Financial Forecast & Modelling - for Investment & Management

Welcome to this course on Financial forecasting and Modelling

This course is for Entrepreneurs and Business owners who would like to prepare a financial forecast for their business. You will not require any prior knowledge.

To benefit from this course, it is recommended you complete it. After each lecture, you can apply the forecast principles immediately , in order to prepare your own financial forecast.

COURSE OUTLINE

“Why create financial projections when it is all a guess?”

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners have trouble making estimates and reducing the uncertainty in which they operate to a limited set of variables within a structured model. Their mistake is how they define the objective they aim to accomplish.

The goal of financial projections is not to guess the future. That is simply not possible. Rather, the goal is to define the company’s strategy for the next 2-5 years and create a mathematical representation of that strategy in the form of a financial model.

In this workshop, we will discuss a framework that will allow you to create the valuation you can justify to investors and that will reflect your go to market strategy.

Specifically we will address:

1. What information the financial model can give you and why it is necessary to build it, though much of it is a guess. We will also discuss what aspects of your financial model are important to investors and why.

2. Income Statement and Balance Sheet Basics: Structure, the meaning of different line items, and an overview of important ratios that measure operational and financial health of the company.

3. Revenues and Costs: We will discuss how to model revenues in several industries, and how to think through estimating relevant fixed and variable costs.

4. Income Statement Assumptions / Revenue and Cost drivers: The crux of the modelling is an ability to make good assumptions. Anyone can build a mathematical formula and propagate it forward, but the output is only as good as the inputs.

We will explore how to make assumptions that are justifiable and achievable, what research needs to be done in order to figure out what those assumptions need to be and what strategic decisions you need to make in order to set stage for how those assumptions, such as growth rates, will evolve.

REVIEWS

Attendees review of past sessions:

“A really great session. Osmond explained the entire format and how the figures would be viewed by potential partners and investors” Yvonne

"Great event Osmond. Was a very good exercise to go through the modelling in a more methodical manner. Thanks for hosting." Colin