Business Forecast Modeling

It has never been more important for businesses to have the skills in-house to forecast their own financial performance and support strategic decision making under uncertainty.

T102 Business Forecast Modeling will give you the confidence to:

1. Forecast an integrated set of financial statements, picking up on your last set of reported management or financial accounts
2. Assess different projection methods – moving average, exponential smoothing, decomposition, key driver analysis, judgmental methods
3. Overlay macro-economic business cycle effects
4. Evaluate types and sources of data
5. Design for ease of update. Unless it’s straightforward to periodically update the model it won’t happen, and the management benefit of regular forward-looking projections will be lost
6. Produce useful and well-designed management reports comparing the budget with the year to do and revised forecast
7. Incorporate a performance forecast as part of a business plan
8. Consolidate group businesses or operating units into an integrated forecast
9. Run multiple ‘cases’ (for example management, upside, banking case)
10. Design a well-structured model platform that can support probabilistic ‘Monte Carlo’ analysis

The course also offers guidance on managing the model build process, including tips on client management.

As with all of our courses T102 is based on the FAST modeling method, which is used by leading corporates, financial advisors, and banks who share an understanding of the importance of consistent standards in model design.

Business Forecast Modeling skills is aimed at those who need to create business forecast for their own companies or for clients. The course will teach a combination of forecasting methods, together providing a solid methodology for financial model construction that can be applied to any financial modelling exercise. As well as teaching how to construct a dynamic business forecast, the course will also help the quality and productivity of your modeling.

Business Forecast Modeling is a hands-on course with limited lecturing or speaking to PowerPoint slides. Attendees follow the instructor, while building their own financial models on their own computers; in this way they immediately practice what they have been taught.

Though the course provides a general grounding (or review for the more experienced) of basic financial accounting principles, the main aim of the course is to teach and practice an implementation of FAST modeling skills to the requirement of forecasting business performance.

Attendees should have a basic understanding of MS Excel (e.g. syntax of IF statement, purpose of $s for anchoring cell references). They will also need to bring a laptop with them, ideally one they are accustomed to using, with a Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Excel loaded with Analysis Toolpak available. Laptops may be rented from Financial Mechanics for an additional charge.