Stephen
In your example, is "A1-A5" correct...or did you possibly mean A1-F1? Also,
I consider independent variables to be "actual" results and dependent
variables to be "budgeted" amounts. Would this be reasonable?
--
Gator


"Stephen" wrote:

"Gator" wrote in message
...
I have no clue what the x "data point" is. Can someone please enlighten me
in layman terms, maybe with a basic example? Thx
--
Gator

Have you tried typing FORECAST into Help? Here is what you would find:
FORECAST(x,known_y's,known_x's)

X is the data point for which you want to predict a value.

Known_y's is the dependent array or range of data.

Known_x's is the independent array or range of data.

So, suppose you have the numbers 1 to 6 in A1:F1, these representing the
first 6 days of a sales period, and you have sales data for the first 5 of
these in A1:A5. You can use FORECAST to predict sales for day 6 by using
this formula:

=FORECAST(F1,A2:E2,A1:E1)