BUDGETING AND FORECASTING SERVICES

A budget sets the financial course for your company, whilst a forecast assesses whether you are on track to meet your finance goals as set in the budget. In long-term financial forecasting, you can even use historical data from previous budgets, even if a budget was not initially in place. 

Planning involves crafting strategies based on forecasts, whilst forecasting offers insights into potential outcomes when executing those strategies in a specific environment. Planning guides what your firm should do, whereas forecasting provides a glimpse into what might occur when your firm enacts a particular strategy within a given context. 

Forecasting assists in expenses allocation, helping your team decide how to best use time, money, and other resources to achieve your cash flow objectives within specific timeframes. Additionally, it offers a competitive edge by enabling your company to anticipate potential changes that could impact your business ahead of your competitors. 

Here are steps to guide you through the process: Begin by assessing your current financial situation, using analytics for competition’s results, use forecasting software to run conservative and aggressive scenarios, gather insights from customers and prospects, research external factors, and ensure you account for every detail in spreadsheets, no matter how small.

Without future forecasts, an organisation would struggle to formulate both short-term and long-term plans. Marketing, for instance, heavily relies on forecasting to generate demand and revenue projections.