It is being increasingly recognised that a planning tool is required for a forecasting and planning process. The stalwart Excel has now been extended beyond it intended boundaries with management accountants building monsters that are beyond any quality assurance programme, littered with logic errors hidden in the formula and designed with out the big picture view. However, many planning applications have failed to deliver with seven figure sums being wasted as the forecasting model is redone sometimes within 18 months of the original. This “planning tool implementation” carnage is well documented. Whilst there was an excuse before, “it was new territory”, now this is not the case. We must learn and apply the better practices that are becoming standards.

If you want to migrate into the 21st century using a planning tool then this is the course for you! This course will help you build a better annual planning tool, or if you are already down the path, a robust quarterly rolling forecasting tool.

The main planning application tools will be demonstrated, their strengths and weakness identified. Case studies and reference sites will be provided. This course will also explain why quarterly rolling forecasting (QRF) is the most important management tool of this decade and how it can lead on to quarterly rolling planning.

These 3*90 min webinars are based on David Parmenter’s first section of his ground breaking book “The Financial Controllers and CFO’s Toolkit” which covers the better practices from “winning” finance teams around the world.

Around the world some exceptional corporate accountants have questioned the status quo and implemented practices that have revolutionised the value the corporate accounting team can generate. These successful corporate accountants spent more time in the 20% of issues that really matter and have been ruthless with the time the team spends on the 80% of issues that are less important. In other words they apply Pareto’s principle.

Content:

• Pareto’s 80/20 rule when designing a forecasting/planning model
• The 10 rules you need to apply
• The 10 pitfalls to avoid at all costs
• Mapping out the purpose of the model first
• Case studies where it went horribly wrong
• Better practice forecasting techniques used by participants
• A comprehensive white paper

Target audience:

• Finance Directors, CFOs or financial controllers who are involved in annual planning process
• Financial accountants and management accountants performing forecasts

Benefits of attending:

Upon attending you will able to:

• pre select the likely planning tools that are suitable for an organization of your size
• apply the rules and lessons learnt
• identify the building blocks to better practice planning tool implementation
• explain to your management why your organisation should implement quarterly rolling forecasting
• recall participant better practices

Event Organizers and Professional bodies

This course is now delivered via webinars.  Please complete the enquiry form or email to gilchrist@waymark.co.nz.

Booking an in-house course

If you have over eight staff that would benefit from this course, it is financially viably to run this in-house webinar. Please complete the enquiry form or email to gilchrist@waymark.co.nz.

Availability

David Parmenter is able to deliver webinars at short notice.