FastCast for Ventures Financial Forecasting & Projections Made Easy

FastCast for Ventures: For MS Office

Create the most complete and accurate financial projections using the techniques that experts use! Fast-Cast helps save you time, effort and money by preparing full financial plans in a fraction of the time it used to take. Prepare pro-forma sales and expense projections, P&L's, balance sheets, cash flows, debt and asset schedules, and more. Completely button and menu driven, Fast-Cast asks only for the numbers it needs to calculate the financials. You won't waste time entering or analyzing unnecessary information. And Fast-Cast creates dazzling, professional quality reports that you can present to your boss, accountant, or banker. Don't be content with lesser substitutes, or even our own "mini" version of Fast-Cast that the leading software vendors now incorporate into their spreadsheet products. The Fast-Cast described here is the full-blown version, incorporating over 60 detailed schedules! For serious financial planning, this product is a must-have.

• Fast-Cast supports monthly, quarterly, and yearly projections. 
• Prepare comprehensive five-year projections and instantly see your pro-forma P&L statement, balance sheet, cash flow, stockholders' equity, sales, operating expenses, short and long term debt, fixed and intangible assets, income taxes, and 11 key ratios. 
• The entire program is completely interactive. You can make as many changes as you like, as often as you like. Changes automatically ripple through all the financial statements for all affected future periods. You won't have to waste your time doing any extra calculations yourself. 
• See the balance sheet, P&L, sales and cost of sales, and expenses as a percentage of sales. Analyze your cash flow as a percentage of cash from operations. View graphs of debt to equity, income statement, non-annualized return, and the working capital ratio. 
• The Clear Data button makes creating another version simple. Just clear data, enter new data, and save. 
• Support is provided by Village Software, Inc.'s superior author network. You get the actual author's name, telephone number, and support hours at the click of a button. You'll get support from a real person. 
• Make financial projections whether you're a C Corp or an S Corp! This program accounts for income taxes automatically. 
• Fast-Cast was created by an executive-level CPA with dozens of years of experience, and improved by a team of Harvard MBAs. 

  Financial Forecasts are part of a Successful Business:

  FastCast For Ventures easily does what all successful businesses do; it prepares financial forecasts for twelve monthly periods, four quarterly periods, or five annual periods with supporting schedules and graphs to satisfy any inquiring reader.

  FastCast For Ventures is a financial forecasting program for all businesses large and small no matter what product or service they provide. It is equally useful for existing companies that need to forecast their future financial needs and start-up companies seeking capital from banks or venture capital organizations. FastCast calculates cash and other financial needs five years into the future based on any assumptions about the future you make. If you change one assumption changes are automatically made in all future forecasted balance sheets, statements of income and retained earnings, and statements of cash flow. Changes are also immediately reflected in supporting schedules and graphs of significant financial ratios.

  Many companies project future financial needs by using esoteric economic models. These models are widely available but they often ignore the interplay between financial components. They produce pretty charts and graphs but do not display real time forecasts in the format financial people are accustomed to seeing. FastCast is gimmick free. Financial forecasts are presented in generally accepted financial statement formats. Readable, coherent, financial forecasts into the future are essential to the survival of any business.

  FastCast For Ventures was developed by a certified public accountant and certified financial planner with more than thirty years of practical experience. Millions of dollars have been raised based on forecasts utilizing the principles incorporated into the program. FastCast combines the power and convenience of the personal computer with accepted forecasting techniques. The result is a fast and accurate way to peer into your business financial future. You will know when and how much money you will need to meet your growth objectives and when and how you will be able to repay the debt or provide a satisfactory return to investors.

  Use FastCast For Ventures with your Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, or Excel spreadsheet to make easy projections. Open one of the three modules to prepare forecasts for twelve monthly periods, four quarterly periods, or five annual periods. Begin using FastCast by entering the beginning balance sheet into a module. If the beginning balance sheet is "in balance" all subsequent balance sheets will be "in balance". FastCast avoids the embarrassment of financial statements that do not "tie in", one with the other.

  FastCast is based on "turnovers", an expression familiar to most financial forecasters. Before entering hard data the program asks you enter turnover periods (in days) for accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, accrued payroll, and accrued expenses. For instance if you turn over your accounts receivable six times a year you will enter 60 in the "Days sales in receivables" category. FastCast provides flexibility for seasonal businesses. For instance a business with high sales in the summer months may have a greater number of days sales on the books at the end of July, August, and September than it does in January. FastCast allows you to project financial needs on a monthly basis as your business grows or sales vary for other reasons.

  After entering the beginning balance sheet and assumptions regarding the future you then proceed to enter income and expenses you expect to incur on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis depending on the module you elect to use. You can also enter assumptions about acquisition and disposition of fixed assets, and distributions to investors.

  FastCast will also calculate federal and state income taxes if you so elect. The end product is a potpourri of financial data that can be used to guide your business. The following is a list of financial data automatically produced by FastCast:

  Balance Sheets: FastCast prepares balance sheets that reflect your financial condition at the end of each forecasted period.

  Statements of Income and Retained Earnings: FastCast prepares statements of income and retained earnings that reflect your financial progress for each forecasted period.

  Stockholders' Equity: FastCast prepares statements of stockholders' equity that reflect the changes in equity from the end of each forecasted period to the end of each succeeding forecasted period.

  Statements of Cash Flow: FastCast prepares statements of cash flow reconciling the changes in the cash balance at the end of each forecasted period to the end of each succeeding forecasted period.

  FastCast prepares supporting schedules to support key components of the forecasted balance sheets and statements of income and retained earnings:

  • Sales and Cost of Sales
  • Operating Expenses
  • Short Term Notes Payable
  • Long Term Debt
  • Fixed and Intangible Assets
  • Sales of Fixed Assets
  • Income Taxes

  FastCast has a unique tax computation feature. You can elect to have the template compute income taxes applicable to each forecasted period or you can elect not to have taxes computed. With this feature you can select the best form of business entity to suit your business needs. You can see what future financial statements will look like as a "C" corporation, or an "S" corporation or partnership at the touch of a button.

  Key Ratio Calculations: With no additional effort FastCast computes the following key ratios:

  • Debt to Equity
  • Times Interest Earned
  • Net Working Capital
  • Working Capital To Assets
  • Current Ratio
  • Quick Ratio
  • Days Sales Outstanding
  • Inventory Turnover (month end)
  • Return On Sales
  • Return On Total Assets
  • Return On Equity

  FastCast also prepares the following bonus presentations:

  • Forecasted Balance Sheets (As % of Total Assets)
  • Forecasted Statement of Income (As % of Sales)
  • Forecaasted Statements of Cash Flow (As % of Cash provided from Operations)
  • Sales and Cost of Sales (As % of Sales)
  • Expenses (As a % of Sales)

  FastCast automatically prepares the following graphs. You can choose the ones you want to include in your presentation:

  • Debt to Equity
  • Income Statements
  • Returns on Sales, Assets, and Equity
  • Working Capital to Assets
  • Current Ratio
  • Quick Ratio

  FastCast For Ventures is an excellent investment for any business large or small, new or old. FastCast builds forecasted financial statements in an organized and concise manner. There is no better program to prepare financial forecasts for internal use or external presentation. The beauty of the program is the ease of making changes. Arithmetic calculations are eliminated forever. Create as many scenarios as you like by merely changing one or more variable assumptions. Run FastCast over and over until you arrive at a forecast you consider achievable. FastCast is a program that will pay dividends for years to come.

  All PC World quotes are reprinted with permission from the "Top-21 Add-Ons" article in the June 1995 issue of PC World Lotus Edition