does forecasting accounts payable not take into account company policy?

Let's say we're using the quick and dirty method of forecasting accounts payable.

We take previous AP / previous Revenue = %

We then use that % going forward and apply it to the next quarters revenue in order to arrive at the new accounts payable. However, this doesn't make that much sense to me. 

Past quarter: 100 rev, 10 AP = 10% 

This quarter: 0 rev *10% = 0

This implies that this quarter, there would be a balance of 0 for accounts payable. However, what if the company policy was to pay AP every 2 months? This implies the entire balance is paid off. 

Am I thinking about this wrong?

9 Comments
 

You said yourself that your formula was “quick and dirty”, so it shouldn’t surprise you that it doesn’t work in an edge case like this.

I’m struggling to imagine a company that has zero rev for an entire quarter when it did before. Could you give an example?

 

This example is simply so extreme that it throws off the usual rule. 
 

 
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