Easy Forecast for Capital Expenditures

When I was working in airline industry, capital budgeting was a large part of the of budgeting and forecasting process.  Makes sense.  Lots of airplanes and equipment at the airports.  You didn’t want to get your depreciation forecast wrong and mess up the cash flow forecast.  Big problems.  You spent just as much time capital planning as you did analyzing the headcount and productivity numbers.  Lots of labor in airlines, of course.

Download the model below.

In the software world, capital budgeting is not as relevant because you don’t need to invest in a lot of machinery or equipment or buildings.  Your big investment is in people and capitalizing your software development costs depending on your accounting practices.

It is a little more straight-forward, but you still need to get this line right in your forecast so that your metrics and cash flow are accurate.

I expanded the functionality of the Capital Expenditure tab in my SaaS Financial Forecast Model.  This CapEx Excel model will forecast the book and tax depreciation based on your inputs. Tax is a complex subject, but it might help you forecast temporary differences in depreciation which in turn may help your tax expense forecast line.

As always, please let me know what feedback you have below in the comments section.

I know it is not quite SaaS, but I will be sharing some advanced capital budgeting templates in the next post. The finance theory is interesting and is applicable to others areas in your forecasting.

Please enter your email below (no spam) for the instant download.  I’ll keep you updated on future models.

Subscribe & Download

If you do not receive the download, please contact me.