Financial Forecasting Posts
1. No Rollercoasters summarizes two anonymized examples of how easy it is for boards to inadvertently direct schools down financially unsustainable paths, which can be very painful to fix later, yet can be easily avoided by forecasting
1. No Rollercoasters summarizes two anonymized examples of how easy it is for boards to inadvertently direct schools down financially unsustainable paths, which can be very painful to fix later, yet can be easily avoided by forecasting
Save the rollercoasters for the park
Take-Aways:
2. Forecasting Simplified: To exercise their fiduciary duties, trustees need to understand the major drivers of their school's financials, and avoid solely relying on their treasurer's opinion. Most importantly, they need to understand what the impact of their budget decisions will be in the long run.
- The budget levers driving a school's short-term and long-term financials differ. Both have to be balanced, otherwise the school's future Net Income will be volatile. To fix these problems later will require a lot of people to accept significant changes, which will be the hard part. To fix these problems sooner requires much less change.
- Vetted financial forecasting is critical for avoiding and managing these problems since their buildup, and resolution, can span several cycles of trustee turnover.
2. Forecasting Simplified: To exercise their fiduciary duties, trustees need to understand the major drivers of their school's financials, and avoid solely relying on their treasurer's opinion. Most importantly, they need to understand what the impact of their budget decisions will be in the long run.
Financial Model Built in Tableau
- An interactive model lets you tune the major levers of a simplified business model to cut future losses, and return the school to financial sustainability
- The same model built in Excel can be downloaded
- Depreciation is decrypted in a short paragraph along with a simple example
Wade Vagle, CFA, CAIA
Get in touch at Wade@SchoolsThatLast.com