Paul Barnhurst

FP&A Today

Podcast Host

Born Capital

The tides of change are flowing into the finance function which sends the function into the age of 4.0. We say it is "Enabled by tech - Driven by people". 

At Born Capital, we focus on tech enablement and are looking for early-stage startups in what we call #CFOTech that will enable the finance function to become a profit driver. We have a keen interest in FP&A and Business Finance as this is where we see the biggest improvement potential.

Actually, CFOs themselves know this as 71% of them are not happy with the performance of their FP&A team despite significant investments made in the past decade. We will help the office of the CFO get the right tech and tools to step up to the plate and deliver on the expectations of the CEO and other CXOs.

Feel free to reach out if you would like to know more about how we can help your start-up to the next level...

Advisory Board Member

The FP&A GUY

Founder

DigiCert, Inc.

Director of Finance Sales Operations and Analytics

Solera, Inc.

Director of FP&A - Dealer and Aftermarket Division

Director of FP&A - Dealer Divison

Built Excel data model and developed financial reporting tool that allows easy review of budget and actuals for 30 North American legal entities transactional data, this model has helped reduce accounting errors and improved insight into key business expenses and vendors.
•	Provide support to NA CFO for $500M+ SaaS business to include preparing decks, providing ad-hoc analysis, and attending various leadership meetings.
•	Coordinate consolidation of forecasts and monthly results for 3 North American business units
•	Co-Led team effort to select software financial planning system and led effort to select consulting company to implement TM1 panning tool.
•	Worked closely with accountants to improve balance sheet reconciliation reporting for prepaid and capitalized software projects allowing business to have a clearer picture of actual spend on software & software projects.
•	Supported various accounting improvement initiatives resulting in improved accounting processes, to include reconciling over $4M of unreconciled balance sheets.

FP&A Manager

American Express

Prepared and presented monthly results package for executive leaders, including product P&L’s, key metrics, monthly variance commentary, scorecards, and balance-of-year outlook for products. Managed financial analyst in India.
►Developed and implemented improved process to track monthly R&O’s for multiple business products resulting in better understanding of product level results while reducing time required to produce results.
►Lead critical financial reporting system redesign, in-depth analysis of complex reporting structure, business, allocation rules resulting in generation of monthly product P&L’s without manual intervention.
►Wrote query to pull 5 years of transactional data, and developed an easily updateable financial model providing necessary information to drive decision making on new multi-million-dollar revenue initiative.
►Lead forecasting and reporting improvement initiative that included conducting interviews, prioritizing feedback, and implementing changes which resulted in improved automated reporting, enhanced templates, better communication and smoother forecast.
►Conducted in-depth profitability analysis across multiple travel card markets globally for senior management used to shape senior leaderships change in direction for product portfolio.

FP&A Manager/Lead Finance Officer

Served as Interim Director, training two new employees, performing managerial duties and ensuring financial targets were met. Developed process to track financial performance for all contracts in Asia and Latin America.
►Streamlined over 160 million North American travel supplier revenue forecast by building Access database and enhancing reporting, which included key sales and yield metrics while reducing forecasting process time by over 30%.
►Implemented and led monthly financial results call to communicate financial results to management.
►Trained Senior Financial Analyst for managing operating expenses, headcount, and A/R risk reporting.
►Involved in development & implementation of TM1 tool that reduced ad-hoc reporting by 50%.
►Evaluated monthly P&L line item performance relative to plan and provided variance analysis and identified risks & opportunities, which drove change from no structured P&L's to providing detailed structured P&L's and forecasts for all suppliers and revenue types.

Finance Analyst/FP&A Manager/Interim Director

United States Navy

Managed implementation of multi-billion-dollar procurement vehicle and software system on local and national levels, which entailed researching new software system, assessing functionality, developing business processes and tools, and conducting training across multiple navy installations.
►Conducted in-depth cost and price analysis on contractor proposal saving over $800K during negotiations.

Contract Specialist/Procurement Analyst

Qualified finance professional, wishing to contribute expertise in a leadership role offering opportunities to assist with company growth and staff development. Possess a strong background in finance management, business intelligence, forecasting, and financial/statistical modeling.  

