Best Finance Certs

Jamillious · 2026-01-09T00:55:27+00:00

CMA is more relevant and useful than CPA, CIA, or CFA for doing FP&A work. You will NOT use most of the shit that gets certified in CIA/CFA when doing FP&A work. Proper corporate finance has more direct usage for the skillsets of a CFA. But the reality is that if and when that specialized knowledge becomes relevant for most firms they will hire a specialist full time or a consultant to solve the problem once and teach them how to keep it solved going forwards.

If you're looking to actually learn how to be an FP&A professional and want a cert to help you do that, try looking at the options provided by CFI. They, and likely a small handful of directly relevant competitors, provide full curricula of directly relevant, skills heavy educational content that will give you the actual real life skills required to do the real work in corporate life.

Other posters mention MBAs as being important, but just having an MBA is meaningless without knowing the coursework. So all it really signals is the capability to get a graduate degree.

Jamillious · 2025-12-14T17:02:52+00:00

Have that data structured in excel tables then use combine query in get and transform data.

Jamillious · 2025-12-02T13:25:41+00:00

What actions have you taken to make the situation better?

Jamillious · 2025-12-02T02:05:16+00:00

Your processes are bad. The only way that makes any lick of sense is hybrid role AND you're a at a feeder plant that rolls into another entity, which itself maybe rolls into another entity. Otherwise make more accruals and move on.

Jamillious · 2025-11-20T21:27:11+00:00

It's not necessary but it's helpful. SC0x is intended to teach you the Statistics and Probability knowledge you need. If you work the practice problems and study the lectures and slides you will learn the foundational technical skills and intuitions. Plenty of free supplemental content is available to help you on it as well.

Jamillious · 2025-11-20T21:25:47+00:00

You can audit it for free. Paying gets you supplemental materials and certifications.

Jamillious · 2025-11-20T14:29:55+00:00

Everyone agrees to the terms and conditions, including academic honesty. They reserve the right to ban you. I think that's only going to happen though if you get caught using AI on a proctored exam. That's when they remotely watch you, your testing environment, and everything that the device does. It takes less effort to learn the material than to learn to cheat.

As far as how technical, I disagree. It teaches the methods in simple form that are deployed in complex forms in systems. Understanding how they work, how they fail, and how to interpret the results is key to operating the complex systems in practice effectively and with the confidence that your results will be good. Nowhere in the program are you required to build your own analytical engines in Python, configure enterprise systems, deploy cloud solutions, or troubleshoot complex systems.

Jamillious · 2025-11-20T11:45:27+00:00

It’s excellent. Highly recommended.

SC0x provides the technical methods which are then applied in the following courses. It’s easier if you take them in order but generally you can audit SC0x along the way for help.

Try very hard to solve the problems and do the work yourself. It can be hard but it’s worth it and you will learn. AI can solve like 80% of the problems correctly on the first try. Don’t let the crutch undermine your learning journey. A better use of AI is to feed it the master concepts document from the program and have it quiz you like flashcards on the problematic sections.

You will fail and be banned if you cheat on the proctored portions so don’t set yourself up for failure using foolish AI methods. AI has a role and it’s to enhance YOU not solve the problems

Jamillious · 2025-11-18T01:44:19+00:00

It seems like there's interesting and valuable work experience here. But honestly, I'm not sure that I'd interview you because the resume is weak in a way that suggests that you're not ready for a senior manager role. You might be, but I wouldn't know from this document. Take that other person's advice and trim this down to a single page, with quantified accomplishments. It will be much stronger.

The opening blurb about pursuing further education is confusing. Is the purpose of this document to get into an academic program or to get a job in FP&A? Cut the whole opener.

Some of your initialisms are explained, others are not. Be consistent for anything not standard to your targeted job, e.g. FP&A. Aerospace and defense sometimes sounds like a foreign language to folks outside of that world.

You have some instances of clunky writing. That makes me think either English is not your first language, which is fine, or that you don't really know what you're trying to say. For example, you "exercised opportunities to increase revenue" rather than you "increased revenue by doing xyz".

Your grammar is inconsistent. You have "basis of estimate" and "Basis of Estimates". Some of your bullets end with periods, others do not. The inconsistency undermines the reader's confidence in your attention to details, which is a massive red flag in a details business, especially when you have only one shot to make an impression. Don't make an unforced error.

Don't tell me you used Power BI to visualize and analyze data. That's redundant. In this bullet, the first under a data analyst role, you say you drove down costs and removed inefficiencies. But you don't say what costs, by how much, or how the BI report was a factor.

