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Rolling Forecast: Will Traditional Budget Soon Become Abandoned?

By Larysa Melnychuk, CEO and Founder at FP&A Trends Group and International FP&A Board

On 13th June 2017, 29 senior finance practitioners from such international and local companies as ABN AMRO, CRH, Diageo, Gemalto, Henkel, Ingram Micro, Naspers, PvH Europe, Regus, Sandoz, Staples Solutions, TIP Trailer Services, Vlisco, etc., gathered to interactively discuss Rolling Forecast Best Practices at the FP&A Board in Amsterdam.

Webinar: Global FP&A Survey Results - 7 Insights Defining the Evolution of FP&A

Three leading FP&A thought leaders collaborated to develop the initial FP&A Empowerment: Technology and Trends survey to identify and analyze current and emerging trends relative to: how companies are leveraging technology, the maturity of their analytics solutions, how much time is spent on Business Partnering, the effectiveness and efficiency their Planning Processes, and the willingness of executives to listen and invest in FP&A.

Finding Fractures through FP&A

By Karl Kern, Accountant / Lecturer / Writer

The goal of financial management of maximizing shareholder wealth can be assessed through a variety of measurements.  What this variety of measurements may not assess is potential problems in relationships between businesses and stakeholders.  One way to assess potential problems with these relationships is to look for fractures. This article describes how to identify fractures through FP&A within three elements on the balance sheet.

Beware of FP&A System Demonstrations

By Michael Coveney, Analytics Thought Leader and Author

Too often software evaluations are restricted to features and functions. It’s like evaluating a car by looking at individual components but without seeing if they all work together to meet your needs. So next time you are tempted to view a demonstration, make sure you’re prepared with questions that will help you to assess the true business value of the solution. 

FP&A Professional, Are You Choosing the RIGHT Graph for Your Story?

By Randall Bolten, longtime Silicon Valley CFO, author of "Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You” and adjunct professor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.

RANDALL BOLTEN grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a CIA intelligence officer and a history professor. He is passionate about the importance of presenting financials and other numerical information in a cogent and effective way, and in his current life is the author of Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).

He is a seasoned financial executive, with many years directing the financial and other operations of high-technology companies. His experience includes nearly twenty years as a chief financial officer of software companies.

He has held the CFO position at public companies BroadVision and Phoenix Technologies, and at private companies including Arcot Systems, BioCAD, and Teknekron. Before his CFO positions, he held senior financial management positions at Oracle and Tandem Computers.

He received his AB from Princeton University, headed west to earn an MBA at Stanford University, and ended up staying in Silicon Valley. 

In addition to writing Painting with Numbers, he currently operates Lucidity, a consulting and executive coaching practice focused on organizing and presenting complex financial information. He divides his work time between Glenbrook, NV and Washington, DC, and maintains an office in Menlo Park, CA.

There are so many ways to graph information, and many of them are not just labor-intensive, but cognitively ineffective. But even if you’ve chosen one of the more effective ways of graphing information, also remember that graphs work best when you’re trying to make a single, critically important point. 

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FP&A Videos

The FP&A Videos is a unique educational project featuring global thought leaders and passionate Financial Planning and Analysis professionals. 

In view of the recent significant transformations in the FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) world, the main goal of this project is to share and promote better practices in FP&A.

Within its framework, we share latest trends, case studies, and insights with our expanding FP&A community.

Watch the episodes below to keep on top of developments in modern FP&A.

Visual FP&A: Is Graphing the Right Choice?

By Randall Bolten, longtime Silicon Valley CFO, author of "Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You” and adjunct professor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.

In my last article, I listed four questions you should ask yourself, and the order you should ask them in. In this article, we address Question #1: Which is the most effective way to impart your key information? 

FP&A Data Viz Question #4: Are You an Ethical Presenter? Are You Sure?

By Randall Bolten, longtime Silicon Valley CFO, author of "Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You” and adjunct professor at U.C. Berkeley Extension.

RANDALL BOLTEN grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a CIA intelligence officer and a history professor. He is passionate about the importance of presenting financials and other numerical information in a cogent and effective way, and in his current life is the author of Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).

He is a seasoned financial executive, with many years directing the financial and other operations of high-technology companies. His experience includes nearly twenty years as a chief financial officer of software companies.

He has held the CFO position at public companies BroadVision and Phoenix Technologies, and at private companies including Arcot Systems, BioCAD, and Teknekron. Before his CFO positions, he held senior financial management positions at Oracle and Tandem Computers.

He received his AB from Princeton University, headed west to earn an MBA at Stanford University, and ended up staying in Silicon Valley. 

In addition to writing Painting with Numbers, he currently operates Lucidity, a consulting and executive coaching practice focused on organizing and presenting complex financial information. He divides his work time between Glenbrook, NV and Washington, DC, and maintains an office in Menlo Park, CA.

Of the four essential questions every effective FP&A professional should ask before presenting graphical information, the first three focused on making the information understood. The fourth, and last, question you should ask yourself is different: 

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