The Best Financial Projection Model You’ve EVER used - Guaranteed!
Create Professional, Full-Cycle, Business Financial Projections Quickly and Easily with XL Projection PRO
Todd Rammler, CMA, MSA
Dear Friend,
If you are a financial professional like me, you know the value of maintaining projections to provide visibility into the future operations of your company. Planning is absolutely critical!
Unfortunately, planning is also complicated, tedious and subject to hundreds of assumptions. Accountants are forced to wrestle with these assumptions as well as the complexity of the financial model itself. Often times, this results in a compromise on the quality of the projections in the form of overly generalized assumptions or the omission of critical statements and schedules, such as the balance sheet, cash flow statement and borrowing requirements report. But it doesn’t have to be that way!
“The XL Projection PRO Forecasting package is just right. It is integrated and flexible enough to create a substantial Forecast, yet simple enough to understand and be user friendly.”
Clayton M. Chargot, Controller
B&P Process Equipment and Systems, LLC
Saginaw, MI
A Robust Solution
Let’s face it: almost anyone can do a basic P&L forecast using Excel.
But in addition to the P&L, most companies need to understand the cash flow implications of various decisions, and answer questions like:
- Can we afford to buy this piece of equipment?
- Will we have enough cash for bonuses/tax payments/debt service?
- Should we request a larger line of credit?
These are critical questions that should be tied in with the P&L projections to ensure ALL the numbers are linked together and that any changes in assumptions automatically roll through ALL the statements.
I’ve been working with projections for over 15 years at a variety of different privately held companies. At every company I’ve worked for, I have - out of necessity - designed a customized projection model using Excel because I haven’t found anything remotely close to a practical solution. I’ve looked at 3rd party Excel models, stand alone budgeting programs, integrated budgeting tools and I’ve been disappointed every time. After a lot of searching and disappointment I’ve come to a few conclusions:
- Unless you’re a large, complicated business, projections should be done in Excel. It is the tool of choice for accountants, and it is incredibly flexible.
- Doing a “P&L only” projection is not sufficient. . . especially if cash is tight.
- Projections that extend beyond a year are generally a waste of time. 5 or 7 year projections are a colossal waste of time. Remember all those assumptions you have to make? Well, the farther out you go, the more leverage those assumptions have if they are wrong. And they are always wrong (unless you own a crystal ball).
I do consulting work for privately held businesses as a part-time CFO. When I decided to go into business, I knew immediately that I could not create a new projection model for every client because it would be cost prohibitive – and inefficient. So I decided to build a model that could be used at almost any business and provide ALL the reports needed to do effective planning. I created the model from the ground up and have literally spent a year and a half designing it, testing it, refining it.
“An impressive, well-designed tool for finance professionals.”
Dave Diedrich, Director of Finance and Operations
N Street Village, Washington, DC
Created by a CFO for CFO’s
I designed this model to produce the results that I need to make effective decisions as a CFO. I could’ve had computer programmers or other specialists assist me with the construction of this model, but I chose to do it myself – so that I knew the implications of every item and feature.
I also could have added more “user interface” programming to make it fancier or more impressive from a superficial standpoint. But I wanted to keep it simple and have all the calculations out in the open – not behind the scenes – so you can (if you want to) understand what is happening and how figures are derived.
I’m not a computer programmer; I’m a CFO. As a result, you will see a model that is robust, flexible and is an extremely practical tool for the privately held company.
Substance, Not Fluff
If you’ve done any looking at other models available on the web, you’ll know that there’s not many out there. There’s only a handful, and I would put them in one of two categories:
- Models created by “theoreticians” that are useful for showing the basic interdependence of financial statements and demonstrating simple modeling techniques. . . but are too general to be of any practical use in the real world. For example: I looked at a model that asked the user to input an assumption for Cost of Goods Sold as a % of Sales, and a similar assumption for SGA as a % of Sales. Are you kidding me?!?! Then, to top it off, you can do a 5 year projection with these numbers! Hey, if you want to play “make believe” feel free. But this is NOT a business planning tool.
