FORECAST Function Dictionary
| Function Dictionary | Function Examples | Function Categories |
| FORECAST | |||||||||
| Month | Sales | ||||||||
| 1 | £1,000 | ||||||||
| 2 | £2,000 | ||||||||
| 3 | £2,500 | ||||||||
| 4 | £3,500 | ||||||||
| 5 | £3,800 | ||||||||
| 6 | £4,000 | ||||||||
| Type the month number to predict : | 12 | ||||||||
| The Forecast sales figure is : | £7,997 | =FORECAST(E11,F4:F9,E4:E9) | |||||||
| What Does It Do ? | |||||||||
| This function uses two sets of values to predict a single value. | |||||||||
| The predicted value is based on the relationship between the two original sets of values. | |||||||||
| If the values are sales figures for months 1 to 6, (Jan to Jun), you can use the function | |||||||||
| to predict what the sales figure will be in any other month. | |||||||||
| The way in which the prediction is calculated is based upon the assumption of a Linear Trend. | |||||||||
| Syntax | |||||||||
| =FORECAST(ItemToForeCast,RangeY,RangeX) | |||||||||
| ItemToForecast is the point in the future, (or past), for which you need the forecast. | |||||||||
| RangeY is the list of values which contain the historical data to be used as the basis | |||||||||
| of the forecast, such as Sales figures. | |||||||||
| RangeX is the intervals used when recording the historical data, such as Month number. | |||||||||
| Formatting | |||||||||
| No special formatting is needed. | |||||||||
| Example | |||||||||
| The following table was used by a company considering expansion of their sales team. | |||||||||
| The Size and Performance of the previous teams over a period of three years were entered. | |||||||||
| The size of the New Sales team is entered. | |||||||||
| The =FORECAST() function is used to calculate the predicted performance for the new sales | |||||||||
| team based upon a linear trend. | |||||||||
| Year | Size Of Sales Team |
Known Performance |
|||||||
| 1996 | 10 | £5,000 | |||||||
| 1997 | 20 | £8,000 | |||||||
| 1998 | 30 | £8,500 | |||||||
| Size Of The New Sales Team : | 40 | ||||||||
| Estimated Forecast Of Performance : | £10,667 | =FORECAST(E43,E39:E41,D39:D41) | |||||||