Here are moving average forecast templates that allow any sales staff to prepare moving average forecasts based upon a specific period of time. These Moving Average Forecast Templates are prepared using MS Excel and are flexible to be edited.
Moving Average is a technical term used in Statistics to refer to a more accurate calculation of average value. Usually, such technical formulas are not known to most of the salespeople Or they might have forgotten it due to workload. Hence this Moving Average Forecast Template will help you quickly refresh this concept and then just fill up the values to let it calculate it for you on the fly. I am sure you will find this excel template very handy and useful for your day-to-day work routines.
Moving average is a powerful mathematical tool that is being used for many years in the field of science, education, research, and business for respective purposes. Before we talk of moving average forecasting, which is strictly a term related to the business category and analysis; the concept of moving average is important to understand. The moving average is based on past observations recorded over a period of time. The average is then calculated for the previous observations at specific intervals and is continued and hence is commonly known by the name of moving average due to its continuous change.
Moving average forecast relates to the procedure of predictions and estimations about future performance or results based upon previous or past observations in the field of business and industry. Moving average forecasting then becomes a pretty useful tool for business management people to make decisions and policies in light of forecasts made by this procedure. It helps us understand the situation and also gives an idea of what is about to happen or what can we expect in the coming time. Moving average forecasts are widely used in modern business and planning, all around the world.
There are a number of methods of moving average forecasting; previously the people in the management used to do it manually but since today we have modern devices and methods of which computer and computer software are very important, the methods of calculations have been revolutionized. Nowadays one can easily have a pre-designed template for moving average forecasts downloaded from the internet. These templates allow the user to simply enter their previous data and automatically calculate the moving averages for the rest of the time. There is an option available for the users to choose what time span they want to use for forecasting. There are yearly, 6-monthly, and 3-monthly moving average forecasting options available in most of these templates.
The templates are prepared by experts in management related to business and industry. These templates are available both for free and also for a minor amount. The ones which are of very good quality are sold over the internet. These templates also provide the facility to graph the forecasts and hence give a more clear idea of what the results show for business analysts.
The moving average forecast is based on the previous month’s data or previous observations, so they give a good estimation based on the true facts that occurred in the past. It is a good idea to take the latest observations into account to make predictions since these values have more importance in the next estimation the moving average will make. There are also a few drawbacks to this method as well. Since the method only takes in past data, especially in business the factors like business season, business cycles, supply and demand, and other random events can make the results dramatically go either wrong or right. These, however, can be improved by incorporating these anomalies if one has data from a large number of the time period in the past.
