What is this?

Creating financial forecasts from the planned business activity; working with managers to set appropriate performance targets and expenditure budgets.

The result?

Financial forecasts and budgets are aligned with business plans and objectives, and owned by the managers who control them.

Recent track record:

• At a  fintech start-up, the process of updating and refining the forecasts was nearly continuous.  I built a flexible Excel tool which was used not only for the detailed rolling 12-month forecast but also the month-end consolidation of actuals for our 4 entities from Xero.  We could then easily produce our monthly financial dashboards and budget holder reports, create and flex budgets, and update our short/ medium term cash flow forecast, all in one place.

• At a fibre infrastructure  business, I informed departmental planning and quantified the financial impact of speeding up and slowing down different activities, by building a model of the business operations in Excel.  This included all key activities and timings, from digging streets through to connecting customers, and the “cause-and-effect” linkages between them.  I worked closely with operational managers to agree assumptions, building trust during this process.

• For a fast-growing recruitment business,  I built a new 5-year financial forecasting model for the company, for each geographical division and for the consolidated business.  The modelling started with the underlying commercial and operational levers, which were the drivers for the integrated P&L, Cash Flow and Balance Sheet projections.  The scenario and sensitivity analysis enabled by this model provided much deeper insights into the financial impact of key growth indicators and business decisions - particularly around sales activity and resourcing.  It also produced a much better medium-term cash flow forecast - critical for a business investing heavily in expansion.