I have a situation that I have been thinking about. I use Excel daily at work, but to be honest, the formulas that I have to use are basic at best. Therefore, my knowledge & skills with this are basic, at best.

Right now, I have been doing some rough financial statements for someone, based on their experience of historical sales. I have then drafted some spreadsheets to allow us to project sales, revenues profits, etc.

To date, I have always done this manually, as the numbers haven't been that large and the situations have been straightforward (sell items in one month, and receive payment in that month and also buy the product in that month - simply in and out). However, now, we are running some scenarios that are becoming more complex (well, relatively) and its becoming cumbersome to do manually. While I have completed this manually, I know there has to be a way to do this easier in Excel.

I know I can get the first formula, its the remainder of the year that scares me. For example, we are basing everything on wholesale bulk orders. The average price of a bulk order is $1500. Therefore, if I project 1 bulk order in December, the revenue that shows up in the Income Statement is $1500. Perfect. However, in order to make that sale, the cost of the goods ($300) to make these items, had to be purchased 3 months in advance. And, payment won't be collected until one month following (January).

While this one example is straightforward to me, I get mixed up when I get into subsequent months, when a couple of other costs might have to be paid out and collected, and then that makes me nervous...

I am sure Excel can do this, but the thought of these formulas scare me. Would it be better for someone with my Excel skills to stick to inserting the numbers in the cells (manually)?

I can post a sample spreadsheet if anyone needs clarification.