FP&A Insights
FP&A Insights is a collection of useful case studies from leading international companies and thought leadership insights from FP&A experts. We aim to help you keep track of the best practices in modern FP&A, recognise changes in the ever-evolving world of financial planning and analysis and be well equipped to deal with them.
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On 15 October 2019, I attended the 7th Stockholm FP&A Board, which was sponsored by OneStream Software and Michael Page. The topic of the evening was rolling forecast.
Whilst Parliament, the Government, the legislature and the EU have been contributing to a feverish few weeks, the UK economy has actually improved. Despite the political twists and turns, the Accountagility Index (AAX) records UK political and economic health in a score out of ten.
At a corporate level, risks can be very well mapped and controlled using e.g. the COSO framework. Defining the risks is often source driven. This means: the source of the risk is identified leading to the impact being measured by the possibility of occurrence (chance) and the size of its impact on the P&L (money). How much appetite for risk does the company have to achieve its goals?
When I first came across the term driver based planning and forecasting I was confused. As an ex-investment banker having joined a Finance team the concept of drivers when talking about a forecast or plan was simply assumptions. Why was it not called just that? Assumptions! Investment bankers have been building models with assumptions ever since the first model was built and a corporate transaction was negotiated.