I need to disclose something before we begin. I like Excel. A lot. I’ve spent enough of my career in Excel that I’m probably entitled to some kind of common-law marriage. So when somebody tells me Finance needs to “get out of spreadsheets,” I don’t immediately nod thoughtfully and start scheduling software demos. I usually […]
I like software. I also like buying things. Amazon has documented this extensively. So you might assume I’d be very supportive when someone tells me their Finance team needs a new FP&A platform. Not necessarily. In fact, one of the first questions I’d ask is probably the least exciting one: What problem are you trying […]
There is a meaningful difference between AI helping with Finance and AI doing Finance. We are crossing it. Until fairly recently, most of my conversations about AI in Finance sounded something like this: Can it write the variance commentary? Can it summarize this report? Can it help with the forecast? Can it analyze this file? […]
What would you do if you walked into a five-year-old company with more than 170 legal entities, roughly 10,000 budget lines, no FP&A planning system, department heads who had never worked with a structured P&L, and tax rules capable of changing while you were still building the budget? I think I’d need coffee first. Probably […]
Every company seems to be saving thousands of hours with AI. I would like to know where everyone is keeping them. Because apparently AI wrote the email, summarized the meeting, analyzed the data, drafted the presentation and saved Brenda six hours on Tuesday. Fantastic. What happened Wednesday? I ask because companies are getting very good […]
I don’t think a company wakes up one morning and suddenly needs FP&A. There usually isn’t a ceremony. Nobody cuts a ribbon. What happens instead is that the CEO asks a question that used to take ten minutes to answer, and three days later Finance is still working on it. Someone wants to know what […]
“FP&A consultant” is one of those job descriptions that can mean almost anything. Build a forecast. Fix a model. Help with the budget. Prepare something for the board. Figure out why margins are falling. Untangle a reporting process that apparently requires three people, six spreadsheets and one person who absolutely cannot take vacation. All technically […]
I have a strong opinion about building an FP&A function from scratch: Don’t start by hiring FP&A people. I realize this is an inconvenient opening for an article about building an FP&A function. But I’ve seen companies decide they need FP&A and immediately jump to the org chart. We need a Director. Maybe two analysts. […]
The most useful AI conversation in FP&A has changed. A year ago, a lot of the discussion was still about whether AI could write a formula, summarize a variance or save someone fifteen minutes in Excel. Those uses are fine. They are also the least interesting part now. The question I care about is what […]
I’m not going to waste your time. You know as well as I do: finance isn’t what it used to be. The quiet back-office role of FP&A, once a sleepy corner of the corporate structure, has turned into a high-stakes battlefield where only the smartest, fastest, and most adaptable survive. The rules have changed, and […]
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