Forecast Categories Explained: Commit, Best Case and Pipeline

A board member asks what you will close this quarter. You say $180k. She asks how confident you are. You say "pretty confident". Both of you know that answer carries almost no information.

Now try a different answer: "Commit is $120k across five deals, every one with a signer identified and a contract in review. Best case adds $60k from three deals still in evaluation. Our target is $150k." Same total, completely different conversation. She can see where the risk is, and so can you.

That is what forecast categories are for. They turn one hopeful number into three honest ones.

The three forecast categories

Most sales teams use the same three categories, sometimes with different names:

Category	Plain meaning	Who decides
Commit	Deals the rep would bet on closing this period	The rep, challenged by the manager
Best case	Deals that could close this period if things go right	The rep
Pipeline	Everything else open with a close date in this period	Follows from the other two

A fourth category, closed won, holds what has already signed. Some teams add "omitted" for deals they are keeping open but do not expect this period.

Commit: deals you would bet on

Commit is the number you are telling the company to plan around. If you put a deal in commit and it does not close, that should feel like a missed promise, not bad luck.

A deal belongs in commit when, in most cases, all of these are true:

• The buyer has agreed to a signing date inside the period.
• The person who signs is known and engaged.
• Pricing has been discussed and accepted in principle.
• Legal, security and procurement steps are known, with dates, and fit before the end of the period.
• Nothing in the last two weeks suggests the date is moving.

If you find yourself saying "it's commit, but", it is best case.

Best case: deals that could close if things go right

Best case is the honest upside. These deals are real, active and possible this period, but at least one thing still has to go your way. Maybe the trial ends a week before quarter end. Maybe the economic buyer has not been on a call yet.

The useful question for every best case deal is: "What would have to happen for this to move to commit, and by when?" That turns a vague hope into a short list of actions for the next pipeline review.

Pipeline: everything else open this period

Pipeline is every open deal with a close date in the period that is not in commit or best case. Most of it will not close this period, and that is expected. Pipeline tells you whether there is enough raw material to hit future targets, not what will land this month.

A common habit is to keep early-stage deals parked with a close date at the end of the current quarter. That inflates pipeline and makes coverage look better than it is. Give every deal a realistic close date, even if that date is two quarters away.

Forecast category versus deal stage

People often confuse the two, and the difference matters.

• Stage describes where the buyer is in their process. It is based on what they have done.
• Forecast category is the rep's judgment about timing. Will this close inside this period?

A deal in Negotiation can be best case, because procurement at that company takes six weeks and the quarter ends in three. A deal in Evaluation can occasionally be commit, if the buyer has a hard deadline and the order form is already agreed. Stage informs the category. It does not decide it.

If stages have clear exit criteria, most commit deals will sit in the last two open stages. When one does not, ask why.

How to calculate the forecast

Say the quarter target is $150k, and $22k has already closed.

Deal	Stage	Category	Amount
Ledgerly	Negotiation	Commit	$36k
Corvid Labs	Negotiation	Commit	$24k
Pinecrest	Proposal	Commit	$18k
Northwind	Proposal	Best case	$30k
Brightpath	Evaluation	Best case	$20k
Six other deals	Discovery and Evaluation	Pipeline	$140k

The numbers you report:

• Closed won: $22k
• Commit: $22k closed plus $78k committed, so $100k
• Best case: $100k plus $50k, so $150k
• Pipeline: $140k of other open deals this quarter

The story writes itself: you are on track for $100k with a credible path to $150k, and that path depends on Northwind and Brightpath. Those two deals get attention this week.

Some teams also report a weighted pipeline: each deal's amount multiplied by its stage probability. It is a useful cross-check across many deals, but a poor forecast on its own, because it treats every deal as average.

Quota attainment and pipeline coverage

Two related numbers come up in every forecast conversation.

Quota attainment is closed won divided by quota. In the example above, $22k of $150k is about 15%. Projected attainment uses commit instead of closed won: $100k of $150k is about 67%.

Pipeline coverage is open pipeline for the period divided by what you still need to close. You will hear "3x coverage" quoted as a rule. Treat it as a starting point and replace it with your own number once you know your win rate. A team that wins one in two qualified deals needs far less coverage than one that wins one in five.

How to call the forecast honestly

Categories only work if people trust them. A few rules that help:

• The rep owns the call. Managers can challenge a category, but should not quietly change it. If they disagree, they talk.
• Commit should rarely go up late in the period. Deals moving into commit in the final week usually mean the earlier calls were too cautious, or the new ones are too hopeful.
• Track how accurate commit was. At the end of each period, compare what was committed four weeks out with what closed. Do this per rep, without blame. Within two quarters everyone calibrates.
• Write down why a deal left commit. "Signer changed" and "legal took longer" are lessons for next quarter. "Not sure" is not.

Tools can do the arithmetic, so the meeting can focus on judgment. Heed's Forecast page shows commit, best case, pipeline and quota attainment for the period, and the Atlas summary takes every number from the deals themselves rather than estimating. Whatever you use, the categories are only as good as the conversations behind them.

Start simple. Put every open deal this period into one of the three categories on Monday, report the three numbers, and see how far they are from what actually closes. That gap is the most useful sales metric a small team can track.