Forecasting sales based on historical data of food and beverage consumption requires maintaining and using accurate past sales data. Managers planning budgets for the upcoming month or year need to know how much money to spend on food and beverage supplies in order to meet anticipated customer demands and sale's projections. Without accurate historical sales figures a businesses' management team may find it difficult to plan for future business expansion. Financial managers in the food and beverage industry that do have readily available and accurate sales data can easily prepare a sales forecast for the upcoming month or next year.

Things You Will Need

  • Business statistics

  • Business receipts

  • Spreadsheet

Itemize all of your businesses' food and beverage sales data by total annual sales and per month total sales. For instance, if your food products include wraps, soups, fruits, and vegetables and your beverage products include coffee, water, tea, and soft drinks you will want to show the total sales for each of these products individually as well as the grand sum total of all sales for each month and for the entire year. Use this information to calculate the percentage of total annual sales that each month contributes to total sales for the year.

Calculate the monthly food and beverage sales forecast based on historical sales data. To calculate the monthly forecast, take the prior month's total food and beverage sales data and divide by that month's average percentage of total annual sales and than multiply this product by the upcoming month's average percentage of total annual sales. For example, if you wanted to forecast December's food and beverage sales, which averages 12 percent of total sales per year, you would need to know November's total sales--$100,000, and the average percentage of total sales for November--8 percent. Proceed to divide 100,000 by 8 percent to arrive at $1,250,000 million, which you will than multiply by 12 to arrive at December's food and sales forecast of $150,000. The equation would be: [100,000 / .08] X .12 = 150,000.

Calculate the annual food and beverage sales forecast based on historical sales data. To calculate the annual food and beverage sales forecast identify last year's total sales and add to it any predetermined food and beverage sales expected to be received in the upcoming year. Multiply the sum of these two sales figures by one plus the historical average growth rate of annual food and beverage sales data for your business. For example, if last year's total sales were $100 million and your business anticipated additional food and beverage sales of $200,000 from contractual agreements that were entered into but not yet fulfilled and your annual sales average growth rate was 6 percent, you would add 1 million to 200,000 and multiply by 1.06 to arrive at $1,272,000 million in food and beverage sales forecast for the upcoming year. The equation would be: 1,200,000 X 1.06 = 1,272,000.