Interim Financial Analysis Expertise: Creating Value-Added Capability

A growing company needed immediate help. Their monthly business analysis was lacking, budget reports didn’t exist, and leaders did not understand or trust accounting’s numbers. The company recently changed ownership and had an accounting team that created financial statements but lacked the skillset to deliver deeper business performance analysis.

The company required the expertise of an interim Director of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) to:

  • Create a monthly business review, including key financial and operational results for the leadership team.

  • Recommend growth strategies based on data analysis.

  • Develop efficient, repeatable financial work processes and team skills.

Situation:

A growing company needed immediate help. Their monthly business analysis was lacking, budget reports didn’t exist, and leaders did not understand or trust accounting’s numbers. The company recently changed ownership and had an accounting team that created financial statements but lacked the skill set to deliver deeper business performance analysis.

The company required the expertise of an interim Director of Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) to:

  • Create a monthly business review, including key financial and operational results for the leadership team.

  • Recommend growth strategies based on data analysis.

  • Develop efficient, repeatable financial work processes and team skills.

Insights:

Leadership identified opportunities to provide a greater understanding of financial results, standardize performance analysis and turn available data into actionable information. Prioritized needs included:

  • Develop data-driven sales and revenue forecasts.

  • Create a monthly business review package.

  • Identify operations and financial key performance indicators (KPIs).

  • Analyze customer and product sales.

Outcomes:

Within three month-end cycles, the company implemented a newly created FP&A capability.

  • Business reviews spend less time on “What happened?” to “What do we do next?”

  • Updated forecasts reflect profit-building measures and fact-based assumptions.

  • Better information supports better decisions.

  • Sales analytics and trended KPIs highlight operation results tied to profit.

  • Key leaders understand key financial reports and work processes.