Areas of Expertise:
★ Variance Analysis | ★ Team Leadership | ★ Profit & Loss (P&L) | ★ Business Intelligence
★ Report Development | ★ Relationship Building | ★ Budgeting/Long Range Strategic Planning
★ Stakeholder Communication | ★ Scenario Planning | ★ Financial/Statistical Modeling
★ Business Processes | ★ Policies and Controls | ★ Structured Query Language (SQL)

☛ Feel free to contact me – Pbarnhurst@thefpandaguy.com

One more reason finance should use a PC not a Mac. 

I am not saying but I am sayin :)

Credit CJ Gustafson 

If you are not following CJ you should be be is on Twitter, LinkedIn, and has his Mostly Metrics Newsletter and website. 

Coincidence :) Leave your thoughts in the comments. 

#humor
#TheFPandAGuy

The FP&A Guy shares his blog articles.

Today I am sharing a list of all the blog articles I have written on my website over the years.  95% of my content is on LinkedIn, with my website containing more long-form content. 

This year I am looking to expand my blog.  Let me know in the comments what long-form content you would like me to write about on my blog this year. 

👉  Resource Guides
List of guides I have shared on LinkedIn over the last year
https://lnkd.in/gacg4JfE

👉FP&A Articles
 
Variance Commentary
https://lnkd.in/gh2RVE75
 
Why & How to Upskill Your Data Analytics Skills
https://lnkd.in/g5EJXExD
 
The 4 Key Pillars of FP&A Planning Tools
https://lnkd.in/gnNxrP_G
 
Designing Models in Excel
https://lnkd.in/gYd8dwvR
 
👉Excel Articles
 
Excel Tables and Tabular Data
https://lnkd.in/g9M_n4_P
 
Advanced Formula Editor
https://lnkd.in/gBC_ZMvE
 
Work Smarter Not Harder
https://lnkd.in/gTWuihTd
 
Assuming - Makes a Axx out of U & Me?
https://lnkd.in/geafvPpZ
 
Lookup Functions & Table Relationships
https://lnkd.in/grKmJhuy
 
LAMBDA's Little Helpers
https://lnkd.in/g8kgBdD5
 
Hidden Gem: Cube Functions
https://lnkd.in/gXjH8jGj
 
Game Changer: Excel Dynamic Arrays
https://lnkd.in/giQ3WNiM
 
The Let Function
https://lnkd.in/g59sKEgM
 
Excel LAMBDA Function
https://lnkd.in/gq37nzrJ
 
Excel Custom Data Types
https://lnkd.in/gTmjjn2B
 
Power Query
https://lnkd.in/gw4sg9bW
 
👉Product Review Articles
 
Quantrix Business Modeler Product Review
https://lnkd.in/gnX9kYQW
 
Causal: Excel Killer?
https://lnkd.in/gja9NkMY
 
👉Spreadsheet Tool Articles
 
Is Excel the right tool for the job? How about Grist?
https://lnkd.in/gJnYXnmd

👉 Newsletter Article

If you like my content, sign up for my newsletter at the below link

https://lnkd.in/g6VmbikX

#Finance
#Excel
#TheFPandAGuy

Data Science - How about we start with Excel?

Data Science is all the rage these days; many finance professionals want to become data scientists.  

The funny thing is many of us do not know how to conduct a robust data analysis in Excel, yet we want to learn SQL, R, and Python.  

Most finance professionals are not even

	➡️Using Excel tables 
	➡️Using Power Query 
	➡️Using statistical analysis in Excel

Yet we want to be data scientists?

When it comes to learning data science, the process often begins with Excel, and we should start with learning to conduct robust analysis in Excel and build upon that. 

Bernardo Garcia  Garcia, in a post, said:

"Excel is your walking phase in the data science space."

David Langer  Langer, Data Analytics and Excel teacher, commented that:

"Excel is most definitely the gateway for valuable analytics skills like SQL and R."

So if you want to prepare yourself to be a data scientist or improve your ability to be a more complete analyst, start with improving your Excel Skills. 

