Question

Seasonality and forecasting in excel

Asked by: bs329

I have rows of data with which I'd like to forecast the next 2 periods of data for.  What is the formula to do this.  I'd like to do this in excel all on one row as shown below:

Item     P1  P2  P3  P4  P5  P6  P7  P8  P9  Forecast1   Forecast 2
------   ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ------------   --------------
Sales  5    6    4    8    7    9    5    8    9    ?                 ?

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Asked On
2009-11-02 at 11:14:27ID24864835
Tags

forecast

,

seasonality

,

winter's method

,

excel

,

statistics

Topics

Math & Science

,

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

,

Spreadsheet Software

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: matthewspatrickPosted on 2009-11-02 at 11:26:27ID: 25722731

Hello bs329,

You can use the FORECAST function for this.  I put the following in A1: L2...

Item      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10      11
Sales      5      6      4      8      7      9      5      8      9

I then put this formula in K2...

=FORECAST(K$1,$B2:$J2,$B$1:$J$1)

...and copied that formula to L2.

That results in...

Item      1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10      11
Sales      5      6      4      8      7      9      5      8      9      8.86      9.28

Regards,

Patrick

 

by: bs329Posted on 2009-11-02 at 11:50:18ID: 25722996

Hi matthewspatrick,

I'm assuming excel's built in FORECAST function only does exponential smoothing (probably without trend) and was trying to find something that considers seasonality...similar to winter's method.

Thanks,

 

by: matthewspatrickPosted on 2009-11-02 at 14:16:04ID: 25724379

bs329,

Actually, FORECAST uses regression analysis, which is why I had to change  the P1, P2, P3 etc into actual
numbers.

Introducing seasonality is possible, but I think you would have to look at many more data points before you
could have a reasonable chance of finding something meaningful.

Patrick

 

by: bs329Posted on 2009-11-02 at 14:43:02ID: 31649034

Thanks appreciate the help

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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