Written by Nils R. | Jan 21, 2021 8:00:00 AM
What is
a
Forecast for New Retail Store Opening
? New retail store forecasts and budgets are considered essential planning tools in retail corporations and are used by financial managers and analysts to forecast revenues and expenses for a planned store opening. Some of the main functionality in this type of forecast model is that it allows the user to select data from a similar existing store that automatically will be pulled into the model. The user also selects the start (store opening) month, which will zero out prior months that year. At this point the forecast can be saved and it is done, or you can adjust any of the figures and then save.. An example of this type of forecast model can be found below.
Purpose of
Automated Forecasts for New Store Openings Retail businesses use Automated Forecast Models to provide a very quick and easy way to create a forecast for a new store location based on actual or budget data from a similar size, existing store. It also makes it easy to perform what-if analysis and simulations related to potential store openings. When used as part of good business practices in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) department, a company can improve its decisions, timing and success with business expansions as well as reduce the chances that poor financial planning results in bigger, operational issues.
Automated Forecasts for New Store Opening
- Example Here is an example of an Automated Financial Forecast Model for a new store based on data from an existing store location. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Example of an Automated Forecast for New Retail Store Opening[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here
Who Uses This Type of
Forecast model
? The typical users of this type of forecast model are: Store planners, CFOs and analysts.
Other
Forecast model
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Automated Forecasts for New Store Openings Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Automated Profit & Loss forecasts, along with general sales forecasts and budgets, sales dashboards, KPI dashboards, consolidation reports, balance sheets and cash flow statements and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from management systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
