Paul Barnhurst

Founder of The FP&A Guy | Providing training and content that helps FP&A and Finance Professionals be better at their job today and tomorrow.

I am a passionate teacher and creator of FP&A content. I enjoy helping FP&A professionals become more effective creators of value for their businesses. Today, I provide content and training on important subjects, including FP&A, Excel, Power Query, Data Visualization, Storytelling, and more. 

I host three popular podcasts, FP&A Tomorrow, Future Finance, and Financial Modeler’s Corner, which bring you the best and brightest people in finance and FP&A. 

I am a Microsoft MVP and have earned the AFP FP&A Certification and the FMI Advanced Financial Modeler Certification. 

I am a big advocate of FP&A planning tools and share research on FP&A software. I have also published several market guides to help buyers understand the landscape. 

☛ Feel free to contact me – Pbarnhurst@thefpandaguy.com

Podcast Host

Paul Barnhurst, The FPandA Guy

More Learning Resources Coming Soon

Something I have been really proud of is the fact that I have helped nearly 200 students through affiliate resources, educate themselves, and earn FP&A Certifications while getting a discount. 

On my website today, you will find links to the following programs:

➡️ AFP - Certified Corporate FP&A Professional
➡️ CFI - Financial Planning and Analysis Professional
➡️ Wharton Online - Financial Planning & Analysis Certificate Program
➡️ Financial Modeling Institute - Advanced Financial Modeler
➡️ FP&A Professionals Institute - Certification and discount on all courses

New stuff coming soon

➡️ AI Finance & Business Cert from Columbia
➡️ AI Finance Club
➡️ Copilot Course
➡️ CFO Tech certification from CFO Leadership Council
➡️ Financial Modeling Training from people such as Carolina Lago and Giles Male
➡️ Copilot training
➡️ Power BI and Power Platform Training

and I have my own new course dropping soon. 

I am excited to offer exclusive discounts on nearly 20 programs in the near future.  I continue to look for great programs to add, and the ones I have added, I either built part of the program, completed it, or I know the people responsible for it personally.  

I work to ensure every one of these is a quality program; I do not just add a program for the affiliate commission.  I also work to get you a discount with these programs.  If you know of a great training program I should add to my website DM me and let me know. 


In the meantime, here is my table comparing the most common FP&A Programs.

FP&A Guy Hot Takes

➡️ Finance is not nor ever will be a revenue center

➡️ ChatGPT will lose the enterprise market to other LLM tools and become primarily a consumer tool

➡️ FP&A will become the most common career path to becoming a CFO

➡️ Dashboards overrated, Data Storytelling underrated

➡️ Budgeting is overrated, planning and target setting is underrated

➡️ Excel is overrated and spreadsheets are underrated

➡️ Pies are only good for two things eating and playing Pac-Man

➡️ FP&A tool selection is overrated and implementation is underrated

➡️ Youtube is overrated, Podcasting is underrated

➡️ Excel formulas are overrated, modeling design principles underrated

➡️ Cafe Rio Sweet Pork is overrated and Crow Burger is underrated

➡️ Water with lots of ice is best

➡️ Jordan over Lebron

➡️ Clean-shaven is overrated and big beards are highly underrated

➡️ VBA is overrated and Power Query is underrated

Friday Humor

1. How do you describe an FP&A Professionals Job?

It is 80% cleaning data and 20% complaining about cleaning data

2. What is the difference between an FP&A Professional and an Accountant?

When an accountant gets creative they go to jail. When an FP&A Professional gets creative they get promoted. 

3. Not all CFOs use a MAC but all CFOs who go to jail used a MAC

4. What is the best place to store an Excel error message?

Column FU row 2 - FU2

5. What do Gold diggers and Cell References have in common?

If you want them to stay in place you need to throw money at them. 

6. Why was the spreadsheet constipated?

Because it could not BUDGET :)

7. What Does EBITDA really stand for?

Earnings Before It Tumbles Down Again

Earnings Before I Tricked the Dumb Auditor

Earnings Before Interest Therapy Depression and Anxiety

Earnings Before I Totally Deny Actual profits

Earnings Before Imaginary Things Disappear Again

Everyone Brags, Ignoring The Debt Altogether

8. What does Adjusted EBIDTA stand for? 

Earnings without any of the bad stuff

New job, a big, visible project, I was not sure how to solve. I turned to Power Query and the rest is history.

