OnPlan FP&A

01/11/2023

Link to the Free MIT Course “Statistical Thinking and Data Analysis

https://bit.ly/3ZtMkQL

This course is an introduction to statistical data analysis. Topics are chosen from applied probability, sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, linear regression, analysis of variance, categorical data analysis, and nonparametric statistics.

01/09/2023

When FP&A pros talk about variance, they’re also concerned about the distance between values from a central point. But rather than referring to a statistical measure across a sample or population, they’re talking about how far off financial KPIs are from what was expected.

Finance professionals draw up financial budgets and operating plans before a reporting period, usually a fiscal or calendar quarter or year. These budgets are forward-looking and typically fixed. As the period plays out, actual performance will vary compared to your projections because of changing economic conditions, accounting errors, or overly optimistic or pessimistic sales assumptions.

The difference between the planned and actual numbers is variance, and it’s crucial to minimize it, especially if you’re a startup or small business.

What are favorable and unfavorable variances?

A variance analysis can expose both favorable and unfavorable variances. When your company generates more revenue or incurs fewer costs than expected, it’s considered a favorable variance. Conversely, unfavorable variance happens when a company generates less revenue and incurs higher costs than the budgeted amount. However, this terminology can be a bit misleading.

Not all unfavorable variances are bad because spending more than planned in one area may create a favorable variance elsewhere.


https://bit.ly/3jZJcMg

image by Annie Spratt

12/28/2022

In the world of startups, you can tell just how important planning is by looking at those companies with no revenue and huge valuations – much of the company’s value comes from its projected future earnings.

FP&A is the process of determining how your company will afford to achieve its vision, strategic goals, and objectives. While accounting is about looking backwards, FP&A is about looking forward.

Building the financial talent you need in a startup or small company is a process. In a new venture, the FP&A function is often handled by the founders with outsourced assistance. The controller or CFO will often become in charge of FP&A next. As the company becomes larger, a dedicated FP&A team will likely be a valuable investment.

FP&A professionals are in essence storytellers. Using numbers as their language, they provide insights into the future by connecting the dots, thus unlocking value.

Photo by Brooke Cagle

https://bit.ly/3VtrCNM

12/23/2022

Happy Holidays from the OnPlan team! 🤗

We hope this holiday season brings you joy and happiness. As we close out the year, we want to thank all of our customers, partners, and team members for their support and dedication.

Here's to a bright and successful new year! 🎉

12/19/2022

Excel and Google Sheets weren’t built specifically for financial forecasting and analytics, which is why it’s no wonder there are important drawbacks to using them for this purpose.

Five roadblocks you can expect to encounter when using either Excel or Google Sheets for forecasting:

1. Risk of errors with manual data entry
2. Difficulty collaborating with other departments
3. Limited features for protecting sensitive information, audit trails, and version control
4. Multiple spreadsheets to manage as the business scales
5. Inefficient and error-prone scenario building



https://bit.ly/3W7W6WB

12/15/2022

Startups that plan to grow should have dedicated FP&A professionals on their finance teams.

FP&A revolves around four pillars of activity:

1. Budgeting

2. Financial planning

3. Management and performance reporting

4. Forecasting and modeling

The role of FP&A professionals is to analyze the financial data revealed. Then, they provide actionable insights based on their findings.

Not every finance team has a dedicated FP&A role. However, as we’ll see, making FP&A a priority in your organization sooner rather than later will pay off.

This choice sets you up for success because early on in your company’s growth, this person will do the following:

- Help build your business plan

- Monitor performance vs budget

- Produce P&L and cash flow statements



https://bit.ly/3WoBj0I

11/24/2022

Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃🍁🍽

We’re so thankful for our amazing customers, partners, and friends. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday!

11/16/2022

Intuit QuickBooks and OnPlan can help you gain transparency and improve your forecasting abilities.

Learn how in tomorrow's webinar: https://bit.ly/3UJhdOu

11/15/2022

Do you want to gain transparency into your business and improve your forecasting abilities to acquire actionable insights to help scale your business to the next level? 👀

Intuit QuickBooks provides past and present data, which OnPlan then uses to generate your forecasted financial statements and operational KPIs.

👉 Register now for our upcoming webinar with Matt Bright (Intuit) and Charlie Liu (OnPlan) on November 17th at 10 am PST and learn how to:

✔️ Leverage your spreadsheets with OnPlan + QuickBooks Online for better functionality, security, and collaboration

✔️ Get a single financial source of truth by eliminating variances between multiple systems

✔️ Fearlessly plan for tomorrow's “what-ifs”

Even if you can't make it, you should still register! We'll make the recording available to you after the session.

Save your seat: https://bit.ly/3UCSHi3

08/26/2022

An Introductory Guide to a Great Rolling Forecast - OnPlan

A rolling forecast model is a powerful tool for FP&A teams. Here's everything you need to know about how to use it and a bonus free template.

08/24/2022

Unleashing the strategic analyst in you with FP&A software

Strategic finance has often been slowed down by a lack of software integrations and team collaboration. Read on to learn how that's changed.

08/23/2022

The most common myths about FP&A software – part 1 - Onplan

A lot of CFOs or CEOs still have concerns about their readiness to adopt FP&A software. We want to address their concerns head on. Let’s go!