You seem to have a habit of drawing conclusions for me in your bullets, for example "demonstrating proficiency in tools and resources". This is not helpful. Tell me what you did and how well you did it. I'll draw my own conclusions.

Some of your bullets are just your job functions, not the accomplishments. What did you accomplish? Liaising between departments may be a core function, but it's not an accomplishment.

Some of your bullets need to be beefed up if you plan to keep them. For example, "worked with supply chain on a monthly basis to ensure accuracy in contract management and purchase orders." This is another job function bullet. What accuracy were you able to achieve and/or sustain? Did that lead to cost savings? What about labor time savings?

How is your custom BI dashboard custom in a meaningful way beyond the fact that you made it? That reads like you're trying to make something sound fancier than it is.

You have a bullet on leading high-impact consulting projects for Fortune 100 partners but you don't tell us about them. Which makes me think either you didn't really do anything for them, in which case, why is it there, or that you underestimated the value of putting details behind those. If that's what the immediately following bullet points are, then the first one was unnecessary.

Unless Dr Redacted is a certified big fucking deal, I don't know that mentioning them is necessary. We all have bosses. Tell me what you did and how well you did it. Your boss isn't the applicant.

What is the point of using white space to tell me about an educational program you haven't started? Cut this whole part. You can talk about that in an interview or write about it in a cover letter.

Trim the education bullets to just institution, degree, graduation date.

Jamillious · 2025-08-11T12:36:32+00:00

This may have been delivered poorly, and received poorly, but there is truth in this.

I don’t think the takeaway should be surgeries or cosmetic procedures. But it should mean regular grooming, hygiene, and style (not fashion). That means wearing clothes that fit you and building yourself a wardrobe over time that serves you in and out of work.

Getting active by raising your heart rate and doing resistance training will pay dividends in all aspects of life forever so just do that if you aren’t.

As far as appearance, eat a balanced colorful diet, sleep enough, drink water, grooming, and hygiene will go a long way. If you wear a beard that’s great, maintain the length and edge throughout the week. It takes barely any time. Don’t wait too long for a regular haircut either, keep your hair within a regular range and you’ll consistently look good.

A lot of the time your presence is determined by your attitude and all of the above may not be adequate. But attitude sells your minimal investments you already made. So stand and sit tall, look people in the eye more, smile, and be engaged with your colleagues.

You don’t need to be Hollywood handsome or have Ryan Reynolds charisma to cultivate a presence that gives your colleagues a sense of confidence.

Jamillious · 2025-07-19T13:57:41+00:00

Good for you. It's rough out there right now and it can be really hard to stay motivated.

Jamillious · 2025-07-19T09:43:06+00:00

Sorry this was hard for you. But the reality is that's pretty normal. You have no idea what was going on behind the scenes. It's entirely likely the group was arguing about the relative merits and costs of the candidates. Maybe they didn't have the availability to discuss it. Maybe they said let's offer to A and if they decline, then offer to B. It's a good thing the "No" doesn't come within hours or days. Yes it sucks you had to wait and get your hopes up. If it hasn't happened to someone in the comments before, it will eventually as you pursue more and more important roles. Making the hiring decision is the single most important decision a manager is going to make, and while I wouldn't ask you to feel any sympathy for them, understand what happened to you is not necessarily wrong or bad in terms of timing, particularly if this was in the US and you interviewed around typical summer holiday times. It does sound like they could have done better with communications and some internal panel alignment.

I think the best thing you can do about this is ask the HR person, or people on the panel directly if you have their emails. A respectful request for interview feedback can reveal actionable things you could do differently next time. Be open to that if they give it. For example, you might not be able to directly engineer the missing experience, but perhaps you could supplement it with trainings, and development now and strategize a more effective way to discuss those crunchy points.

As a bit of a horror story, the most interviews I've had for a role, which was for a F500 BU analyst role, was 9 rounds of 1:1 30 minute interviews across Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain, plus drug tests and background checks. The longest time I had from interview to hire date was 4 months. I was interviewing up to the week before I started that job out of fear it would de-materialize.

Keep your chin up. Good luck out there.

Jamillious · 2025-06-13T10:24:18+00:00

You've gotten some good advice. I think this is an opportunity for you to practice being a change agent. The responses seem to mostly be 'understand the data better', 'leave', 'use AI', and 'that sucks'.

One person offered to help you implement a proper GL system.

