The financial planning process is an ongoing function that, when corporations do not give enough attention to, causes several surprises in operations, funding, and shareholder value. Having proper forecasts prepares management and shareholders for exploring potential growth and required investments, and ensuring that the business creates value for shareholders in the long run.

The course starts by explaining the need for financial planning and forecasting in today’s business environment, and how to differentiate between good forecasts and bad ones. The course also explains how financial planning is dependent in essence on historical performance and perceived future prospects of the business, the industry, and in a wider range, the economy.

The course discusses detailed concepts for forecasting financial statements, starting with revenues and associated direct and indirect cost, the required investments in CAPEX or working capital to achieve the operational targets, and identifying any funding gaps, and determining the best funding options. At the end of the course, we discuss possible payouts to shareholders or reinvesting the profits in the business again.

The course also discusses preparing different scenarios for each variable in order to assess the different interactions among them. At the end, the course discusses techniques to explain whether or not the business is doing well in the long run.

This course is brought to you by Illumeo. Illumeo, incorporated in 2009, is revolutionizing the hide-bound world of corporate learning. Illumeo works with corporate professionals and organizations of all sizes to build the skills and capabilities that help everyone be an expert at their job. Based in Silicon Valley, CA, Illumeo serves thousands of corporations and corporate professionals across Finance, Accounting, Human Resources, Sales, and Marketing. The platform offers assessments, industry-benchmarked competency analyses, hundreds of expert-developed courses, collaborative tools, and the ability for companies to self-publish internal courses that promote institutional knowledge retention and dissemination. Illumeo is the place for expertise management and we are dedicated to the proposition that everyone can be an expert at their job.