Question

what does a recommendations worksheet look like in a Master Budget created in Excel? I have already created the Assumptions tab, Sales Budget, Collections, Production Budget tabs and now need to provide my impressions and recommendations based on that information. I'm looking for an example of layout and type of content to include in that.

Answer 1

The recommendation tab of the master budget spreadsheet should be in the form of a report. Since your impressions and recommendations will be provided as a separate tab in the excel it will be better to make use of bullet points so that each and every recommendation can be read easily and clearly. Do touch both quantitative as well as qualitative aspects while making recommendations.

The recommendation tabs can include impressions with regards to forecasts for expected sale of units (i.e. volumes), the expectations and forecast for price, profitability analysis and recommendations for different products and recommendations with regards to price policy.

Focus on planning (profit planning), co-ordination (of sales and marketing department with other departments) and control (of sales volume and selling expenses).

You can also present tables or charts to prove your point and create impressions. An image of a layout is provided below for a hypothetical situation (you may add recommendations as per your case):