When is the right time for small and mid-size companies to start budgeting for the next year? This is today’s topic of our FP&A journal. It’s September and many folks out there are starting to plan their finances for the next year. Other folks are waiting to start in Q4. So when is the right time to start? Let’s assume for now that fiscal year coincides with the calendar year. For small and mid-size businesses, Read more…
Today’s topic of our FP&A journal is about the importance of forecasting and its relation to an annual budget. We will also cover the typical forecasting cadence, horizon and when it may substitute the budget. Forecast vs. Annual Budget Let’s start where our previous article Everyday FP&A left off. The annual budget is a plan that gives each leader in the company a target for spending or volume of sales to achieve. In other words, Read more…
Many folks may not be familiar with what FP&A is and how it changes everyday life in a business. So what is FP&A? This will be the topic of our FP&A Journal today. Briefly, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) is a set of activities that support financial management and improve decision-making. In other words, FP&A seeks answers to events happening today in order to understand their impact in the future. The result of such analytical Read more…
What is the difference between accounting and FP&A? This is the topic of the first short article in our FP&A Journal. Accounting typically focuses on what happened or what is happening. In other words, accounting diligently compiles financial data about your business to show the current state of your business financial affairs. FP&A starts where accounting usually stops by taking the compiled financial information, analyzing it and projecting it to the future. Good FP&A creates Read more…