The Excel skills people should focus on when wanting to eventually learn data science has little to do with the popular Excel formulas and more to do with:

	➡️ Excel Tables
	➡️ Tabular Data Structure
	➡️ Power Query
	➡️ Data Modeling
	➡️ Statistical Modeling
	➡️ Pivot Tables (summarized data)

Notice what the above items have in common you can learn them without writing formulas in your Excel worksheet. They also correlate nicely with more advanced Data Science tools:  

🔴Power Query dovetails nicely into learning SQL

🔴Data modeling is a natural progression to learning BI visualization tools

🔴Statistical analysis in Excel prepares you for using statistical software or programming languages to conduct statistical analysis

🔴Learning tables and tabular data structure prepares you for structuring data with other tools

George Mount  Mount, author of "Advancing into Analytics: From Excel to Python and R," stated he would like to see an Excel course start with learning excel tables and Power Query before teaching formulas. 

I agree with George. If I were teaching an Excel course today, I would start with the following:

	1. Teaching Design Principles
	2. Excel Tables
	3. Power Query

Starting with the above would make us much more productive/effective in planning, structuring spreadsheets, cleaning data, and, ultimately, our analysis.

Bottom line, I believe most FP&A professionals would benefit more by improving Excel skills and learning how to work with data in Excel than by taking that Python or R course. 

Leave your thoughts below. What do you think about focusing on improving Excel skills and changing the way we teach Excel before learning R and Python?

 #datascience 
#finance
#TheFPandAGuy

On my way to Toronto

I am excited for the opportunity I have to meet lots of people for the first time in Toronto this week. 

First super excited to meet my training part Ron Monteiro, CPA, CMA, we have worked together virtually for more than a year. 

I will also get spend a day working on Excel models with a local company visit with multiple people from a few different planning tools, spend a few hours with the Vena Solutions team recording some exciting new video content. 

 #training 
#adventure
#TheFPandAGuy

What a great week in Toronto

➡️ Monday 

Met my partner Ron Monteiro, CPA, CMA, for the first time. 

I had dinner with Ian Schnoor, CFA, CFM, who runs the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI). We had a great time discussing modeling and the planning tool space. If you want to be better at model building, I highly recommend the program. 

➡️ Tuesday 

I met with Vicky Houser and had a great conversation about all the exciting things at Planful.  We discussed how the integration is going with Plannuh and other exciting events on the horizon. 

Then Ron and I did our first virtual FP&A session with 11 students. We discussed FP&A and analytical methods and had a great first session. I am looking forward to three more sessions. 

Tuesday afternoon hung out with the Vena Solutions team. I recorded some videos for a project I worked with them on and had dinner. 


➡️ Wednesday 

Spent the day with Deepak Bhandari and the awesome team at Highliner foods. We spent two hours discussinf excel and how to design models and then spent several hours redesigning some of the key financial models they use. 

➡️ Thursday

Met with Brent Noseworthy who works for a fund investing in technology for the office of the CFO. We had breakfast and chatted about  FP&A tools landscape and what trends we expect to see over the next year. 

Spending the rest of today with Ron and we preparing a proposal for Association for Financial Professionals next annual conference in San Diego. I hope you will be able to join me at the conference. We are also strategizing about new courses we can offer. 

Tonight having dinner with the Andrew Roth and the marketing team at Causal.  

➡️ Friday

A day of fun as I check out Niagara Falls and then back home to see family. What a great week and during it all finalizing the details on my digital course Modeling Design Principles. More to come in the near future. 

What a great week in Toronto meeting amazing people and it was good to be in a new city and see the beauty of Toronto. 

#TheFPandAGuy

Brainstorm with me

Vareto was kind enough to mail me some fun stickers they developed for the FP&A community. As I wait for them to be delivered, I thought I would share what they came up. 

I have a feeling that as a group; we could come brainstorm and come up with some more great ideas for them to make. 

Mine is two images next to each other on one sticker:
➡️ Creative Accountant with an image of someone behind bars
➡️ Creative FP&A Professional with an image of someone being promoted

Maybe a tagline of creativity pass it on :) 

What is your idea for a sticker share in the comments and let's see what fun creative ideas we can come up with? 

Special thanks to Melody C.

#TheFPandAGuy
#humor 

Unpivot - This is my favorite all time trick in Power Query. I have used this one more times than I can remember and it is super simple. 

If you like the video comment below and please subscribe to my YouTube channel as I will be adding more videos in the coming weeks. I added threee this week alone.

50,000+ Downloads and counting 🥳🎉🎊

FP&A Today, we could not do it without all of you.

