How to Prepare a Financial Forecast shows managers how to produce reliable financial forecasts and projections that serve as the basis for crucial business decisions in long-range planning. It includes a special chapter on computing technology for forecasting.

Learn how to:

• Use the Delphi technique to minimize the impact of certain biases on your forecasts
• Apply moving average, exponential smoothing, and simple regression techniques to analyze time series
• Overcome problems in applying multiple regression analysis to forecasting financial relationships
• Analyze the differences between your forecasted results and actual results

About This Course:

As one course among many offered in our curriculum, How to Prepare a Financial Forecast, second edition, has been designed specifically for the practicing manager and the future manager. It provides private, self-paced, individualized study; learning and self-evaluation through instructional programming; and communication between the student and our staff of instructors through assignments and a final examination based on the case study as pioneered by Harvard University. Paralleling a business school course of study, our curriculum makes available a stable, inclusive, and continuing transmittal of practices and perspectives to those working managers who, on their own time and at their own pace, want to continue their education in management.

Few areas of study change as frequently as personal financial planning. What was a good financial plan in the 1980s may be a bad one in the 1990s. Investments such as stocks and bonds, which were mediocre investments in the 1970s, have become rewarding. Financial options that were unusual a few years ago (variable-rate mortgages, personal automobile leases, 401(k) plans) are now commonly available. The discerning consumer is now confronted with a wider array of financial choices that require using more sophisticated tools for financial analysis. Hopefully, the discussion and the analytical techniques presented in the text will enable you to establish a financial plan that will lead toward lifetime financial independence.

Timothy G. Sullivan , M.B.A., Ph.D., is a professor of finance and former chairman of the Department of Finance at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. His articles have appeared in financial and management journals, and he has served as consultant to numerous corporations and industry trade associations. Professor Sullivan is also the author of How to Budget in a Service Organization, another AMA Extension Institute course.

The publisher wishes to thank Earl M. Fretz of Moretech Business Associates; Professor Emery A. Trahan, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University; Michael P Griffin, Visiting Lecturer of Accounting, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth; Richard W. Lott, Consultant in Finance and Data Processing; and Donald Carbone, Staff Instructor, AMA Course Service, for their help in reviewing the manuscript of this course.

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