I am an “FP&A guy.” I love this stuff. I love every part of it – from the last-minute changes to the long range planning sessions and everything in between. Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of global FP&A and want to share some of my insights and tips and tricks with you all. It has certainly not always gone as planned and I have had my share of missteps. At times, I was convinced that we simply swapped the “What Not to Do” page with the “What to Do” page! That of course, is one way to learn and I will definitely share some of those stories with you.
When colleagues or clients ask questions about best practices or want me to give them some advice on their processes, I have been fond of saying, “Well, FP&A done right is…” So, I thought I would pull together a series of blog posts to share with you several ways that you can do FP&A right. This will include stories from my past experiences, tips and tricks that you can use with your FP&A teams, thoughts on how to organize your department, ways to prepare for a new implementation and other miscellaneous topics. It will focus primarily on People and Process, as I feel those should be the key areas of focus for every FP&A team.
Hopefully, my thoughts will strike a chord with you and you will find something that you can use immediately in your job or it will cause you to take pause and rethink your process to see if there are different actions you could take. As we move through the series, I would love to hear you about how you do FP&A right. What do you think are the keys to success for FP&A? What mistakes have you made that others should avoid? What tips do you have that we could all learn from? If you have a question or a topic for my next blog, please reach out to me.