- Models that are commercially available that have “pretty” user interfaces and other graphical enhancements, but again lack the practicality needed to be truly useful. One red flag of a model lacking substance is unnecessary, irrelevant, useless charts & graphs.
XL Projection Pro is a model with substance. If you want to “model” how your business is going to perform under a certain set of assumptions, you’re in the right place. This is a flexible, customizable tool to create substantive financial projections. If you want a pretty chart. . . you’ll have to make it yourself.
“We’ve been using this tool with Todd’s assistance
for the past 10 months. Recently we met with our bank to request a credit
increase. Halfway through the meeting the bankers were complimenting us
on the projections we provided. It was exactly what they were looking for.”
Tony Hernandez, Director
Maestro Turgeon Group
Madison Heights, MI
Create Budgets, Projections, Bank Financing Packages
If you want to make an impression on your boss, your bankers, investors, or owners with projections that are relevant and useful through the entire business cycle – not just a P&L – this is the tool for you. Bankers don’t care about fancy charts when the go to loan committee meetings. They care about cash flow. Show them that you know about your company’s cash flow and can quantify it
by using the right tools. The fancy charts and the 5 year projections aren’t impressing anyone.
Key features of
XL Projection PRO:
- Can be configured for 12 month or 12 week projections (critical if cash is tight)
- Balance Sheet
- Summary P&L
- Detail P&L
- Statement of Cash Flows
- Revolving Line of Credit/Collateral Report
- All support schedules!
- “Contribution” style P&L
- Customizable level of detail and line items shown on the P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement (Show as much or as little detail as you like)
- 5 classes of Sales, each with its own collection terms (30,60,90 days)
- 3 classes of Direct Costs for each of the 5 classes of sales
- 2 classes of Inventory planning for each of the 5 classes of sales (Finished Goods and Components inventory)
- Absorption of labor and overhead into inventory
- Ability to handle deferred revenue
- Ability to designate expenses by 3 different payment-term classes (payroll, quick pay, and normal course)
- Collateral projections that can be customized for various borrowing formulas (advance rate on A/R, advance rate on Inventory, Ineligibles, and more)
- Up to 4 separate term notes each at varying interest rates
- Customize expenses & income by month for known deviations from “normal” averages (to accommodate tax refunds, bonuses, audit costs, and other “exceptions”)
- Painlessly add your own custom support schedules that feed into the model (e.g., detailed Sales worksheet, Payroll detail, etc.)
- Convert the projected data to “Actuals” as each period passes, to provide an “always current” view
- Diagnostics to help you locate mistakes in the model
- Clearly visible data entry fields (user fields are white; calculated cells are shaded)
- “Once-click data clear” to reset the model
Use all the features or just those that apply to your business/industry. One model does it all, whether you’re a manufacturer, service provider, or anything in between.
“XL Projection PRO gives us the data we needed to manage the business much
more effectively on a monthly basis to ensure that we’re hitting our targets.”
Mike Shena, President
Michigan Custom Machines
Novi, MI
100% “NO WEASEL CLAUSES” SATISFACTION GUARANTEE!
If you are not completely satisfied with XL Projection PRO, I will refund your entire purchase price for a full 90 days from the date of your purchase. This is an unconditional guarantee with no “weasel attorney” fine print!
Save time, money and frustration by using a proven model to complete your company’s projections … order today!
Best Regards,
Todd Rammler, CMA, MSA
P.S. Special bonus offer: With your purchase of XL Projection PRO, I will personally respond via email to any questions you have regarding the model for the first 30 days after your purchase. That’s FREE SUPPORT for 30 days!
P.P.S. Remember my risk-free guarantee: If you’re not completely satisfied, I’ll refund 100% of your purchase price. Give it a try and if it doesn’t do everything I’ve said and more, I’ll refund your money!
