A Financial Planning Model for and Analytic Review: The Case of a Savings and Loan Association.

This article describes a research effort to develop a financial-planning model for a financial institution that can be implemented relatively easily as part of the annual audit process. This effort differs from the two previous models developed for industrial companies because of the significant differences between an industrial firm and a financial institution. Models for the industrial firms were driven strongly by the monthly sales figure. Sales were the key account from which almost all expense categories and many current assets and liability accounts could be derived based on historical relationships. The availability of sales as a critical measure of the activity level of an industrial firm enabled an analytic review to use regression results of various expense categories on sales and working capital accounts vs. sales when testing the reasonableness of a firm's monthly and annual financial statements. Two differences between industrial firms and financial institutions may preclude regression analysis from being as useful for the analytic reviews in the audits of financial institutions.