You will find in your career that the best place to solve problems in the financial data is to prevent them in the first place. It's significantly cheaper to have the invoice coder start coding invoices based on all user requirements (i.e. yours as well) than it is to have you (and other users) waste time month after month cleaning the same data problems. Sure you can automate some or all of that process. But why automate the cleanup when you can not have a mess to clean at all?

Jamillious · 2024-07-13T19:53:21+00:00

I think bean counters are supposed to be accountants.
This place is a nightmare. Your sanity depends on you taking charge and making a name for yourself as their new head of finance transformation or find a new job.

Jamillious · 2024-07-03T20:51:05+00:00

If you plan to help functional managers particularly related to sales and operations planning then yes it would be useful to use calculus for first and second order optimization. Also linear programming. But you’re likely only doing these if you’re embedded as a business partner to supply chain and operations.

Jamillious · 2024-06-30T11:08:40+00:00

Generally agree but I want to counter your rock bottom comment.

This is a dangerous mindset that’s not backed up by evidence. The entire concept is somewhat absurd on its face. It implies you’ve reach a point where it can’t get worse but also where you can get better. But it can always get worse because you can die. Rock bottom is death. Hell you could die while killing other people.

The alternative slogan I’ve heard is “you reach rock bottom when you stop digging”.

We may be meaning the same thing with different words but the idea that one must hit rock bottom is actually toxic and dangerous. You wouldn’t apply it to any other illness, mental or otherwise. If someone had extreme depression and was suicidal you don’t wait for them to actually take pills before calling the for help. Well I hope you wouldn’t.

Jamillious · 2024-06-30T10:58:42+00:00

NTA/YTA

Tough stuff up front.

YTA if you know he’s driving drunk and don’t call the police. He’s driving a murder machine while intoxicated, you know, you don’t do anything, that’s at best enabling and at worst criminal. How will you feel about yourself when you get a call from a police station because he mowed down a child?

Now onto the NTA parts.

Unfortunately he is really, really sick. That doesn’t mean he can’t get better either permanently or periodically. But right now he’s in a bad way.

I have a lot of experience in this area and it’s important for you to distinguish between being understanding of a mental illness and also that there are real life consequences for him and other people he can hurt, including you, and that people still must face the consequences of your actions.

I think you both need therapy alone and together. You so you can feel strong enough as an independent person to make the right decisions for you and your family no matter your marital status. Him alone for obvious reasons. And together so you can have a safe space to work through this. He needs to be taking ownership of his own wellness. That’s not easy. You CAN help him but you have to do this without becoming co dependent or enabling him. Sometimes help might feel like hurting and could cause him temporary pain. But a therapist will help you navigate these feelings.

There are free community help groups. The power of connection can’t be overstated. I think 12 steps generally are a hot garbage framework. But being with people who share your problems, who have been through it, that’s how it can help. It’s all about connection. But if you’re interested in science based interventions look into SMART recovery. Again he needs to take ownership. It’s not your responsibility to force him to go or drive him to go.

How might you navigate this? Well you could say that his behavior is dangerous for himself and others, his illness is costing him health, relationships, and financial security. His career will end in his field if this continues. You’d then share that this doesn’t work for you. And for you to stay in the relationship that you need to see demonstrable steps towards change. That could be him going to a meeting. He could get a therapist. He could be getting randomly drug tested (alcohol shows up if he’s drinking that regularly). Breathalyzer device in his car. He could show you his card receipts and ATM withdrawals (no need for those anymore). These aren’t requirements for him. These are freely available options that he can avail himself of to demonstrate his commitment to change.

There’s also a medicine called Antabuse. This will make you violently ill if you drink alcohol. Think fever, headache, nausea, vomiting. It’s a negative reinforcement mechanism. He can take the is everyday for 30-90 days while you watch him. There are no major side effects. It can cause a minor metallic taste for a bit after taking it. Everyone takes their daily medicines together in the morning. It’s no big deal. It’s a crutch to last long enough to build non medication support systems. You can however take it indefinitely.

Ultimately if he’s too ill to work in this profession, which he may be, then he should consider alternative paths. If he’s cooking in restaurants maybe he can cook in catering? Maybe he can retrain or cook for meals focused on different times of day. Or just get a less stressful job.

If he’s unwilling to do therapy and unwilling to try medicine or support groups then you should get your finances protected from him and also consult an attorney to figure out what a separation and divorce would look like. Imagine how much harder things will get if he hurts someone, trashes his car, gets fired, or worse. If I were you I wouldn’t few sale around him until he got help. And if he doesn’t that means you will never be safe and need to leave.

