How to Forecast a Value with FORECAST.LINEAR

FORECAST.LINEAR predicts a future value from a straight-line trend — next month’s subscribers, or sales at a planned spend.

You will learn to

• Forecast the next period from a time trend
• Forecast from a business driver instead of time
• Calculate the gap between a forecast and a target

How it works

FORECAST.LINEAR(x, known_ys, known_xs) fits a straight line through your history and reads off the value at a new x. With month numbers as x it projects a trend; with a driver such as webinar attendance as x it answers “what if” questions.

Note the argument order: the new x comes first, then the y values, then the x values. FORECAST.LINEAR replaces the older FORECAST function (same result). It assumes the relationship is a straight line — check a chart, and be cautious forecasting far beyond your data.

=FORECAST.LINEAR(13,C2:C13,A2:A13)