This is the second article in a series of articles devoted to the wide variety of the benefits provided by the next generation budget, the operational budget (OB), and its associated operational income statement (OIS). This article will describe OB’s benefits over the current budgeting process and its results. It will be of particular interest to FP&A professionals focused on the current budgeting process and how to improve it. 

“If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.”

For FP&A professionals the box is budgets.

Two years ago, the company moved away from our annual budget and monthly variance reports, and adopted quarterly rolling forecasts supported by key performance indicators and scorecards. Is this approach useful to a line manager?

One of the advantages of working in the domain of FP&A is that it provides excellent opportunity to learn about many aspects of the business. This enables the individual to, not only do the job with a more solid ground, but to also get a better picture of what and how is done in the other departments. Additionally, working closely with colleagues from different functions increases one’s visibility in the organization. But how do you get started in FP&A?