I want to start with a giant thank you to:

➡️ You, the Audience - A big thanks to everyone who has listened to an episode over the last nine months. We could not do it without you. 

➡️ Jonathan Marciano - FP&A Today would not be what it is without the fantastic support of Jonathan behind the scenes creating show notes, the Datarails blog, and coordinating the release of the audio and video

➡️ Datarails - For believing in my ability to host FP&A Today; I have learned so much from this experience. 

➡️ Saw And Sine - Our video/audio team ensures the podcast is always the highest quality

Next, I want to share some exciting news.

➡️ Continuing Education Credit - In addition to offering CPE credit, we are working on providing education credits for the Financial Planning & Analysis Certification offered by Association for Financial Professionals. 

➡️ Earmark has created its own page for The FP&A Today Podcast to make it even easier to earn CPE credit. https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa

Finally, I want to share a few blog articles written by Niyati Hemani based on FP&A Today. She wrote two blog articles based on recent episodes about data visualization and financial modeling. 

Niyati, thanks for writing about these important subjects, and I am grateful FP&A today could be an inspiration for your blog posts. Check out her blog posts below and follow her on LinkedIn.   

Links to articles and podcasts are below:

Financial Modeling Blog: https://lnkd.in/gaDii5VS

Financial Modeling Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gtcYJxbg

Data Visualization Blog: https://lnkd.in/giFKNTRA

Data Visualization Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gBbEEfFn

If you have a favorite FP&A Today moment, please share it below and share the podcast link with all your finance friends.  Let's make FP&A Today the #1 FP&A podcast available. 

#fpanda 
#finance 
#TheFPandAGuy

Tonight I had dinner with Truman Tang 🌱 and Jimmy Huynh from the Vena Solutions marketing team. 

This afternoon I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with the video team recording video for a project I have worked on with Vena. Always good to spend some time with a great team and proud of all Vena has done in the FP&A software space. 

#software
#TheFPandAGuy

Conducting Analysis

One of the most important things we can learn to do as finance professionals is to conduct a robust analysis of our business.  In preparation for teaching different analysis methods tomorrow, I put together a file that goes over common methods one will use to conduct analysis. 

As I was doing it, I set up a couple of cases using dynamic arrays.  

In this video, I highlight how you can use dynamic arrays to automate your analysis so that you can change variables within your analysis that increase or decrease the number of rows and/or columns without manually adjusting any formula ranges. 

1. Investment Case - I built a fully dynamic investment case that you can change from 5 periods to 20 periods without changing a single formula by just changing the number of periods in a drop-down. 

2. Sensitivity Analysis - Built a sensitivity analysis where you can change the number of variables you want to include for both price and COGS. The model size will automatically update based on drop-down selections. 

Check out the video and let me know what you think.  Did you know you can create this kind of analysis in Excel with the new dynamic arrays?

#Excel
#lifelonglearning 
#TheFPandAGuy

"First and foremost, they're my partner.  They have a seat with me at the table."

-Jeanette Dorazio, CEO of Leadpages, speaking about her FP&A team. 

Last Week: Casey Woo
Next Week:  Mystery Surprise :) 

This week on FP&A Today, I chat with an accomplished CEO about her experiences working with FP&A.  

Jeanette is an accomplished leader who has held executive-level positions at multiple companies.  As a woman in tech, she is passionate about breaking down barriers and championing the inclusion and success of women in STEM fields. 

In this week's episode, Jeanette and I discuss:

👉 How FP&A teams can get that coveted seat at the table by "seeing the patterns" in a business

👉 How FP&A works with her in monitoring key metrics for growth 

👉 The CEOs playbook for FP&A during a downturn 

👉The best and worst FP&A work she has seen in her career 

👉 Why FP&A should be a "very close first" for hiring into the finance team after the CFO

👉Why the visibility of FP&A needs to improve 

👉The power of Excel in shaping her journey through product management to CEO


Remind your can earn CPE Credit from Earmark for listening to this episode.

https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa

⭐⭐⭐⭐Exciting Announcement:  We are currently going through the approval process with the Association for Financial Professionals to allow you to earn continuing education credits for your FP&A Certification (FPAC) in the future.  Just one more way FP&A Today strives to be the best and most valuable FP&A podcast available. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 
 
FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails

#finance 
#TheFPandAGuy

Open article: Jeanette Dorazio: What do CEOs really want from FP&A? by Paul Barnhurst

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jeanette-dorazio-what-do-ceos-really-want-from-fpa-paul-barnhurst

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.” ― Bob Burg

“One of the greatest compliments you can be paid as a leader is to have someone say that you helped them be better than they thought they could be.”  ― Mark Sanborn

If you liked the above quotes, then you will love this LinkedIn Live hosted by Ron Monteiro, CPA, CMA, and me on the 13th of January as we spend a few brief minutes chatting with Bob Burg and Mark Sanborn. 

