Enabling Georgia Transmission Corporation to develop better long range plans and forecast short-term liquidity with FRST
“The initial development and flexibility of FRST™ just blew us away. MCR knows far more about Excel than most people I’ve come across. They know how to put that into the context of our business model and tie everything together. With knowledge of utilities and experience in forecasting, developing the FRST™ model worked really quite well.”
—Dale Cooper, Assistant Controller
Background
Georgia Transmission Corporation was using a long-range financial planning tool that was difficult to maintain and presented significant challenges when a new calculation or a change in the business structure required model changes. In addition, the company wanted to improve their ability to test various scenarios and financing alternatives, and gain better insight to near-term liquidity. MCR was hired to implement a rapid Financial and Regulatory Strategy Tool (FRSTTM) deployment.
Solution
MCR completed the installation of FRSTTM in just four weeks. We implemented the FRSTTM long-range financial planning model, short-term liquidity model and a detailed debt forecasting tool. The liquidity model incorporates inputs from the debt tool, FRSTTM and financial actuals to provide a daily view of near-term liquidity. The debt tool contains a forecast of all the company’s debt issues and provides the journal entries for accounting on a regular basis.
Results
The FRSTTM model met Georgia Transmission’s financial planning goals. It provides the company’s planners with a structure to make quick updates to the base financial forecast and easily run alternative scenarios. The output reports meet the needs of the planning group’s key stakeholders, including the Board, ratings agencies and lenders.