In this episode of the FP&A Trends Video Series, Randall Bolten, author of "Painting with Numbers" talks about how to effectively present numbers for FP&A professionals. Presenting numbers is communicating, and therefore there are certain tips to make sure it is done correctly.

“A good sketch is better than a long speech…” a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. Companies are collecting, organising, storing, and analysing data from hundreds of sources, and the volume is increasing exponentially. But this data is only relevant if it can be used to drive outcomes and make timely business decisions. So it is essential to you can understand and evaluate the data quickly, and this is where data visualisation comes in.

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.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words… “Telling the story” is one of the most important tasks facing the FP&A professional, and data visualization is a powerful tool to reveal this story. Data visualisation is vital for FP&A analytics: it can help to reveal hidden trends and patterns, to filter out the noise and to generate valuable business insights. In other words, there are two types of data visualisation: