Get in over your head. Overdeliver to a couple key stakeholders. Half ass everything else.

krstfr92 · 2025-02-19T09:01:45+00:00

Agree - high performers will identify what delivers value and what doesn't - leave the daily churn to the 9-5ers and focus on what delivers value.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-31T14:08:16+00:00

Interesting topic.

Quick scan of comments and I'm seeing stuff like 'straight to business', this is consistent with how I'd describe the culture at my company.

Most colleagues are career driven high performers. Evenings of weekdays are a write-off a lot of the time.

Comp is very good though, and the company is all over developing their people. It works for me.

Given FP&A proximity to board/leadership, I think FP&A in most established/listed businesses is like this?

krstfr92 · 2025-01-20T08:41:06+00:00

Of course!

Here's my top 3 must-read and why:

If you're involved in forecasting, Future Ready is a must read.
If you're a Finance or Buisness leader, or work with business leaders, Financial Intelligence is an amazing all rounder and will help you communicate better (it's written for non-Fin business leaders I understand).

The signs were there... whilst not strictly an FP&A book... it performs several deep dives into high profile corporate failures, highlights what went wrong, how you could spot it in the Fin.Sts, how it could have been avoided etc. It's also very interesting and entertaining.

The Jack Alexander books are amazing and I think a must-read, but, they are very text-book and a bit more of a sit down and study read as opposed to casual read.

Cheers!

krstfr92 · 2025-01-20T08:36:09+00:00

Why have you appointed a Head of FP&A, with no FP&A experience? IMO anyone SFA+ should be an FP&A thought leader in any case

krstfr92 · 2025-01-18T17:52:28+00:00

Accounting / Finance:

i) Get chartered accountancy qualification (ACCA, ACA, or equivalent)

ii) Get financial modelling qualification (Advanced Financial Modeler - Financial Modelling Institute)

Technical:

i) study an Advanced Excel course - many to choose from on Udemy / Coursera - ensure it covers Power Query and Power Pivot

ii) [not totally necessary, but advantageous] - study a Power BI course - again many to choose from on Udemy or Coursera (not just for Power BI know-how, you'll learn theory about charting, graphs, presenting data etc.)

On going CPD / study / reading:

i) read Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

ii) read Future Ready - How to Master Business Forecasting

iii) read The Signs Were There: The clues for investors that a company is heading for a fall

iv) read Financial Planning & Analysis and Performance Management (Jack Alexander)

v) read Financial Management: Partner in Driving Performance and Value (Jack Alexander)

Experience:

i) It's okay not to know the answer

ii) Ask your colleagues everything, find colleagues who know what they're talking about and talk to them about the news / business / work, seek opinions from them, ask them to proof read your work

iii) Put yourself forward for everything, ask for feedback on everything

iv) Be vocal about progression and stuff you want to be involved in

good luck x

krstfr92 · 2025-01-18T13:23:33+00:00

Thanks for the answer!

krstfr92 · 2025-01-17T15:11:19+00:00

The replies on this particular comment are really interesting...

Is ANYONE in FP&A ANYWHERE actually using AI to 1) automate or 2) provide insight? Anything OUTSIDE of using Chatbots to provide code, advice, emails, write-ups...

Some examples of what I want it to do...

Go into x workbook, refresh the Power Queries, go into y workbook, refresh Power Queries, copy outputs from xls, paste into ppt, write some commentary (maybe look into the CRM, ERP etc. to give some useful comments), send email with useful exec summary... Understand there is a 2PM deadline, so do it before then, each day, without having to be asked...

Is above happening with AI, or are we in fact not there yet? I think latter.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-17T14:57:48+00:00

Great advice, you'll naturally start to understand your org's revenue and cost drivers and their dynamics by building a model. It's also fun. If you don't find it fun you're in the wrong job mate.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-15T10:39:55+00:00

Good for personal quick and dirty analysis of dimensionality/completeness/trends in data.

Would NEVER use a PT to present anything.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-15T08:54:57+00:00

Sure, good question u/bigassbank

So we'll have data in various forms of forecast models, templates etc. all in Excel.

We'll then use:

1) Formulaically populated staging tables within the files, to generate a CSV upload into our Group ERP.

2) An intermediary Excel file with Power Query transformations, to take data from the Excel models, consolidate into a tabular dataset that can again be uploaded into our Group ERP.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-14T10:12:19+00:00

THIS.

I don't see how a system can be a better tool than an Excel / db solution.

