Microsoft Copilot for Forecasting, Budgeting & Financial Reporting: A Practical Hands-On Training Webinar
Overview
Forecasting, budgeting, and reporting are most effective when accountants treat them as one connected cycle rather than a series of disconnected spreadsheets. Microsoft AI tools can help finance teams prepare sales history, develop explainable forecasts, connect pipeline data to revenue expectations, analyze variances, and produce management reporting more efficiently.
Through paced demonstrations, participants will use Copilot in Excel, Power BI, and Dynamics 365 Sales to move from sales data to a driver-based forecast, revenue budget, budget-to-forecast reporting page, and management narrative. Each workflow pairs AI assistance with the controls, documentation, and accountant review needed to make the results reliable and defensible. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
- Explain how Microsoft AI tools support the cycle from sales data through forecasting, budgeting, variance reporting, and management communication
- Use Copilot in Excel to inspect sales history, calculate rolling averages, build forecast scenarios, and document assumptions
- Connect CRM pipeline information to revenue forecasting and assess how pipeline quality affects forecast reliability
- Build a practical budget-to-forecast reporting structure in Power BI and use AI to accelerate narrative reporting
- Apply governance and review practices when AI-assisted analyses and narratives support finance decisions
Objective
To provide CPAs, accountants, finance professionals, and business leaders with practical guidance for integrating Microsoft AI tools into forecasting, budgeting, and reporting through hands-on demonstrations and repeatable workflows while maintaining appropriate governance, verification, and professional judgment.
Emphasis
- Microsoft AI tools across Excel, Power BI, and Dynamics 365 Sales for integrated forecasting, budgeting, and reporting workflows
- Building connected, repeatable finance processes that link sales data, revenue forecasting, budgeting, variance analysis, and management reporting
- Practical forecasting methods and driver-based models that finance professionals can confidently explain and defend
- Using CRM pipeline data to improve revenue forecasting and evaluate forecast reliability
- Hands-on demonstrations showing how to:
– Prepare and analyze sales history using Copilot in Excel
– Build driver-based forecasts and translate them into revenue budgets
– Incorporate CRM pipeline information into forecast adjustments
– Create budget-to-forecast reporting dashboards in Power BI
– Draft management reports and apply review controls before distribution - AI-assisted reporting workflows that improve efficiency while maintaining transparency, version control, and reviewer accountability
- Governance, documentation, and professional judgment practices for reviewing AI-generated financial analyses and narratives
- Practical guidance for determining when spreadsheet-based processes are no longer sufficient and how Microsoft AI tools support more mature financial reporting environments
- Reusable Copilot prompts, reporting templates, controls checklists, and workflow frameworks that participants can immediately apply
Speakers
Tracie Miller, PhD, CPA
Wendy Tietz, PhD, CPA, CGMA, CITP