Regression Analysis and Estimating Regression Models

A forecast is merely a prediction about the future values of data. Financial forecasts span a broad range of areas, and each of the forecasts is of interest to a number of people and departments in a firm. A sales manager may wish to forecast sales (either in units sold or revenues generated). This prediction is of interest to the operations (manufacturing) department in order to predict the materials and time needed to create the product. The corporate financial officer is interested in the amount of cash required to support the projected level of sales and how much available cash inflow he can eventually expect to pay financial costs, cover expansion programs, and provide cash payouts to investors. In short, good forecasting underlies the construction of an operational cash budget.