➡️ Within 4 years, I received 4 promotions

➡️ I fell in love with Excel for the first time and craved learning more, and today I am a Microsoft MVP

➡️ I impressed my boss countless times by, in the words of Oz du Soleil whooping up on crap data and providing value-added insights 

I owe a lot of my success today to that decision to learn Power Query. It was one of the best investments I ever made in my career. Still have my early books from Rob Collie and Ken Puls. 

If you do not know Power Query, stop waiting and get started learning today. 

Let me know in the comments what is holding you back? How can I help you on your journey? 

It is time to make Power Query one of the most utilized tools in Excel.

Most finance people hate their ERP.  

As my Future Finance Co-host often says, there are two things that will get you fired as a CFO

1. Fraud
2. Mentioning you want to replace your ERP

That is why it is so exciting to see what people such as John Glasgow are doing in this space.

John quit his job and built Campfire because he believed a better option existed.  

I have had the privilege of meeting John personally multiple times, interviewing him for my podcast, and attending Campfire's AI Summit. I can say I have come away impressed with him and what he has accomplished at Campfire every time. 

On a personal level, I am very grateful for Campfire as they have been the exclusive sponsor of FP&A Unlocked for the last six months.  Their sponsorship has allowed me to continue to bring the best and brightest guests in FP&A.  It has also allowed me to continue offering CPE credits for my accounting friends. 

That is why I am so excited to announce I will be hosting a webinar with John and Hank.

In this webinar, we will introduce you to what John and team have been building at Campfire, "Ember Agents." It is AI agents built for the modern accounting team, and they just released it in the last few days.

We will be discussing how Ember agents automates work for your teams, from flux analysis to accruals.  This webinar will include a live demo so you can see Ember Agents in action. 

Register today so you do not miss this exciting event. 

📅 Date: March 31st, 2026
⏱️ Time: 10 - 11 AM PST
🔗Register Here: https://lnkd.in/gZREc3zU


Sponsored by Campfire

After 40 years, Excel is not DEAD; in fact, it is getting a new intelligent layer that will help transform the future of finance.
 
An intelligent coworker is on every desktop. Microsoft Excel is leading the way in the era of AI. Brian Jones, Excel product team lead, shared his thoughts this week on Financial Modeler's Corner.
 
Anyone who tells you Excel is dead is not paying attention or a liar. Claude ChatGPT, Microsoft, and lots of startups are pumping hundreds of millions into building an intelligent layer for Excel.
 
That is why I wanted to bring Brian on and talk firsthand about Excel and Copilot. Below are some takeaways about how to use Copilot to get the most out of it in Excel.
 
➡ Use Copilot to Understand Workbooks You Inherit - Ask Copilot "What is this workbook about and how does it flow?" before diving into an unfamiliar model. It's like having a knowledgeable colleague walk you through someone else's work.
 
➡ Use AI for Tedious, Time-Consuming Tasks First
→ Broken formula references, reformatting, restructuring layouts,
→ adding documentation and comments
These are high-value, low-risk starting points. Let AI handle the grunt work so you can focus on analysis and judgment.
 
➡ Build a skill sheet. A dedicated worksheet inside your workbook that tells Copilot how you work. Tell it your layouts, formatting, formula preferences Tec. Great for teams with their own modeling standards. Think of it as an advanced template that guides the AI to work the way your team works.
 
➡ Model Choice Matters - Copilot in Excel lets you toggle between Anthropic (Claude) and OpenAI models. Each has a different awareness of finance concepts and workflows. Test both for your specific use case Remeber outputs can differ meaningfully it takes time to get the most out of AI.
 
➡ Prompt Differently, Get Different Results - How you phrase a request significantly changes what you get. Experiment with different approaches to the same task. This is a new muscle finance professionals need to build.
 
➡ Keep retesting what failed. Unlike traditional software, Copilot improves continuously. Something that didn't work six weeks ago might work today.
 
Brian put it well: every spreadsheet is essentially an app. And for the first time, there's an intelligent coworker sitting beside you helping you build it, understand it, and improve it.
 
Excel isn't going anywhere. Learn it deeper, then let AI take you further.
 
Listen to the full episode: https://lnkd.in/gsQkvFcH
 
 
🎓 Master the fundamentals so you can be better at AI​ and modeling earn your Advanced Financial Modeler accreditation from the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI) today at https://lnkd.in/gQV55MxS (Use code Podcast to save 15%)

Rey (Reinaldo) del Valle came up through the ranks of FP&A at Disney, MTV Networks, FedEx, Norwegian Cruise Lines. He then leveraged his FP&A experience to become a CFO and has worked on several major turnarounds and scale-ups during his career. He was even nominated for Los Angeles CFO of the year due to the amazing work he is doing.
 
