preview

Expert Systems Essay

Decent Essays

The Expert Systems case focuses around a business that develops computer programs for firms in the banking industry. John Grady, CFO for ESI, needs help in creating a detailed forecast for the executive meeting and to present it to the group. Using the information given in John’s memos, his questions must be answered to help show the top managers how certain assumptions affect various outcomes. One of John’s memos includes the percentage-of-sales formula to calculate the additional funds needed (AFN) to support the projected increased level of sales. John explains that AFN is calculated by subtracting spontaneous liability increase and increase in retained earnings from the required asset increase. This formula is shown below: AFN = …show more content…

Due to this method of forecasting requiring the items to be estimated based on relations to sales figures, it is necessary that movements in the items to be forecasted are highly correlated with fluctuations in the sales figures. If there is no clear correlation between the items to be forecasted and sales figures, then that item must be forecasted using a different technique. Here is a very simple example; if, after examining and analyzing historical financial statement data, an analyst determines that inventory levels are typically at 30% of sales, and the sales forecast for the coming year is for $100,000 dollars in sales, then, according to the percent-of-sales method of forecasting, the analyst can estimate inventory of approximately $30,000, or 30% of the estimated sales figure. There are three steps in the percent-of-sales forecasting process. The first step is to analyze historical financial statement data to determine which items are correlated with sales figures and which are not. Only the items which are correlated with sales figures can accurately be predicted or forecast using the percent-of-sales method. Items that have no concrete relation to sales figures must be estimated using a different technique. The next step is to forecast sales for the fiscal

Get Access