We live in an unpredictable world where the future is uncertain. If it was then we would all make a fortune by making strategic ‘bets’ on certain outcomes. But the world is not like that.

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.

London FP&A Board Registration Form - 5 June 2025

• Participation in the FP&A board's events is strictly by-invitation-only, with 25-30 attendees per meeting
• It is exclusive to practitioners at the CFO, FD, and Head of Finance levels who are in active employment

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The financial planning and analysis (FP&A Board) Board of senior practitioners recently met in London, UK, to discuss the pros and cons of rolling forecasts, how best to introduce it, and to hear a case study from Maersk Group about how the shipping, transport and oil firm has benefitted. “We’ve abolished the annual budget completely and only use rolling forecasting (RF) now,” said Matthijs Schot, head of performance & analysis at AP Moller Maersk, as he shared his company’s implementation four years ago of an RF process and the lessons they’ve learnt.

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.”

What are the basic ingredients of advanced FP&A analytics? Getting the discussion underway the Board’s founder and managing director, Larysa Melnychuk, suggested that it should be proactive, forward-looking, agile, available in real-time, multidimensional and integrated – although these elements are no more than the basic essentials. The combination should be enough to provide the business with good quality information that enables better business decision-making in a timely manner, while also providing unique insights that make a difference to that process.

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.

As we know a simple matter of spotting bias – systematic under or over forecasting – can get surprisingly tricky in practice if our actions are to be guided by scientific standards of evidence – which they need to be if we are actually going to improve matters.