Coffee Shop Exercise - Overview

The Coffee Shop exercise is a great way to get hands-on with Castaway. It is a simple exercise that helps you see for yourself how Castaway works. You will explore some of Castaway's modelling abilities and get a small insight into what is possible.

The Scenario

You’re considering an opportunity to start a new coffee shop in your local area. You’ve spotted a good location, sketched out some designs for the interior and put together your wish list for equipment.

Now it’s time to develop the business case for this opportunity. You’d like to start with a simple Castaway forecast to give you a sense of whether this coffee shop could be financially viable.

The Exercise

The Coffee Shop Exercise is presented in 2 parts

Part 1 focuses on building a simple forecast quickly. This part should take 10-20 minutes and covers:

• Creating a Chart of Accounts
• Setting element properties
• Adding forecast data to the elements
• Linking elements and using KPI's to forecast results
• Modelling different cash flow behaviours

In Part 2, we extend our thinking and add some dynamic modelling options for better analysis of different growth scenarios. Part 2 should also take 10-20 minutes and introduces you to:

• Forecasting based on operations/activity drivers
• Creating Driver elements
• Creating element formulas

Attempt the exercise and download the answer files for the Coffee Shop exercises here:

• Australian files
• UK files