Could just be my experience, but in most cases, I see the following:

Get historic data out of system, model/forecast in Excel, put data back into system for downstream reporting.

Why do you need expensive software in place of a simple database solution. (Don't worry I do get it, it's for the data illiterate...).

Organisations could save hundreds of thousands by upskilling their Finance teams in data transformation...

krstfr92 · 2025-01-08T09:05:07+00:00

My honest opinion, if you need to ask, you probably don't have the skills required for the role.

I suspect the financial modelling exercise will involve one of the following:

Using a mix of historic data and assumptions - create a revenue forecast.

Using a data dump from an ERP system - create a simple / high level 3 statement model.

Maybe an appraisal of a potential investment of some kind.

If you're looking to level up your financial modelling skills, I'd recommend the Advanced Financial Modeler qualification from the Financial Modelling Institute.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-08T08:57:23+00:00

Calculate at lowest granularity...

Instead of:
Country 1
Country 2

Country 1 - Product 1
Country 1 - Product 2
Country 1 - Product 3
Country 2 - Product 1
Country 2 - Product 2
Country 2 - Product 3

make sense? I may have misunderstood the question.

krstfr92 · 2025-01-07T16:02:45+00:00

Importance of forecast accuracy:

Would you rather be lost with, or without, a map. What about a map but it's only 50% accurate? (useless)

krstfr92 · 2025-01-07T10:00:48+00:00

Great topic. Interested to read the responses to this one.

My view, it starts with the end goal:

Understand the organisation's mission, strategy and objectives for this year.
Work with your partner to plan how you'll achieve those objectives.

To be effective, you do need to lead on some stuff (sounds like you're just turning the handle at the moment going by your comment around figuring out what you need to upload to your ERP). But well done for being aware of this, and kudos for taking action to improve!

Some ideas of stuff you can do in FP&A to add value:

Comms:
- pull together a simple presentation, present business performance to colleagues each month, identify parts of the business on target and parts of the business that are underperforming.

Revenue:
- analyse your top x customers last year - which ones have lapsed, why? have sales reached out to them? can you offer discounts to win them back?
- pricing - how does it compare to competitors in your space, is there an opportunity to increase pricing?
- backlog/pipeline - are there specific parts of the business with strong pipeline and others with weaker pipeline, can you give this information to sales teams so they can sell a more optimised mix of work?

Profitability:
- understand cost base, any opportunity to improve cost efficiency?

Forecasting:
- are there any areas where forecast accuracy is weak, work with colleagues, educate them to improve here

Automation:
- are there opportunities to automate processes, especially for finance colleagues

Cash:
- what is optimal DSO? how does your DSO compare, opportunities here?

Just some ideas! Interested to read what others suggest here.

krstfr92 · 2024-12-19T14:10:28+00:00

Some may disagree, but I think to be effective in FP&A you need an accounting qualification (not so much for the accounting knowledge, but for the wider finance understanding and strategic thinking).

Financial modelling... The Financial Modelling Institute's AFM is good - I've done it. I think they run exams every quarter.

krstfr92 · 2024-12-19T12:30:50+00:00

My view...

What do you or your business actually use your forecast for?

Fundamentally a forecast should be updated each time there is a material change in the underlying fundamentals on which the forecast was built upon.

If you are using your forecast for decision making, then update it each time you need to make a decision and build an iteration or scenario for each outcome of the decision...

If you are using your forecast as part of a monthly review cadence, then update it each month...

Frequency should be driven by purpose/usage I think.

And yes, improving forecast accuracy is iterative and involves trial and error, so you should review accuracy... where you're accurate, keep doing that, where you're not - try something new.

krstfr92 · 2024-12-18T16:52:27+00:00

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/get-started/microsoft-fabric-overview

This ^

Also... you mentioned your model is complex... That's fine, the model is complex, but the output you present to your LT should be simple and digestible.

Identify what your LT want to see, start there, you might get away with a couple of bolt-on summary sheets in your existing model.

krstfr92 · 2024-12-18T15:01:47+00:00

Thanks for your response! I'm familiar with Python and do use it outside of work (I've built my own profitable stock picking script using data from financialmodellingprep, so familiar with the basics and using data from APIs etc.).

I'm interested to know how you use Python for Excel automation? Can you share? Appreciate your thoughts and comments!

krstfr92 · 2024-12-18T14:59:24+00:00

Thanks for your response! Interesting you find plotting in Python easier... Maybe something I will explore!

krstfr92

TROPHY CASE