This blog post  addresses the acquisition of FP&A skills. People who want to become financial planning and analysis (FP&A) practitioners obtain advice on how to achieve this goal.  One piece of advice is to acquire education by taking courses in subjects like accounting, economics, and finance.

One can find many definitions of financial analysis. Investopedia defines financial analysis as “the process of evaluating businesses, projects, budgets and other finance-related entities to determine their suitability for investment.”

One of the realities that FP&A professionals need to realize is people tend to be too optimistic in their financial plans.  People tend to expect higher revenues, lower expenses, or less time to recover the amounts of their investments.  Psychologists label these expectations as optimism bias. As an accountant, I am guided by the conservatism principle.

In this recent interview with GTNews, Larysa Melnychuk sets out the fundamentals of FP&A,  its vital role within the organisation, its international aspects and future FP&A trends to watch.

After her  round of meetings with financial planning and analysis professionals across the globe, Larysa Melnychuk, managing director of the London FP&A Club, returned with plenty of stories and insights about the challenges they face.

In this blog,  the author offers his insights on some of the challenges faced by practitioners in making sense of data and communicating it within organisations, and his ideas on how these shortcomings can be overcome. A few decades ago everything seemed so straightforward. When it came to planning and controlling businesses annual budgets were the only show in town. Things are very much different now.