Case study 

Budgeting and forecasting
for Hotel Group

A group of luxurious hotels in the UK needed to improve templates & processes related to their annual budget creation.

The budget consolidation was the major file delivered to the upper management for approval. Its preparation required close cooperation of directors and heads of all hotel departments to collate data from different sources (e.g. forecasting & accounting software, bespoke financial models in Excel format).

Forecasts provided by stakeholders were highly interdependent and time-sensitive. For instance, the number of rooms sold would influence restaurant guest numbers and in consequence demand for extra kitchen & waiting staff. Any local event or parade would also have an impact, what had to be accounted for in the dynamic models.

This task required a great amount of financial modelling as well as Excel & VBA development. It was a project stretching far beyond simple repairing and developing spreadsheets. Intensive collaboration and variated levels of technical proficiency required user-friendly systems preventing errors and allowing for version control. Finally, conflicting objectives of stakeholders had to be addressed and the entire spreadsheet & macros system tested and integrated with BAU processes, such as operational forecasting.