Goal Seek
The Goal Seek analysis assists you in finding what should be the sales, or the direct costs or the operating expenses, in order to achieve a certain target profit.
The Goal Seek works similar to the What-If analysis but from another point of view. While the What-If measures what will be the operating profit if a key parameter (such as sales or unit cost) will change, the Goal Seek finds how much should a key parameter change (increase or decrease) in order to create a required profit.
Select the Goal Seek option from the Analysis menu to load the screen. Use the Goal Seek function as follows:
- Select the Key Parameter that should change in order to achieve the target profit. Three parameters are available: Sales, Unit Cost and Operating Expenses.
- Enter the Target Operating Profit (in % of sales)
- Select the period for which the analysis is run.
The results will be shown in the table. The Plan results will be displayed in the second column and the target results, the Goal, will be displayed in the fourth column. Next to each column a percentage column is displayed showing the percentage of sales for each value.
The calculation of the Goal Seek is simple. When the key parameter is Sales, the sales will be increased or decreased, the direct costs and the variable operating expenses will increase or decrease respectively with the sales, and the operating profit will be recalculated in each step, until it reaches the required percentage of sales. When the key parameter is Unit Cost, the Direct Costs will be increased or decreased, and the operating profit will be recalculated until the target is achieved. A similar calculation is done when the key parameter is the Operating Expenses.
No Solution
If there is not a valid solution the target results column will be empty and a message "No Solution" will be displayed. The cases in which no solution occurs are, for example, when the key parameter is the Operating Expenses and even if operating expenses are decreased to zero the operating profit will not be as required.
Toolbar Buttons
The toolbar includes the following buttons:
 OK - Close screen (and save all changes if applicable)
 Print Table - Create a report for the current table, showing it on the print preview screen
 Export to MS Excel file - Exports the displayed table to MS Excel
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