Lynda – Making Business Projections

Lynda – Making Business Projections

Estimating future financial performance plays a big part in the life of start-ups and corporations large and small. By looking ahead, companies can proactively manage changes. Start-ups can use projections to build business plans and raise capital. 
This course is about making those financial projections: not by predicting the future, but by learning from past performance. Rudolph Rosenberg shares the techniques used by financial planning professionals to build robust financial projections using Microsoft Excel. He shows how to combine two approaches—bottom up and top down—into a well-rounded projection that will help you analyze revenue and expenses, anticipate changes, and incorporate company goals in a realistic picture of your company’s future.
Topics include:

Forecasting vs. planning
Dealing with exceptional elements
Projecting revenue
Adjusting for changes and seasonality
Creating product-level projections
Estimating costs and operating expenses
Projecting gross margin
Setting up targets and goals
Developing worst-case scenarios