How to talk your budgeting and forecasting numbers like Warren Buffet
Chances are every month your might have to present your latest budget and forecast numbers. Even if they came from your financial planning software it is still up to you to talk to these numbers, so what can we learn from Warren Buffet? While the budgeting and forecasting software might be complex yet all the numbers produced should be simple, clear and best of all conversational. That is the true sign of the best forecasting and planning software, where you send more time interpreting the numbers and less time verifying their accuracy.
So let's learn from Warren Buffet on how you should represent your forecasting and planning figures. The first advice from Warren is to be clear and transparent. Sometimes this is hard if you are using complex excel sheets, so let your forecasting planning software for itself and present your numbers in a format that is open and provides traceability.
That leads us to the second advice on how to best your budgeting software. The numbers are not the main point, they should be an aid the point you are making. The numbers can stand for themselves but they should be only part of the presentation. Once again at times it is every hard for excel to come alive as it generally fixed, where as your budgeting and planning software can accommodate as your presentation changes.
And the last piece of advice from Warren is to put things into a realistic context. As they say some times a picture paints a thousand words. We have many clients that use their forecasting and planning software during the monthly presentation. This lets them run through various scenarios on the fly and see the changes happen before their eyes in a visual manner.
At MXI we understand that to see is to believe, so we are opening up the excel challenge. Where we take your data and provide you with a working forecast modelling application that is build around your data. So you can see for yourself how forecasting and planning software stacks up against excel. Quantrix