Course Description

Transform your forecasting from a guessing game into a strategic advantage. Financial forecasting is the backbone of strategic decision-making. Poor forecasts, however, can lead to costly mistakes. This webinar will highlight that while all forecasts are inherently imperfect, proactive steps can significantly enhance their reliability to improve business performance.

Key insights from the webinar include:

• Variance Analysis: Learn how to compare actual results to forecasts to identify discrepancies and refine future predictions.
• Root Cause Analysis: Dive deep into the "why" behind variances using systematic methods. Understand the drivers of revenue and costs to improve your business model and forecast accuracy.
• Common Forecasting Errors: Discover how model errors, design limitations, and human biases can derail forecasts.  Learn actionable strategies to prevent and correct these issues.
• Rolling Forecasts: Adapt to a volatile business environment with rolling forecasts that continuously extend the forecast horizon. This approach ensures timeliness, relevance, and improved cash flow planning.
• Driver-Based Forecasting: Identify key drivers that impact financial outcomes.  Use this efficient method to streamline forecasting and focus on the variables that matter most.
• Forecasting Ranges: Move beyond single-point forecasts to project a range of outcomes.  Explore stochastic analysis to capture the full picture of future possibilities.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize how variance analysis can improve forecast accuracy.
• Identify calculations of model error.

Prerequisites

• None

Who Should Attend

CPAs, accounting/finance professionals impacted by forecasting.