Key highlights from the conversation:
 
→ Great FP&A transforms data into actionable insight. Always ask "what do we do with this information?"
→ Benchmarks matter more than people think (Rey saved $500K+ in audit fees by knowing what "normal" looked like)
→ You can't cost-cut your way to profitability in a turnaround—find the growth levers
→ Strategic messages need 7+ touches before they penetrate the organization → Active listening beats having all the answers (even as CFO)
 
Rey shared his FP&A as architects' framework. We work with leadership to understand their vision, then design the financial roadmap to get there. Accountants ensure structural integrity, but we're creating the blueprint.
 
Speaking of turnarounds, Rey stressed that nobody ever turned a business around by just cutting cost. While working at ABC Family, the business grew operating profit from $20M to $200M over 4 years. Not through aggressive cost-cutting, but through strategic collaboration efforts across the business to grow profitability.
 
Listen to the full episode to hear Rey's take on making the FP&A-to-CFO transition, why subtotal functions are his secret Excel weapon, and what he learned from managing through entertainment industry strikes.
 
Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gd42bApE
 
Campfire sponsors FP&A Unlocked. It is the AI-first ERP powering next-gen finance & accounting teams. General ledger, revenue automation, close management, and so much more—all on one unified platform.
 
What are you waiting for more learn more at:
https://lnkd.in/dKxnyDNV

In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, host Paul Barnhurst sits down with Rey (Reinaldo) del Valle to discuss what it really takes to move from reporting t

Open article: FP&A Career Path for Finance Professionals to Become Strategic CFOs with Rey Del Valle by Paul Barnhurst • 2 min read

FP&A Career Path for Finance Professionals to Become Strategic CFOs with Rey Del Valle

Exciting Announcements 🏀🏀🎓🛜

1. Market Resources - Several new training programs from trusted resources, including three focused on AI and finance, are on my website, all with exclusive FP&A Guy codes to give you even more value 

2. My website has had an overhaul with a new design and several new pages. Check it out at TheFPandAGuy. Let me know what you think, and thanks, Claude, for helping me it :) 

3. March Madness Brackets are here

🔵 FP&A Software Bracket - Vote for your favorite FP&A software and let us see if Runway can defend its title. This year, we have new upstarts, including

➡️ Claude for Excel
➡️ Copilot in Excel
➡️ ChatGPT for Excel
➡️ Una Software 
➡️ FinQore 
➡️ Pluvo 
➡️ and more

We also have traditional programs like

➡️ Workday Adaptive Planning 
➡️ Oracle 
➡️ Board 
➡️ Prophix 
➡️ and more poised for a deep run

If voting for your favorite software isn't your cup of tea, then fill out your March Madness bracket and prove you know basketball. Prizes for winners. 

Head on over to my website, fill out your bracket, and find a great learning resource. 

Go Cougars win it all!

AI tool consolidation will accelerate. 

This morning, I got an email saying Superhuman had acquired Rows.com. Superhuman was acquired by Grammarly last summer. 

The goal of these acquisitions is to create an AI-based productivity platform. 

Companies are racing to make the right AI acquisitions to create AI platforms. 

I expect to see more of this type of acquisition in finance and FP&A in 2026.

I think we will see companies focus more on platforms than on best-of-breed point solutions.

This has been HG Capital's investment thesis in the space. Look at who they have large ownership stakes in insightsoftware, Lucanet, Prophix, and OneStream. 

All these companies offer a platform of solutions, and all focus 100% on the office of the CFO. 

My prediction is that we are quickly heading toward tool consolidation, and it will be more of a platform consolidation than the same type of tool buying a similar product in the same space. 

I think for many AI ideas, the ship has sailed, and it will be a difficult road for many new players. The AI finance market is fragmented, and I believe consolidation is on the horizon. 

I talk to multiple companies weekly and stay close to the space. If you are interested in some of the research I have put together feel free to reach out.  I will share an update soon on some of the new tools I have seen.

Open article: Rows — The AI Analyst Platform by rows.com

Over 5,000 CPE hours earned from FP&A Unlocked 🥳 🎆 🪅 

I am proud to offer CPE credit. I have done that since the beginning as a service to others. I did it with FP&A Today, early on with Financial Modeler's Corner, and today with FP&A Unlocked. 

I am the only podcast I am aware of that offers both.

