Issue #151 - 25 October 2025 |
| | Dear colleagues, For years, FP&A has lived in two extremes: total control or total chaos. Too many checks, and agility dies. Too few, and trust collapses. Best-in-class FP&A function is learning to balance both — to run fast and stay in control. This digest edition brings together stories of that balance: structural clarity, centralised design, and AI that guards quality while the close keeps moving — all echoing the vision of the Financial Close Playbook, which redefines what “fast and accurate” really means in modern finance. The question is no longer “How do we speed up?” but “What must we fix before we dare to?” Enjoy the read! Best regards, Larysa Melnychuk, CEO and Founder
FP&A Trends Group & International FP&A Board |
| Financial Close Playbook | Traditional close processes weren’t built for today’s volatile economy. When tariffs shift or rates spike, finance teams scramble—resulting in delayed insights, overworked teams, and higher risk. Forward-thinking leaders are adopting responsive close processes that turn disruption into advantage. In the Financial Close Playbook: 7 Tactics for Faster, More Responsive Financial Reporting you’ll learn how to: - Adapt fast: Turn market volatility into real-time financial insight
- Close quicker: Cut cycle times from weeks to days
- Stay accurate: Automate reconciliations and variance reporting
- Be ready: Build a resilient, always-on financial close
Get proven tactics to build a more agile, insight-driven financial close. Download Now | | | AI and Anomaly Detection in the Finance Departments of the Future
– Part 2 of 3 | By Carl Stiller, Senior Business Controller Finance Transformation (Interim) at Transdev Sverige AB Finance teams spend days reconciling numbers that machines can now question in seconds. AI doesn’t just automate control — it rewrites it, turning data review into a living process that learns from every anomaly it detects. Read this article to see how anomaly detection is redefining the financial close, shifting it from a backward-looking check into a continuous signal of performance, precision, and trust. | | | FP&A Centralisation: Foundations and Structural Choices
– Part 1 of 2 | By Diana Groschupp, Vice President FP&A Europe at TD Synnex Behind every agile finance function lies a clear operating model. Centralisation aligns data, roles, and processes so analysis happens once — not ten times across regions. Structure doesn’t slow agility; it enables it. Read this article to explore the organisational choices that balance global control with local speed, and see why centralised FP&A hubs have become the foundation for accurate, automated reporting. | | | From Sprawl to Strategy:
Roadmap for Next-Gen FP&A Impact | By Thomas Smith, Strategic Finance Leader When finance grows without a plan, complexity creeps in. Multiple tools, duplicated models, and competing processes turn speed into chaos and make insight an afterthought. The cost of sprawl is not inefficiency — it is lost focus. Read this article to understand how a unified roadmap brings FP&A back under one design — reducing overlap, sharpening accountability, and creating the structural clarity needed for faster, cleaner close cycles. | | |
| | FP&A Trends Digital Events |
FP&A Trends digital events are vendor-agnostic and complimentary. If you are not able to join the live session, you can register to receive the recording later. | | | The FP&A Analytics Playbook | Every finance leader wants better analytics, but too often dashboards become noise instead of insight. The challenge is not collecting more data, but knowing how to structure, clean, and apply it in ways that guide decisions. Analytics is less about technology and more about discipline. Register for this webinar to discover a practical playbook for turning data into strategic foresight. | | | Mastering Data in FP&A: Turning Analytics into Strategic Advantage | According to the 2025 FP&A Trends Survey, only 14% of FP&A teams rate their data quality as ‘Best in Class’, while 26% say it is low or poor - gaps that can mean the difference between leading and lagging in today’s volatile market. How can finance leaders transform scattered data into a true competitive advantage? Register for this webinar to unlock the full value of your data with insights from a panel of senior finance practitioners and thought leaders. | | | Visionary Trends in FP&A: A Strategic Look Toward 2030 | What will FP&A look like in 2030? For leading organisations, the future is already taking shape — driven by AI, continuous planning, and real-time decision-making. But for most, the journey is just beginning. Register for this webinar to explore five visionary trends already redefining FP&A in the most forward-thinking teams. Together, they form the blueprint for Autonomous Finance — a self-learning, decision-oriented FP&A core that anticipates, adapts, and orchestrates across data, systems, and teams. |
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