The Definitive Guide to Business Finance: What smart managers do with the numbers, Second Edition

Ten hard questions to ask or be asked

1	Why does the trend slope the way it does? Is it really representative of what is happening?
2	Why can we/can’t we see a cycle in our data?
3	What are the underlying causes of the cycle in our figures?
4	Are the seasonal adjustment factors correct?
5	Why is there such a big seasonal effect in this month?
6	Is there too much residual noise?
7	How reliable are these cause-and-effect rules of thumb?
8	Is this rule of thumb a genuine relationship, or a complete coincidence?
9	Have we thought about all the external influences which we might quantify?
10	Is there some external influence on our business that we have not identified?

Quantifying relationships

For this example using interest rates, open a new spreadsheet ...