{"id":39,"date":"2026-07-25T08:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T08:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/2026\/07\/25\/what-a-good-forecast-looks-like\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T08:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T08:18:09","slug":"what-a-good-forecast-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/2026\/07\/25\/what-a-good-forecast-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"What a good forecast looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">A forecast is not a prediction. It is a statement of assumptions, arranged so that the people reading it can argue with each one individually.<\/p><h3 class=\"font-body fw-semibold mt-5 mb-3\">Put the assumptions on the surface<\/h3><p>If a reader has to open a formula to find out what growth rate you used, the model is hiding its own argument. Assumptions belong on their own sheet, labelled, with the source written next to them.<\/p><h3 class=\"font-body fw-semibold mt-5 mb-3\">Model the timing, not just the total<\/h3><p>Businesses rarely run out of profit. They run out of cash, in a particular week, because money arrived later than it left. A forecast that reports only annual totals cannot see that.<\/p><h3 class=\"font-body fw-semibold mt-5 mb-3\">Build one model, three cases<\/h3><p>A downside case built in a separate spreadsheet is a different model, and it will drift. Drive every case from the same assumptions sheet so the comparison stays honest.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A forecast is not a prediction. It is a statement of assumptions, arranged so that the people reading it can argue with each one individually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11,12,9],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights","tag-business","tag-forecasting","tag-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demos.canvaswp.com\/finance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}