These two best-selling authors will be sharing some brief thoughts with us during this event as Ron, and I ask them about the following:

➡️ The 5 laws of stratospheric success
➡️ What is a Go-Giver and why the concept is so valuable
➡️ What is the Fred Factor
➡️ Advice for someone who is struggling in their career
➡️ and more

Look forward to having you join us and a huge thanks to Bob Burg and Mark Sanborn for agreeing to spend a few minutes with us. 

#Success
#Career
#TheFPandAGuy

5 Predictions for the FP&A Tools Space

1. 2023 Planning Tool Predictions
2. A recap of this week's tools discussion

Five predictions on the marketplace for 2023 and beyond

1. Product-Led Growth Tools - We will see more Product Led Growth approaches that do not require an implementation build, such as Causal, Arithmix, Dryrun, Profit Frog, Telemetry, etc. 

2. Spreadsheet Tools - We will see an increase in SMB tools that integrate with spreadsheets, such as Telemetry, Cube, DataRails, GeniusSheets, Liveflow, and PivotXL.  Many of these tools are easy to build and adopt and have attractive price points for SMBs. 

3. BI Add-On Planning Tools - We will see growth in the number of companies offering an integrated planning tool as an add-on to commercial BI planning applications.  I am aware of one launching this year and another coming to the US market this year. These tools will be built on commercial BI applications such as Power BI, Qlik, and Tableau.  Look for my market guide later this year on the subject. 

4. Consolidation - We will see more acquisitions and consolidation in the marketplace as tools get acquired and go out of business.  It is way too fragmented. So this year, we will see a market thinning in the back half of the year and the beginning of 2024.  

5. Increased Adoption - I don't know if it is this year or further out, but I think at some point in the next 12-36 months will start to see a sharp increase in the adoption of planning tools, even for companies in the SMB space. With a much lower price point and the ability to stay in Excel or leave Excel, the benefits are starting to become worth the cost for SMBs. 

With these predictions in mind, I wanted to share conversations I had with different vendors this week. 

This week's conversations

Logica - Carissa Castro and I had a nice conversation about what the team at Logica is building and how they have built a visual financial modeling platform with a template approach to make the modeling easier.  It is a multi-dimensional modeling tool with some similarities to a Causal or Arithmix 

Telemetry - Paul Wehrley and I had a great conversation about Telemetry and how they have focused on building a tool that would unstick financials from finance and empower business leaders to have consistent reporting.  The tool is designed around integrating with Excel and Google Sheets and does not have its own calculation engine. However, it does have an allocation engine for creating segment P&Ls and has taken a PLG approach with a freemium model. 

Easy Models - Thomas Bichard-Bréaud and I discussed the multi-dimensional modeling tool he is building focused on valuations.  He shared the tool, which is in the early stages of building, and I am excited to see how it scales and grows. 

#CFOTech
#TheFPandAGuy


The Match Function in Excel

Often when people mention functions, they say index/match as if they are one function, but they are two. 

The match function marches a value and returns the relative position of the value in the lookup range. 

For example, if I have three columns named 1,2,3, and I want to return the data for the column named 3 I can use match to return the 3rd position. 

Match would return the number 3 in the above example. This means match works very well in combination with other lookup formulas such as:

➡️ Vlookup
➡️ Hlookup
➡️ Offset
➡️ Index

Remember next time you are using match that it does not need to be used with index it can be used anytime you need to return a relative position from a list based on a specific lookup value. 

When learning Excel focus on understanding the logic behind the formulas and you will be amazed at all the ways you can combine and use different functions not just how to solve the problem at hand. 


 #learning 
#Excel

AI is here to stay, which is a good thing for FP&A professionals.

