Financial Forecasting: Tools and Techniques|Online

Overview

Why Attend

One of the most difficult challenges professionals face in making decisions is, probably, estimating and projecting future events. This difficulty is usually dealt with, unfortunately, by excessive reliance on professional judgement and educated guesses. Though judgement and experience play a significant role in building proper forecasting, there are certain tools and techniques that can help professionals in this daunting task. This course focuses on these tools and puts them into practice utilizing MS Excel.

Course Methodology

The course is a hands-on workshop that applies the forecasting techniques utilizing MS Excel through the use of different exercises and case studies.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

Apply different forecasting techniques that will help in making financial and business decisions
Utilize Microsoft Excel to build forecasting models effectively
Explain the different macro and micro assumptions affecting financial and business forecasts
Build models for forecasting income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements and their components
Differentiate between various forecasting models and approaches and assist senior management in understanding their impact

Target Audience

Financial controllers, analysts, finance and accounting managers, supervisors, and finance professionals who need to create, interpret and maintain forecasts in their organizations.

Target Competencies

Forecasting
Time series analysis
Regression analysis
Modeling financial statements
Applying Excel functions and tools

Note

This is a hands-on training course using laptops which will be made available by Smart. For courses outside the UAE, participants are required to bring their own laptops with a fully functional version of Excel 2010/2013.

Course Outline

Forecasting models
- Qualitative models
  - Market research approach
  - Delphi method technique
- Quantitative models
  - The indicator approach
  - Causal models
    - Econometric models
    - Regression analysis: simple and multiple
    - Correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination
  - Time series methods
    - Simple average
    - Moving average
    - Exponential smoothing
    - Expected value
Types of forecasting
- Micro and macro factors
- Forecasting sales
  - Estimating market demand
  - Estimating company demand
  - Developing sales forecast
- Forecasting cost of sales
- Forecasting operating expenses
- Forecasting key assets and liabilities accounts
- Modeling the income statement forecast
- Modeling the balance sheet forecast
Building forecasting models
- The units, quantity and activity levels
- The price and cost per unit of activity
- Pricing strategies
  - Cost plus pricing
  - Pricing: business objectives
  - Pricing: return on investment
  - Price skimming
  - Variable cost pricing
  - Breakeven pricing
Cash flow forecasting
- Using published cash flow statements
- Understanding and analyzing cash flow statements
- Forecasting free cash flows
Working with uncertainty and risk
- Scenario forecasting and analysis
- Judgmental forecasting
- Probability and risk

Schedule & Fees

2026 Schedule & Fees

25 - 29 Oct, 2026

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

25 - 29 Oct, 2026

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

29 Nov - 3 Dec, 2026

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

29 Nov - 3 Dec, 2026

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

2027 Schedule & Fees

24 - 28 Jan, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

24 - 28 Jan, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

28 Feb - 4 Mar, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

28 Feb - 4 Mar, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

25 - 29 Apr, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

25 - 29 Apr, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

30 May - 3 Jun, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

30 May - 3 Jun, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

25 - 29 Jul, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

25 - 29 Jul, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

29 Aug - 2 Sep, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

29 Aug - 2 Sep, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

24 - 28 Oct, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

24 - 28 Oct, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

28 Nov - 2 Dec, 2027

Arabic
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300

28 Nov - 2 Dec, 2027

English
Virtual Learning

Per participant USD 1,300