Financial Planning & Analysis

We build the model on the drivers the business actually depends on: revenue as its causal chain (pipeline and conversion, units and price, seats and retention, whatever your economics truly are) rather than a curve; headcount as the plan’s largest driver, named-role hiring plans at fully loaded costs, because people are most companies’ largest expense and the one management actually controls; cost structure split fixed from variable so margin behaves correctly as volume moves; and unit economics as a standing output, contribution by product, customer, or channel, the view that finds the profitable-looking segment quietly losing money. The construction standards that make it durable: assumptions in one visible layer (not buried in formulas), actuals flowing in monthly from the ledger so the model and the books never diverge, and simple enough that management can interrogate it live, because a model only the analyst understands is a report, not a tool. This one artifact then powers everything downstream on this page: the budget, the reforecast, the scenarios, and the board pack are all views of it.

What we do: We build the driver-based operating model, assumptions visible, actuals flowing monthly, simple enough to interrogate live.

The cadence we install: an annual budget built bottom-up through the operating model, negotiated with the people who will own it, and locked as the year’s measuring stick, targets need stability to mean anything; and a rolling reforecast, monthly or quarterly by company rhythm, that updates the forward view with actuals and current knowledge while the budget stays fixed as the comparison base. The pair gives management the two numbers every decision needs: what we promised, and what we now believe, with the gap between them owned and explained rather than hidden until Q4. Around it, scenario branches maintained, not improvised: the downside case with its pre-agreed triggers and levers, the upside case with its hiring unlocks, so the hard conversation, when it comes, starts from a model that already exists (the same discipline our fractional CFO work applies to earlier-stage companies). A budget cannot predict the year; it works as a fixed target plus a current forecast, and the reforecast is what keeps the comparison honest.

What we do: We install the annual budget as the measuring stick and the rolling reforecast that keeps it honest.

Variance discipline as we run it has three rules. Decompose to the driver: a revenue miss is not “revenue was down 8%,” it is volume versus price versus mix versus timing, quantified, because each decomposition points at a different owner and a different fix, the same driver-quantification standard our MD&A practice applies to public disclosure, applied internally first. Separate the permanent from the timing: a deal that slipped a month and a market that softened are different facts demanding different responses, and conflating them is how forecasts lose accuracy. End every material variance with an action: the reforecast updated, the hiring plan adjusted, the pricing reviewed, or a documented decision to accept the trend, because analysis that changes nothing is wasted expense. The monthly variance review, run this way, becomes the operating meeting where the model, the actuals, and management’s intentions reconcile, which is FP&A functioning as designed: not reporting on the business, steering it.

What we do: We decompose every material variance to its driver and end it in a verb: a decision, not an explanation.

Everything external ships from the one operating model. The board pack: the fixed core pages (actuals versus plan, the reforecast, cash and runway, the KPI set, risks), with the forward-looking pages carrying stated assumptions, because boards forgive misses and punish surprises, and disclosing an assumption up front prevents the surprise later. The lender layer: covenant compliance forecast forward, with headroom projected across the reforecast horizon so a tightening ratio is a negotiation opened early rather than a default discovered at the test date, the same bridge discipline our covenant EBITDA work formalizes for sponsor-backed companies. And the investor cadence for companies with institutional holders: the metrics governed once (definitions written, versioned, reconciled to the ledger) so the number quoted in the update is the number diligence later confirms. One model, one truth, formatted per audience, which is cheaper to run and, more to the point, is what credibility is actually made of.

What we do: We ship every external package from one model: the board pack, forward covenant headroom, and governed metrics.

Two instruments, joined. The 13-week direct cash forecast: receipts and disbursements by week, built from the actual AR and AP ledgers plus payroll, rent, debt service, and taxes on their true dates, refreshed weekly with a standing accuracy check (forecast versus actual by week, so the model earns trust or improves), the operational tool that turns “are we okay” into a number with a date. The long-range indirect view: cash flow derived from the operating model’s P&L and working-capital assumptions, extending the horizon to the planning window and, for leveraged companies, projecting covenant and liquidity headroom across it. Comparing the two is where the insight comes from: when the 13-week view and the model disagree, one of them is wrong about working capital, and finding out which, DSO drifting, payment terms slipping, deferred revenue timing, is usually the month’s most valuable analysis. For companies within reach of distress or a raise, this pairing is not a nicety; it is the difference between acting on the timeline early and reacting to it late.

What we do: We run the 13-week forecast weekly with accuracy tracked, and bridge it to the long-range view.

The sequence that works: the model before the hire, because an operating model plus a fractional analyst beats a full-time analyst with a blank workbook; the discipline before the tool, spreadsheets are the correct technology until the model’s users, entities, or scenario volume genuinely outgrow them, and the planning-platform purchase belongs at that threshold, made for stated reasons, with the model logic proven first (software can enforce an existing process; it cannot create one); and the first FP&A hire when planning becomes daily, typically alongside real department-level budget ownership, with the role scoped from the function we have been running rather than a template. The outsourced shape we deliver spans the whole early arc: the model built and maintained, the reforecast and variance cadence run, the board and lender packages produced, and the cash forecast owned, senior judgment at a fraction of a team’s cost, with the handoff to your eventual in-house function designed in from the start, working files, documented logic, and a role spec written from reality. The function’s purpose is better decisions per dollar of finance cost; we build it in that order.

What we do: We build the model before the hire and the discipline before the tool, with the in-house handoff designed in.