What do commit, best case, and pipeline mean in a forecast?

The categories allow the salesperson to indicate how confident she is, rather than having the system guess based on the stage.

Commit

The salesperson stands behind this. If it falls through, it should come as a surprise. This is the figure that sales management reports up the chain.

Best case

May close, but it’s not certain. Useful for seeing the upside during the period without committing to it.

Pipeline

Open deals that have not been classified as either. They are not included in the forecast, but they are there.

The definitions must be shared

If commit means “almost certain” to one salesperson and “hopeful” to another, the figure is useless. Write down what each category means, and assess the pipeline against that definition.