CBA - Certified Budget Analyst - Advanced Budgeting & Financial Forecasting using Advanced Excel

In our rapidly developing markets, the need for companies to react promptly to the changing environment is crucial. Historical accounting records are essential but are not enough for managers to make informed strategic operational and financial decisions. Management’s pre-defined goals should be filtered down into budgets, forecasts and plans of action.

Most of the mid-sized companies and almost the entire large corporates engage in some forms of budgeting, planning and forecasting. However, many are characterized by being not dynamic or interactive which may negatively impact the decisions made by top management. Making the right decision in such an atmosphere is easier when there is a clear view on what the future will bring. The future, however, may be predicted only from the moment when a good understanding of the past has been achieved; fast-changing business conditions call for agile planning, budgeting and forecasting.

This 5-days intensive event is targeting those responsible for the preparation of budgets, plans and forecasts and those who are using them as well. The course will start with some exceptionally important advanced Excel tips that will be utilized during the course. All of these tips coming together will orchestrate professional models that are dynamic and interactive. Very advanced tools like Monte Carlo simulation using Crystal Ball in Excel and PowerPivot (that is introduced recently in Excel) will be an inherent part of the program. When it comes to planning for the future in any organization, the biggest problem is how to account for uncertainty. Strictly (in financial terms), uncertainty is where there is more than one possible outcome to a course of action; the form of each possible outcome is known, but the probability of getting any one outcome is not known. It is a challenge to quantify uncertainty because it is on not an observable variable rather one that is deduced from others. However given a complete range of possible outcomes, one can make decisions that reduce this uncertainty. Monte Carlo simulation gives the power to solve a problem by directly simulating the underlying process and then calculating the possible results of the process with varying degrees of probability.

You will learn how to develop Power Pivots that can handle data of up to 200 million rows of data on a standard desktop or laptop computers knowing that normal pivot tables in Excel usually choke after about 30,000 rows of data or so. In addition, there are numerous other features in PowerPivot that will enrich the analysis of your data. For example, a powerpivot can read data from different ranges which is something a normal pivot table cannot accomplish. A professional case study will examine the interactions within a powerpivot example that will be a guide of something that can be implemented upon the completion of the course. The course is very hands on and practical in nature. That is what the trainer has been renowned for in different countries around the world. Please bring your laptop with Excel 2010 or higher. PowerPivots don’t work on Excel 2007.