. You can:
Let Katana handle forecasts automatically,
Or manually enter your own weekly or monthly predictions.
This flexibility ensures better planning for:
Seasonal peaks (e.g., summer sales)
Promotional periods (e.g., Black Friday)
New product launches without sales history
Activating forecast demand
To begin, enable forecasting:
Go to the Plan screen.
Toggle on Activate forecast demand at the top of the screen.
Once enabled, Katana will display forecasted demand in the item's detail view.
Editing a weekly forecast
You can manually edit the forecast for any week:
From the Plan screen, click on an item to open its detail view.
Locate the Forecast demand section.
Click on the cell for the week you want to change.
Enter your custom forecast quantity.
You can click the edit icon to view the automatically calculated forecast for comparison.
To revert to the automatic forecast:
Simply delete your manually entered value from the cell.
Editing a monthly forecast
You can also forecast on a monthly level:
Navigate to the Monthly view inside the item detail.
Click on a month and enter your forecast number.
Example:
If you edit a Weekly forecast and the week is in two different months, then both months are updated:
Weekly:
Monthly
Important Notes:
Monthly forecasts override weekly forecasts for the selected month.
If a week spans two months, both months will reflect the new value proportionally.
Forecasting for new products
If you're adding a new product without sales history, you can still forecast demand manually.
You have two options:
Short-term manual forecast: Enter estimates for the first few weeks. Once real sales data is available, Katana will begin automatic forecasting.
Full manual forecast: Manually forecast the full period if you prefer to control the entire forecasting timeline.
Understanding the forecast impact
After editing a forecast:
Katana recalculates In stock values for upcoming weeks.
If you see negative In stock numbers, this means you’ll need to replenish more to avoid stockouts.
Any changes will reflect in Katana’s Replenishment suggestions automatically.
Note: You might see a temporary delay while forecasts recalculate. A warning will appear, but the system will correct itself shortly.
Summary
Feature | What it Does |
Auto forecast | Uses historical data to predict demand |
Manual override | Adjust forecasts per week or month |
New product support | Manually enter demand forecasts when no sales history exists |
Forecast effects | Updates stock projections and replenishment timing |
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