# Demand planning

{% hint style="info" %}
User permissions: Budgets & Forecasts and Manage Budgets & Forecasts
{% endhint %}

While most of the information in this user documentation is focused on sales and financial use cases, the Budgets & Forecasts module can also be used with purchasing and inventory databases to help you make decisions around demand. This includes decisions on the future purchases you need to make to ensure you can meet customer demand and avoid overholding stock.

{% hint style="success" %}
Watch these videos:

* Phocas Demo: [Demand planning](https://www.phocassoftware.com/watch-demo/demand-planning?autoplay=true) - overview of how you can use Budgets & Forecasts to create a demand plan that integrates your sales forecasts and purchasing data
* PUG Training: [Demand planning](https://www.phocassoftware.com/customer/training-series/budgets-forecasts#session6) - how to make the most of your sales and purchasing data to plan future purchases and stock holdings. The key steps in the video are:
  * [Create the budget](/budgets-and-forecasts/owner-and-administrator/create-a-budget.md): It all starts with an operational budget that's based on the database containing your purchasing and stock data. If that database also includes sales data that is helpful, but you can connect to your Sales database later. The budget setup includes additional measures to calculate quantities including the opening stock, sales, purchases and closing stock.
  * [Add a Lookup tab](/budgets-and-forecasts/owner-and-administrator/add-worksheet-tabs/lookup-tab.md) in which to introduce the supplier price list.
  * [Update the budget setup by adding a Lookup measure](/budgets-and-forecasts/owner-and-administrator/add-worksheet-tabs/lookup-tab.md#addalookuptab-usealookuptabwithdriver-basedbudgeting), switching the header input line to a calculation, and adding more measures, such as reorder quantity.
    {% endhint %}


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.phocassoftware.com/budgets-and-forecasts/getting-started/overview-of-key-terms-and-concepts/demand-planning.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.