Factor analysis: an example of compilation and its features

In order to find out how profitable or unprofitable the enterprise is, it is not enough just to count the money. To understand this for sure, and most importantly, to increase profit, you need to regularly conduct a factor analysis of revenue and, in general, the work of the enterprise. And for this you need to have some skills in the accounting field and certain information. It should be taken into account that the firm worked both at the time of inflation and during the crisis. Prices changed constantly. Now you understand why the banal calculation of money does not provide an opportunity to objectively assess the situation with profit or costs? After all, you need to consider the price factor.

So, many people find it difficult to make a factor analysis. An example of our analysis, we hope, will help them to make their own - by analogy this type of diagnosis is made extremely quickly. It is designed in the form of a table. First, let's make a cap of our factor analysis. We draw a table of 5 columns and 9 rows. The first column is wider - it will be the names of the articles of the enterprise, not numbers. It will be called - "Indicators", which you should write in the first row of the column. In it, fill all the lines according to the sample: 1 - name, 2 - put the number 1 - numbering the columns, in the 3 line write down "Sales revenue", 4 - "Cost". In the fifth row of the first column, put the item "Commercial expenses". In 6 write - "Costs for managing the process." The seventh line is called "Profit from sales", and 8 - "Price change index", and the last, the 9th line - "Sale in comparable prices."

Next, proceed to the design of the 2 columns: in 1 line we write - "Previous period, thousand rubles." (You can write other monetary units - the euro, the dollar, etc. - depends on the currency in which you will make calculations), and in the second line we write the number - 2. Let's go to the 3 column - in it 1 line has the name - "Reporting period", thousand rubles. And the second one is filled with the number 3. Next, we draw up our factorial analysis of the proceeds and go to column 4. In the first line, enter - "Absolute change, thousand rubles.", And in the second line contains a small formula: 4 = 3-2. This means that the indicators that you will write in subsequent lines will be the result of subtracting the second column from the third. We proceed to the design of the last - 5 columns. In it, in 1 line you should write: "Relative changes%", which means that in this column all data will be written in a percentage. In the second line, the formula: 5 = (4/2) * 100%. Everything, we have completed the cap, it remains only to fill in each item of the table with the appropriate data. We perform a factor analysis, an example of which we give to you. First of all, we calculate the index of price changes - this is perhaps the most important figure in our calculations. We record the numbers of different periods in the corresponding columns. In the 4th and 5th columns we perform the necessary calculations. Factor analysis, an example of which you can see, presupposes accuracy in numbers. Therefore, writing only 3 lines of each column requires only reliable information. In 4 and 5, again, we perform calculations. As you understand, the factor analysis of costs is mainly carried out in lines 5 and 6: try to write down the most real, not lowered, figures there. In the 4th and 5th column of these lines, calculate the formulas again. Further, we perform a factor analysis of the revenue in column 7 - profit. We record reliable figures in columns 2 and 3, and in 4 and 5 we again consider everything according to the formulas. And the last column remains: write the data, calculate. Outcome: factor analysis, the example of which we give to you, shows what the impact of each of the factors described in the articles is on profit or production costs. Now you see the weaknesses and you can correct the situation in order to get as much profit as possible.

You did all the calculations to conduct a factor analysis, but they will not help you if you do not analyze the data thoroughly.