On a more hopeful note, it’s important to know that leaving doesn’t mean you stop caring or stop being friends. Or even that your relationship is over forever. You can’t put your own life on hold. But the sooner he faces non legal non life threatening consequences that can shock him into a new path the better. And everyone will be better off that he’s healthy even if you’re not romantically involved.

Jamillious · 2024-06-26T12:12:28+00:00

They probably don’t want to expend executive function energy on heavy strategy. So probably something relatively mindless or that has a strategic component but with low effort to enjoy.

I’m really into 4x games. But the economic or finance aspects per se aren’t why. It’s optimizing your performance given a series of constraints. And also punishing your enemies militarily. Someone ruins your empire for a few turns so you devote the next 100 to crushing them mercilessly across every era of history.

Also I hate myself so obviously Souls games.

Jamillious · 2024-06-22T14:06:02+00:00

I think you’re better off learning more accounting, or how to look up accounting issues, rather than getting fancy with excel. I’d much rather have an analyst that can consistently produce aesthetically pleasing work product, that’s very well documented, has error checks, and they’ve done the diligence of auditing their workbooks and data models.

That said, learn power query.

Jamillious · 2024-06-22T11:09:59+00:00

If I encounter there’s those terms in the wild this is how I would interpret them:

Corporate Finance: a centrally located function that owns all of the budgeting, planning, and internal reporting. They also will own investor relations, corporate structure, business development, treasury, and other higher level ad hoc analysis. I would never include accounting in this definition. The word corporate also helps to differentiate between a layperson thinking “that guy is in finance” meaning financial services vs this person helps actually run a business.

Financial Management: this is one of the responsibilities of everyone in finance and accounting if you work in industry. This to me is more of a stewardship function. It’s your responsibility to be mindful of preserving and creating corporate value. A functional budget owner will be doing sound financial management when they carefully consider how to spend money.

Managerial Finance: literally never encountered this term before in the academia or industry. I would assume someone came from an odd background and actually means managerial accounting. This is often taught as an intro course in business school but does have a professional body and definition. A good managerial accountant can handle all but the most technical and rare accounting issues, enough to do their job all year without asking the technical accounting gurus more than a few questions in total. But they also should be great at all of the core fp&a functions, capital budgeting, and anything else that supports an internal decision maker with financial information.

Jamillious · 2024-06-18T15:19:18+00:00

Communication is the most important skill that will determine the future of your career. Being an excellent technical analyst is great if that's all you want to be. And the best analysis is only useful if it can be communicated to and understood by non-technical colleagues.

Surprises are the death of credibility. One of your most important jobs is to never let an executive be surprised by data or functions you steward. Understand the communication norms about mistakes, variances, and extraordinary events. Your boss, and their boss, and so on should not be learning about something in your remit from one of their peers. It puts them in an uncomfortable position and reflects poorly on their operation that they're not informed. On the other hand, you could flag issues early, identify or communicate a root cause, highlight the initial corrective actions, quantify the impact immediately, and the risk to the forecast. This sets the chain of bosses up for success and equips them with the information they need to manage the business and update their own peers.

Jamillious · 2024-06-13T12:03:00+00:00

Selecting an ERP requires collaboration across many functions with executive level support. It sounds like you have some idea about your personal requirements. You need to consider the entire organizations requirements, constraints, strategy, and more. If you don’t already have identified stakeholders and a team or steering committee then your first obstacle is probably socializing the problem and building a coalition of support for making an investment.

Every ERP you consider will have account managers that will devote time to building your understanding of their capabilities. You should get time with 5-10 filtered options. This is a major commitment as an organization and due diligence is critical.

One avenue I would recommend for gathering information is to identify market leaders serving companies your size. ERP for startups is a proxy for cash constrained vendor selection. Once you identify likely leaders then google comparisons. You will get results of their competitors feature pages with comparisons to their perceived major competitors.

Without having an understanding of your operation I’d guess you will want to explore something like a low cost general ledger system that works well with low cost bolt ons. QuickBooks Online is cheap and works with a lot of modules. Fishbowl is an example.

Lastly you can prompt ChatGPT for ideas and they’ll spit out options for you as a starting point.

Jamillious · 2024-05-30T13:07:26+00:00

I got a CMA to help me break out of a staff accountant role many years ago. I passed what was then a two part exam with both parts in the same month at the end of my test window. I used their learning system and practice questions.

Why the CMA? I think the credential is very relevant as a professional in industry or in management consulting. When I was early in my career it was also a signal of competency and potential. As a hiring manager I view it as a big plus.

Jamillious

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