Looking for some recommendations on how folks name their financial models. Goal is to be able to easily tell: - What month of most recent closed actuals model includes - Forecast version (assume linked to outside file) - Description of scenario Thanks in advance
Any best practices/recommendations for Financial Model naming conventions?
Answers
Typical nomenclature:
"[year]-[month]_[Person/Department]_[subject]-[status/notes]"
For example:
"2016-03_Sales_Contract-signed.pdf"
"2016-03_Finance_Projections-work in progress.xlsx"
"2016-03_John Smith_paystub.pdf"
All files will be automatically categorized in chronological order, filterable by Person/Dept
I also use year - month model.
I used to file mm/yy but then found as you gain multiple years of data it takes longer to locate the actual file you need.
I agree with the yy/mm style (sorts years together) but to know what actuals are in the model, we also use "# months actual + # of forecast" naming convention. For example, in April when we are forecasting the rest of the year and we've closed Q1, we refer to our model as a "3+9". 3 months of actual (Jan-March) and 9 months remaining in the forecast (April - Dec).
1+11
2+10
3+9 ---> Q1 Forecast
4+8
5+7
6+6 ---> Q2 Forecast
7+5
8+4
9+3---> Q3 Forecast
10+2
11+1
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