“It will either be the best thing that’s ever happened to us, or it will be the worst thing.” - Stephen Hawking

The release of ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Many people, as evidenced by recent discussions, feared AI could take their job.  

The reality is something quite different.  AI has been used for years in our daily lives:

➡️ Smart Assistants
➡️ Social Media
➡️ Chatbots
➡️ Autonomous Aircraft
➡️ And more 

And these most recent developments will increase the use of AI in the workplace as well.

Despite being used already in many departments, with different SaaS tools, one department that lags behind the others is finance, and that is a shame as AI can help transform how finance works. 

Finance needs to go beyond static formulas. Finance and FP&A need to leverage advanced technology in order to offer machine-generated value that goes beyond human capabilities.  Using AI will allow FP&A to focus more on creating value for the business by simplifying and streamlining routine tasks and assisting with some of our most complex analyses.

➡️ Automated Planning - when a company builds a plan to reach a goal, there’s a lot of manual work. What AI does is assist in this process by creating a smarter, easier way to manage a plan. It’s like a navigation route that calculates the best, easier and fastest route to travel.

➡️ Risk Derived Planning - Using AI and probability-science can make it easier to understand the risks in our plan and develop scenarios to manage risk. 

➡️ Forecasting - AI can help eliminate human bias in the forecasting process.  

➡️ Anomaly Detection - AI can find data anomalies and identify patterns humans cannot easily identify.

➡️ Process Automation - Using AI/ML to automate and streamline routine tasks such as different source system data unifications, data sanitization, and identifying budget to actual variances.

The finance function of the future must embrace AI/ML or risk being left behind.  One tool that embraces AI/ML is fintastic. fintastic combines all the benefits of legacy tools with the power of AI. In the words of its founder Jonathan Einav: “We’re introducing a new approach in the FP&A world.  We use probability science and risk derivative planning to provide actionable insights and recommendations that will forever improve how companies make decisions.”

If you are interested in learning more about how fintastic uses AI to help FP&A departments achieve their maximum potential, check out this article I wrote: 

https://lnkd.in/gy_S48PC

What do you think about the future of AI and finance? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Ad: fintastic

#AI
#Automation
#TheFPandAGuy

Open article: Artificial Intelligence time for Finance to jump on the Boat by fintastic.ai

https://www.fintastic.ai/blog/artificial-intelligence-time-for-finance

Analogy Time - Today, I ground fresh flour for making homemade bread. I made oat, spelt, wheat, and barley flour. As I made them, I was thinking about how they are like software planning tools. 

Yes, I am a total nerd, and this analogy proves it. 

I must say nothing beats homemade bread with freshly made flour. You can buy store-bought bread, which does the job, but you sacrifice taste, and it is less healthy. 

Next, you can buy the flour and make it yourself, which is better than store-bought bread but homemade bread with your own flour is best. 

This is a lot like CFOTech software. You can run your finance department off Spreadsheets, but you sacrifice automation and integrations. 

Next, you can implement a planning tool which can be like homemade bread with store-bought flour. It can help automate some things but is not the best without the homemade flour. 

It is only when you combine homemade flour with homemade bread that you get the full benefit. Much like with software tools, only when you combine people, processes, and tech do you get the full benefits. 

This is why we are bringing you a two-day conference to discuss 3rd Gen Planning Tools and how you can get the most out of your people, processes, and tools. In my view, spreadsheets alone are not enough, and adding the right tech to your tech stack is more important than ever. 

Much like I made multiple kinds of flour, we are bringing you numerous different tools so you can select the one that is best for you and your needs. 

We have headcount planning tools, tools designed to keep you in spreadsheets, tools designed for integrated planning, tools with cutting-edge AI, tools designed for B2B SAaS, and so much more. 

Let me know if my analogy worked :)

The list of vendors for demo days includes

➡️ Abacum 
➡️ Causal 
➡️ Datarails 
➡️ Doublefin 
➡️ Drivetrain 
➡️ fintastic 
➡️ Jirav 
➡️ Mosaic.tech 
➡️ OnPlan 

I hope to see you at this exciting event, and let me know what is lacking with your current planning process.

Link to event: https://lnkd.in/gUhDhqW3


 #finance 
 #ai 
#TheFpandAGuy

$250M+ raised in funds by FP&A Demo Days participants.

