Course Description

Annual budgets quickly lose their accuracy and relevance as the fiscal year progresses. A rolling forecast is a tool many companies have implemented to maintain an accurate financial picture of the future and to continuously promote strategic thinking. Some companies replace traditional budgets with rolling forecasts and other processes.

Rolling forecasts provide:

• Better readiness for a changing business environment
• Improved cash flow planning
• More meaningful variance reporting

The best practice use of rolling forecasts begins by clarifying the roles of budgets and forecasts. Specifically, forecast accuracy is increased by separating it from performance management and compensation processes. This improves forecast accuracy.

The efficiency needed to perform forecasts throughout the year is achieved through driver-based forecasting. You'll learn how to build these forecasts. Eliminating traditional budgeting also frees up resources for rolling forecasts.

The course then explains how to implement rolling forecasts. You'll learn the key implementation decisions and steps. I'll show sample reports and how to build them. Rolling forecasts can be built via spreadsheets can be built with spreadsheets, business intelligence (BI) software, or forecasting software. We'll look at the pros and cons of each. 

Rolling forecasts have many benefits, but they won't solve all your problems. They may create some new challenges for you. I'll list some challenges you may face and ideas to mitigate them.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize the benefits and challenges of rolling forecasts
• Recall how to build a driver-based forecast
• Identify the steps for building rolling forecasts

Prerequisites

• None