Quantity Forecasting
Quantity Forecasting is the Salesforce Sales Cloud forecast type that rolls up units (rather than revenue) from opportunity line items into a forecast per rep and per period.
Definition
Quantity Forecasting is the Salesforce Sales Cloud forecast type that rolls up units (rather than revenue) from opportunity line items into a forecast per rep and per period. It answers the question "how many of each product will we sell" instead of "how much money will we book", and runs in parallel with Revenue Forecasting on the same forecast hierarchy.
Quantity forecasts use the same forecast machinery as revenue: forecast categories (Pipeline, Best Case, Commit, Closed) roll up by the role hierarchy, managers can override their team's number, and quotas can be set in units. The numbers come from the Quantity field on each Opportunity Line Item, summed by category. Customers with hardware products, license counts, seat-based subscriptions, or finite physical inventory rely on quantity forecasts to plan production, fulfillment, and capacity ahead of bookings.
When unit counts matter more than dollar amounts in your forecast
Where the numbers come from
Quantity Forecasting reads the Quantity field on every OpportunityLineItem. The platform sums quantities per forecast category, per rep, per period, exactly the way it sums revenue. Each opportunity contributes one row per line item to the rollup, so a single deal with 100 seats of Software and 5 hardware units shows as 100 in the Software family forecast and 5 in the Hardware family forecast. The line item's Forecast Category (inherited from the opportunity stage) controls which bucket the quantity lands in.
Side-by-side with Revenue Forecasting
Quantity Forecasting can run in parallel with Revenue Forecasting in the same org. The two forecast types share the hierarchy, the periods, and the role-based rollups; they differ only in what they sum. A single org might have Quantity forecasting on Hardware (because production cares about units) and Revenue forecasting on Software (because finance cares about dollars). The forecast settings page lets the admin enable both, and reps see two forecast tabs in the Lightning Forecasts page.
Quotas in units
When Quantity forecasting is on, quotas can be set per rep per period in units instead of (or in addition to) revenue. Sales ops uploads quotas through the standard Forecasting Quota object with the QuantityQuota field populated. Attainment percent is calculated against units, so a rep who carries a 1,000-seat quota and books 850 seats shows 85 percent attainment. Quantity quotas are independent of revenue quotas; reps in capacity-constrained business units often carry quantity quotas only, while sales-driven units carry revenue quotas only.
Product Family slicing
Quantity Forecasts respect the Product Family picklist on each Product2. With Product Family forecasts enabled, a rep sees one quantity forecast tab per family they have pipeline in: Hardware quantity, Software seats, Services hours, each rolled up separately. This is the most common configuration for diversified portfolios where production constraints differ by family. Backfilling Product Family on every active product is a prerequisite, just as with revenue forecasts.
Why production and finance both care
Quantity forecasts feed production planning. A hardware manufacturer needs unit counts to schedule factory runs, order raw materials, and book warehouse space. A SaaS company with capacity-constrained infrastructure (database shards, dedicated tenants) needs seat counts to plan provisioning. Finance, on the other hand, needs revenue forecasts for the quarterly board narrative. Running both forecast types lets the two teams plan from the same opportunity data without one team's view distorting the other's.
Limitations of Quantity Forecasting
Quantity forecasts assume the OpportunityLineItem Quantity field is meaningful. For service-only deals, recurring subscriptions where revenue is the better unit, or one-line-summary deals where reps enter a lump sum, quantity forecasts produce misleading numbers. The fix is to require accurate quantities at the line-item level, which means reps have to enter the actual units they expect to sell. Many orgs solve this with a validation rule that blocks opportunity close if Quantity is null on any line item.
Multi-currency interactions
Quantity forecasts are currency-independent because units do not require conversion. A multi-currency org with Quantity forecasting enabled rolls up the same unit count regardless of the deal currency, which is exactly the right behavior for production planning. Revenue forecasts in the same org still convert to corporate currency. This decoupling is one of the cleaner aspects of quantity forecasting: the two views inform different decisions and never fight over conversion rates.
Enable Quantity Forecasting alongside Revenue Forecasting
Turn on Quantity Forecasting in Forecasts Settings, load unit quotas, and give reps and managers a quantity-based forecast tab next to the revenue tab.
- Open Forecasts Settings
Setup, Forecasts, Forecasts Settings. The page lists existing forecast types with an active flag.
- Add a Quantity forecast type
Click New Forecast Type. Choose Opportunity Revenue or Opportunity Product Family. Set the Measure to Quantity. Activate.
- Validate the opportunity data
Audit a sample of recent opportunities to confirm Quantity is populated on every line item. Add a validation rule blocking close-won with null quantity if necessary.
- Load unit quotas
Build a CSV with one row per user per period with QuantityQuota populated. Use Data Loader against the Forecasting Quota object. Confirm the quotas appear on each rep's forecast tab.
- Train reps and managers
The forecast UI now shows two tabs. Walk the team through which tab to use for which purpose: Quantity for capacity planning, Revenue for financial commits.
- Build a quantity dashboard
Create a custom report on OpportunityLineItem grouped by Product Family with Sum of Quantity. Pin to the production planning dashboard for the operations team.
Revenue or Quantity. Each type rolls up the chosen measure from line items.
Opportunity, Opportunity Splits, Product Family, Territory.
Unit quota on the Forecasting Quota record; alongside the revenue Quota field.
Active vs Inactive forecast type. Inactive types remain configured but hidden from the forecast UI.
- Quantity forecasts assume line item quantities are real. Opportunities with summary-level amount and no line items, or with line items where reps left Quantity blank, will roll up as zero in the quantity forecast.
- Multiple forecast types in the same org clutter the rep UI. Limit to the types your team will actually use; running four redundant types confuses more than it clarifies.
- Quantity quotas are independent of revenue quotas. A rep can hit one without hitting the other, which is the point but also a source of confusion in compensation conversations.
- Disabling a quantity forecast type hides it from the UI but does not delete the underlying data. Re-enabling later restores history without rebuild.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Collaborative Forecasts OverviewSalesforce Help
- Forecast SettingsSalesforce Help
- Forecasting QuotasSalesforce Help
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Quantity Forecasting.
- Forecasts DocumentationSalesforce Help
- ForecastingQuota Object ReferenceSalesforce Developer Docs
- OpportunityLineItem Object ReferenceSalesforce Developer Docs
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Quantity Forecasting.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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