➡️ CPE credit for accountants
➡️ Continuing education credit for people who have the FPAC

I wanted to share a few stats I am proud of related to my podcast and CPE hours earned:

1. 103 Episodes all with CPE credit available
2. 5,233 CPE hours earned to date
3. Over 50 hours earned per episode
4. 142 hours earned from the highest episode
5. 4.9 average ratings for episodes on Earmark
6. 725 people have rated episodes

I am incredibly proud that, in addition to offering a valuable educational experience, I can help people earn CPE and FPAC credit. In the near future, my courses will also be eligible for FPAC credit. 

Huge thanks to Earmark and Blake Oliver for creating such an amazing platform that allows me to offer this service.

The life of a LinkedIn content creator as told through his DMs. These are all real message summaries some with a little sarcasm most without 


➡️ Dear Steven

➡️ Dear Amanda

➡️ Can you find my husband a job?

➡️ Will you do my homework I do not understand it

➡️ We have a family fund that wants to invest in The FP&A Guy Vertical 

➡️ Will you collaborate with me and sell my product even though you know nothing about my product or me 

➡️ Can I promote your podcast I will get you millions of views 

➡️ Will you hire me to do FP&A

➡️ Do you need random software designed for a company with lots of employees?

➡️ You seem nice can we chat offline always with an American name, a pretty photo and a fake job

What is your story?

Seeing an expert share an "AI Prompt Pack" for the 10th time on LinkedIn today then close LinkedIn and consult an expert. Prompts are one small part of optimizing what you get from AI.  

#STOPTHEMADNESS

A watershed moment for modeling with AI in Excel has arrived!
 
This week on the ModSquad, Ian Schnoor, CFA, CFM, Giles Male, and I tested the new Claude Excel add-in.
 
This week we tested Claude on:
 
→ A deferred revenue schedule
→ The AFM FMI Henderson Case Build
→ A CFM FMI Debt Build
 
For the Deferred Revenue Schedule the build was a 9 out of 10 and included documentation better than what 95% of modelers would have provided. There were still some small issues like formatting, documentation layout, and using different functions each time but the results were impressive.
 
Ian had Claude build a full 3-statement model from an AFM case study in 15 minutes, and a complex quarterly debt sculpting model from a CFM case in 10 minutes.
 
For both cases, the results were amazing. Balance sheets, balancing, debt schedules, accurate, correct IRR, etc. There were still minor issues emphasizing the need to know what you are doing to find them, but output was light years ahead of where it was six months ago.
 
Here is where I landed after this episode:
 
→ The mechanical build is being solved — start using AI for it when it makes sense and saves you time
 
→ You still need to know your craft:
 
1. Because catching the subtle errors is more important than ever
2. Because AI often uses more complex formulas and functions then we would use
3. Because your boss expects you to validate the model and understand the assumptions deeply
4. There are times it makes sense to build on your own, just because AI is better, does not mean it is always the solution.
 
→ Don't outsource your judgment. Augment it.
 
→ Documentation and scoping are high-value, low-risk places to start today
 
We've come a long way from our early episodes, where we debated whether to even show the output or not, it was so bad.
 
🎙️ Watch the full episode:
https://lnkd.in/g9mUHSyK

"I didn't understand a single word. We're not doing any of it."
 
This was said by a CEO to Jeff Greenfield after they both witnessed a marketing expert give a presentation.
 
It is a reminder that if people do not understand what you are doing, it does not matter how good it is. This week, Jeff shares advice on marketing attribution, how people need to understand the attribution model, and how marketing and finance can work better together.
 
Key Takeaways:
 
→ Don't rely solely on Google Analytics. It's built to measure Google channels, which means it consistently undervalues upper-funnel channels like social, CTV, podcasts, and display. Finance should understand this structural bias before accepting marketing's numbers at face value.
 
→ Expand your marketing data model beyond clicks. Add an impressions column alongside clicks and sales in your tracking sheet. Graph all three over time and look for lagged correlations. For example, clicks today often result from impressions from days or weeks ago.
 
→ Separate base sales (what you'd get with zero advertising) from incremental sales (what advertising actually drove). A platform like Google may "take credit" for organic or word-of-mouth sales. FP&A should push marketing to isolate true incremental impact.
 
→ Finance and marketing need to agree upfront on how success will be measured before a budget is submitted. When the CFO and CMO are using different models and definitions, budget meetings become adversarial rather than strategic.
 
→ Use regression-based models (e.g., Facebook's open-source Robyn tool) to evaluate marketing spend. These aren't perfect, but they put marketing on the same methodological footing as finance.
 
→ Finance has the fiduciary responsibility for marketing spend. If marketing can't produce rigorous models, FP&A should run their own. Some organisations even place analytics directly under the CFO for this reason.
 
