Introduction

This use of the model is referred to on the Logic of the Model page as "generating a forecast." CAPACITY is used as a simplified business planning model which will produce financial projections based on a simple framework and number of assumptions. It will also generate a full ratio/graphical analysis of financial performance and borrowing capacity. It is intended for possible use by smaller associations in need of a simple planning model.

When CAPACITY is used to produce a new business plan the following items of input data are required:

• Identification details for the housing association
• Business Plan Accounting Data
  - historical only (at least one year)
  - Income and Expenditure Account, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement
• General Assumptions
• Business Stream Assumptions
  - data on the subset of the 16 business streams appropriate to the particular housing association.

The forecast is driven by the full list of “assumptions” ie General Assumptions and Business Plan Assumptions. Some minor Income and Expenditure and Balance Sheet items are assumed to remain constant, therefore they are not covered by any assumptions.

On all the input screens the blue and yellow-coloured cells must be completed to generate an original forecast.

See the Input Guidelines for definition of input data and related forecasting routines for individual items. A simplified summary of the forecasting logic is given below, the big distinction being between housing property based activities and non-property based activities.

It is fundamental to the structure of the programme that some forecast accounts items from both Income Statement and Balance Sheet, are calculated for the business as a whole. Other items are calculated for each relevant business stream and added to obtain the total. This dictates the structure of the inputs which consists of General Assumptions and Business Stream Assumptions.