A Decision Support System for Capital Funds Forecasting

Abstract

A decision support system was constructed to guide and instruct business students in preparing a Capital Funds forecast. The systems objective is to gather complete information from the three sources of capital funding - operations, long-term debt and new equity. The DSS supports forecasting funds flows for individual or group capital projects projecting sources of cash in order of accessibility. Memory aids are included to explain the terminology and concepts used in the forecasting procedures. The DSS was made available for students in a business policy course. Those students using the DSS were better able to analyze a capital investment problem than those who did not use it.