FP&A Helps CFOs, CEOs, and Boards of Directors with Decision-making
Financial planning and Analysis (FP&A) is defined, by Garner glossary as: “…a set of four activities that support an organization’s financial health: planning and budgeting, integrated financial planning, management and performance reporting, and forecasting and modeling.”
FP&A provides insights as a form of business intelligence to guide business decision making. For tech startups and growth companies, C-suites’ decision-making requires insights from operational, financial, and market data that reflect fast changing situations and complex operations across departments. FP&A is a vital tool for flexible and timely planning for different business scenarios.
CFOs,CEOs, and Boards of Directors frequently rely on FP&A for identifying and assessing both opportunities and risks on cash flow and revenue, adjusting financial forecasts, consolidating budgets with departments, implementing corporate strategies, tracking performance, and gaining a bird’s eye view over a business’s financial health.
The Financial Planning and Analysis Process
“The FP&A process is a continuous cycle of data collection and analysis”, says SAP.com, which lists these four basic steps:
- Data collection, consolidation, and verification
- Planning and forecasting
- Budgeting
- Performance monitoring and analytics
An FP&A Analyst’s Skill Set
FP&A analysts are “problem solvers with an innate or a cultivated talent for financial analysis, forecasting, and modeling. FP&A analysts are analytical individuals with in-depth knowledge of the accounting process.
FP&A professionals are essential for an organization as they advise senior management and business executives on the most effective ways to utilize financial resources to increase profitability. An FP&A analyst also proactively identifies operational and financial risks by carefully analyzing a business’s finances and carrying out scenario analysis.” (Quoted from https://www.datarails.com/fpa-analysts/)
In order to source and consolidate data, build reports and financial models based on data analysis, FP&A analysts apply accounting skills for developing and analyzing profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow projections, financial statements & reports, and other skills for data analysis, business analysis, statistics, and financial softwares, digital tools and apps.
“Unlike accountants who are in charge of recordkeeping, financial analysts are charged with examining, analyzing, and evaluating the entirety of a corporation’s financial activities, and mapping out the company’s financial future.” (Quoted from https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/career/financial-planning-and-analysis-fpa/)
GoalTegic – Strategic Financial Goal Setting for Growth Companies
GoalTegic contributes years of experience in assisting CFOs with reliable, accurate, and systemized FP&A analyses, especially for funded startups, small businesses, and growth companies. As their trusted business partners, we help companies with strategic financial goal setting, so they can grow, scale, and succeed.
We also provide accounting support to tech startups and small businesses, as their trusted advisor, CPA, controller, and bookkeeper.
Please visit our website and let us know if we can help you: https://goaltegic.com/
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GoalTegic is a boutique business financial consulting, controllership, and accounting firm, offering a full range of financial support services for AI startups, small and medium sized companies, technology companies with combined 100 years of experience. Please contact us if you need our help.