Hidden Secrets of Forecasting and Analysis in Excel online

Sales for many businesses has plunged since COVID-19 struck. They are either affected by the closure of factories or lower demand for goods and services. Revision of the forecast/budget is imminent to identify the impact and make the necessary changes to company spending to keep the bottom line at healthy levels. 

Budgeting may be a problem if you are using a budgeting system with no remote login capabilities. Workers may not have access to the systems as they work from home remotely to avoid the spread of the virus or are being quarantined. Even if you are willing to pay for the remote login license, the system developer may not be able to set it up for you. The dependence on so many factors will slow down your assessment of the impact of the virus on your company business. And could you afford to wait as sales slowed down and company spending continues. 

Your only option now may be Excel as it is readily available in eveybody’s computer and no complex setup is required. There is no need to login remotely as long as the template can be received and sent via email. 

Jason, you have over simplified the budgeting process in Excel. There are lots of files to link and we need a team to do the linking and the analysis. You are right, if you are using the traditional method of budgeting. It is a totally different scenario if you apply our I2MAP approach. Budget can be consolidated in 15 mins and you can compare the changes instantly. With the use of Pivot Table, you can get a different views of the budget in seconds. 

How does I2MAP works for forecasting?

1. Set up a template and send it out to all the parties involved.

2. When it is completed, convert the forecast numbers into Pivot Table friendly layout within 1 minute.

3. Stack all the submission into a single source within one minute.

4. Create a pivot table for the combined source.

5. Slice and dice to review the numbers.

6. Complete the review with visualization. 

To see above process in action, we have created an online cost and it takes only 15 minutes to learn. Click here to check it out.