# Forecast vs. Plan

These two words get used interchangeably in most planning conversations. They shouldn't. Understanding the difference is what separates brands that react to inventory problems from brands that prevent them.

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### A forecast is a prediction

A forecast answers the question: *what do we expect to sell?*

It's an estimate — built from your sales history, seasonality, channel trends, and any signals Mo has detected in your data. It gives you a range of likely outcomes across time.

Moselle generates a 12-month SKU-level forecast automatically, updating as new data comes in. It doesn't require you to do anything. It just runs.

A forecast is not a commitment. It's a starting point.

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### A plan is a decision

A plan answers a different question: *what are we going to do about it?*

A demand plan takes your forecast and translates it into action — what to order, when, how much to hold in each location, and how to sequence production against your cash position. It accounts for your lead times, your supplier minimums, your storage constraints, and your risk tolerance.

This is where Moselle earns its place. Mo connects your forecast directly to your replenishment plan, your purchase orders, and your cash flow — so the path from "here's what we expect" to "here's what we're doing" is a short one.

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### Why the distinction matters

When a forecast and a plan are confused, one of two things usually happens:

**Over-reliance on the forecast.** Teams treat the projection as the answer and skip the planning step. The result is orders placed at the wrong time, in the wrong quantities, with no adjustment for what's actually feasible.

**Under-reliance on the forecast.** Teams don't trust the numbers, so they plan from gut feel instead. The forecast exists but nobody uses it. The result is the same spreadsheet chaos, just with a fancier tool in the background.

The goal is a clean handoff: a forecast Mo generates and refines, and a plan you commit to — together.

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### In Moselle

|                          | Forecast                    | Plan                    |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------- | ----------------------- |
| **What it is**           | What you expect to sell     | What you're going to do |
| **Who creates it**       | Moselle, with your guidance | You, with Mo's guidance |
| **How often it updates** | Continuously                | As you decide           |
| **Where to find it**     | Forecasting                 | Planning, Orders        |

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### How the Link Works in Practice

In Moselle, a plan is linked to a specific **forecast scenario** — not just "a forecast." A forecast can contain multiple scenarios (for example, a base case and an optimistic scenario). When you create a plan, you choose which scenario drives the demand math.

This matters for a few reasons:

**Mo knows which scenario you're using.** When Mo is open on your plan page, it's automatically injected with context about the linked scenario — not just the plan settings, but the demand signal behind them. When you ask "why is this buy quantity so high?", Mo can trace the answer back to the specific forecast scenario and explain what's driving demand in that period.

**Rebuilding re-reads the scenario.** When you click Rebuild, Moselle re-reads your linked scenario at that moment. If the scenario has been updated since you created the plan, the rebuild will reflect the new demand signal. If you want to plan against a different scenario, you need to create a new plan linked to that scenario — you can't relink an existing plan.

**Parallel scenarios = parallel plans.** Many teams run two plans simultaneously: one linked to an internal demand scenario, one linked to an inflated factory-facing scenario. Because each plan reads its own scenario independently, they stay in sync with their respective forecasts without manual reconciliation.

***

**Next:** [Create a Forecast](/planning-and-execution/forecasting/how-to-create-a-forecast.md)


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