Introduction

Planning, Forecasting & Budgeting are 3 of the most important functions in business. Performed properly they can lead to exceptional success. Yet many people do not use the tools available to them to their best advantage. In this course, we will leverage the power of Excel to demonstrate how to improve your forecasting, planning, and budgeting. By developing better spreadsheets & models, planning is more accurate, forecasting is more precise & budgeting is more attainable. And the time to develop these is dramatically reduced.

Forecasts, plans, and budgets may be improved through extensive what-if analysis to find key factors for management to monitor. Furthermore, these tools can be easily transferred into business plans which provide the guide to the overall performance of the firm.

Techniques you will master include:

• Goal seek

• Scenario manager

• Sensitivity analysis

• Solver

• Decision models

The course's usefulness is enhanced by the fact that it is designed to apply to both Excel ’03 & ‘07 - to enable you to use it more effectively.

The course demonstrates every technique discussed using Excel® templates that will be provided to all delegates so bring your laptop to optimize the experience.

Course Objectives 

On completion of this course delegates will be able to:

• Fully understand the various Excel tools available to perform planning, forecasting & budgeting

• Perform sophisticated “what-if” scenarios to improve decision making

• Know what Excel techniques to use in a given situation

• Properly use some of the most advanced spreadsheet techniques

• Know when to take a chance & when not to

• Learn to use & expand a range of Excel models (provided)

Target Audience

This program is designed for:

• Finance professionals, financial analysts, and accountants involved in budgeting, forecasting, and financial planning.
• Business analysts and data analysts responsible for decision support and reporting.
• Planning and budgeting officers working in corporate finance, strategy, or operations departments.
• Managers and supervisors who need to build or interpret financial models and performance forecasts.
• Professionals involved in business planning, investment analysis, and scenario evaluation.
• Individuals seeking to strengthen advanced Excel skills for financial modeling and decision-making.
• Anyone responsible for developing or managing budgets, forecasts, and strategic business plans.

Course Outlines 

Day 1: Introduction to Spreadsheets using Excel

• Worksheet fundamentals

• Using the F4 key for Relative & Absolute cell references

• Expose ALL formulas in a worksheet using the built-in function for faster review

• Naming cells & ranges for quicker, more accurate work

• Freeze panes, columns & rows for easier viewing while scrolling

• Protecting cells & ranges to stabilize models

• Function wizard benefits

• Linking cells from various worksheets to reduce errors

• Secret keyboard shortcuts

• Case study: create, build & protect a reusable template

Day 2: Proper Planning

• Introduction to planning

• What-if analysis

  • scenario analysis techniques

  • sensitivity analysis using spinners & scroll bars

• Economic Order Quantity (EOQ)

• Build out Data tables to see an entire range of options

• 1-way Data tables

• 2-way Data tables

• Maximizing vs. optimizing techniques

• Utilizing The Goal Seek command to calculate a reverse equation

• Using Solver to calculate optimal product mix, distribution problems & capital budgeting

• Case study & template for using Solver to plan the Optimal product mix

Day 3: Fantastic Forecasting

• What is forecasting?

• Qualitative techniques & their uses

• Quantitative techniques & their uses

  • Smoothing techniques

  • Regression analysis

  • Time series analysis

• Forecasting growth rates for verification

• Internal (IGR)

• Sustainable (SGR)

• MIN and MAX functions

• MEDIAN, MODE & AVERAGE functions

• GEOMEAN to calculate Average Growth Rate (AGR)

• When to use RANK, QUARTILE & PERCENTILE

• Case study & template: Use the GEOMEAN function to calculate your AGR

Day 4: Beyond Budgeting

• What is the budget?

• How to build a simple budget

• Build a Flexible Budget Model

• Build out a complete budget

  • Operating budget elements

  • Financial budget elements

  • Linking them

• What is the Variance Analysis report & why is it important to improve your budget

• Calculating variance analysis to see what must be changed

• Case study & template: Build a complete budget

Day 5: Putting it together – building the comprehensive model

• Build your planning model

• Build your forecasting model

• Build your budgeting model

• Link these together

• Leverage optimization through a capital structure (Case study Example)

• Bond buybacks (Case study Example)