One concern many companies have when selecting an FP&A Planning platform is whether the tool can scale with my fast-growing business. 

The tools selected to participate in Demo Days have shown an ability to raise funding by developing robust platforms for solving today's planning challenges. The funds raised will help ensure these companies can continue releasing product enhancements as they scale with their customers. 

The tools participating in demo days provide solutions for customers in the small to upper midmarket today and will grow with these customers over time. 

Solutions include:

➡️ Tools designed to manage every aspect of headcount planning

➡️ Tools focused on providing the latest and greatest tech in AI to solve today's planning problems

➡️ Tools focused on providing a solid experience planning with both bottom-up and top-down approaches

➡️ Tools designed to keep you planning in spreadsheets while giving you the benefits of a planning tool

➡️ Tools designed specifically for the B2B SaaS industry

➡️ Tools designed to support all aspects of planning companywide

➡️ Tools focused on providing an outstanding reporting platform

If you are still using Excel or GoogleSheets, I strongly encourage you to signup for 3rd Generation FP&A demo days, as it will be a great way to see what tools are available without having to contact the company and sit through a sales demo.  

The best part is that demo days is a free event. All that is required is you register at the below link and show up with a willingness to learn. 

In addition to seeing demos, you can attend great speaking sessions designed to help you make a better decision when it comes time to decide what tool will best enable you and your team to support the business better. 




#Planning
#CFOTech
#TheFPandAGuy 

Open article: FP&A 3rd Generation Tools Demo Days by hopin.com

https://hopin.com/events/fp-a-3rd-generation-tools-demo-days?utm_source=Paul&utm_campaign=LinkedIn

Sensitivity Analysis - This is something every FP&A professional should be able to perform. This analysis should regularly be used to determine how sensitive specific outputs are to changes in different inputs. 

Earlier this week, I posted a video showing what you can build with dynamic arrays, and many of you asked for an explanation video. 

Below is the explanation video for my dynamic sensitivity table. In the file, you can automatically adjust all of the inputs without changing the formulas, and the table size will dynamically adjust. 

The process to create the table is as follows:

➡️ Lists - The dropdown lists at the top of the workbook were created using data validation lists. 

➡️ Price - The price is a sequence formula linked to the dynamic dropdowns.

➡️ COGS - The Cogs is a sequence formula linked to the dynamic dropdowns.

➡️ 1st Table - The table is a simple formula taking (Price - COGS) and multiplying it by the units. The only difference is that I told the price and Cogs formula to be dynamic and reference the entire price and COGS range.

➡️HeatMap - For the heatmap, I used a color scale in conditional formatting

➡️2nd Table - The second table calculates the gross profit margin instead of revenue but follows the same process as the first table, with the Price and COGS row and column headers being linked to the first table so it will adjust when they adjust.

If you want a copy of the file, you can download it at my website, and to see this and other videos of mine, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. 

#TheFPandAGuy
#Sensitivity
#finance 

Be a Fred

Today Ron and I visited Niagara Falls and had a fabulous time checking out the falls and the new power plan tunnel. 

During this visit, we experience what • Mark Sanborn calls the Fred Factor with two employees. The first was going back up after walking through the tunnel at the power plant and seeing the falls from the platform. The elevator attendee taking us up the shaft had a passion for his job and the plant, and as he shared his knowledge of the plant, we were amazed. We could tell he loved his job and gave a 110% every day

If you live in the area, check out the tunnel and say hi to David Adames, the CEO of Niagara Parks. 

The second Fred was Nora at the restaurant, where her service was an 11 out of 10. She learned our names and provided excellent service with a smile. She radiated joy for her job and for being able to serve us. 

Regardless of what you do, be a Fred and bring your energy and passion to work every day, and you will make the world a better place. Be exceptional in all you do. 

This post is a Thank You to all the Freds who made My trip to Toronto special. 

#Fredfactor
#TheFPandAGuy

Up Up and Array!

My latest book came today courtesy of Abbott Katz 


Cannot wait to dig in and upskill my excel skills when it comes to Dynamic Arrays. 

If you are not familiar with Dynamic Arrays check out my blog post on the subject

https://lnkd.in/giQ3WNiM

#TheFPandAGuy
#excel

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