🎙️ Catch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gFziK2u8
 
FP&A Unlocked is sponsored by Campfire.

Campfire is the AI-first ERP that powers next-gen finance and accounting teams. With integrated solutions for the general ledger, revenue automation, close management, and more, all in one unified platform.
 
Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dKxnyDNV

In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, host Paul Barnhurst is joined by Jeff Greenfield , an entrepreneur, advisor, and founder of Provalytics, a leading a

Open article: The Marketing Attribution Strategy for FP&A Teams to Take Control of Marketing ROI with Jeff Greenfield
 by Paul Barnhurst • 2 min read

The Marketing Attribution Strategy for FP&A Teams to Take Control of Marketing ROI with Jeff Greenfield

AI is a magnifier

Before you run off and master AI make sure you know the fundamentals well so AI magnifies you in the right way. 

If you want an FP&A Certification to help with mastering th fundamentals. Check out my website I have reviews and discount codes for all the major programs.

Open article: Compare Top FP&A Certifications: AFP, CFI, Wharton & More — The FP&A Guy by thefpandaguy.com

Compare Top FP&A Certifications: AFP, CFI, Wharton & More — The FP&A Guy

Are you doing exciting things with AI?

If so, DM me and let us chat. I am looking for guests who can walk through how they are using AI on the job.  I am not looking for software vendors who have a solution or people testing something in pilot mode.  I am looking for practitioners who have used AI in their day-to-day job to help automate workflows or who have built agents. 

If that is use please reach out and let us chat.

Move byeond reporting by using the 1:3:1 rule

Businesses want FP&A professionals who can tell the business what to do with data, not just deliver analysis and reports.  

I recently interviewed a recruiting professional who mentioned that one of the most common requests is to find candidates who can tell the business what to do with the data, rather than just throwing it at them and letting them figure it out. 

This is where the 1:3:1 rule comes into play.  When conducting an analysis and delivering your results, use this rule to help guide

1 - Focus on one problem/or one question you are trying to answer
3 - Come up with 3 potential solutions to the problem
1 - Provide your recommended path forward

If you want to move from reporting to delivering information that gets used, make sure you include Calls To Action and recommendations in your deliverables.  Leadership is looking for your opinion, not just a summary of the data. 

Join me next Thursday for a webinar where I will talke more about the 1:3:1 rule and data in general:

Turning Data into Decisions: FP&A's  Guide to High-Impact Analysis  

We will cover:

✅ How to turn analysis into insights with actual calls to action 
✅ How to structure your work around what leadership is really asking 
✅ What separates a real analysis from just another report

Sponsored by insightsoftware

🗓️ Date: March 26th, 2026
🕰️ Time: 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM
👉 Link to Register: https://lnkd.in/gVKBj2fE

Fama-French anyone?
 
 
Can't say I expected a deep discussion on Fama-French, felt like I was back in my finance class in grad school.
 
But that's what happens when your guest has been doing this for 20 years, and the random number generator picks question 17 ﻿
﻿
 
John Thomas Foxworthy M.S. Data Science joined us on Future Finance this week, and I learned a lot from him.
 
He has spent the last two decades watching people overcomplicate AI. His solution!? Ask better questions.
 
Key Takeaways:
 
→ The #1 reason AI projects fail isn't the technology; it's because no one asked the right questions before deploying it.
 
→ Before any AI initiative: run a feasibility study. Assess your data maturity. Know your org's readiness. Let the problem define the solution, not the other way around.
 
→ There are really only three things AI does: describes what happened, predicts what will happen, and recommends what should happen. Everything else is marketing.
 
→ "All models are wrong, but some are useful." If you can't sit with uncertainty and probability, AI will frustrate you. The shift from deterministic to probabilistic thinking is the hardest and most important shift.
 
→ For planning specifically: AI can help you find the scenarios you haven't thought of yet. That's where the real planning value lives.
 
John also shared the Sephora story about how they spent two full years collecting data before deploying a single model, and then tripled revenue in three years.
 
Patience + Process = Results.
 
His book, The Augmented Intelligence Revolution, drops later this year.
 
🎧 Full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gRB7UDzr
 
🎓 Check out our sponsor QFlow.ai at https://lnkd.in/gWYnU9uz GTM Finance CoPilot

Happy to share that I'll be speaking at Turning Data Into Decisions: FP&A's Guide to High-Impact Analysis! Make sure to attend it on March 26.

FP&A teams have more data than ever. So why is leadership still asking "now what?"

The gap between data and decisions is a real business problem, and Paul Barnhurst is breaking it down live on March 26th.

He'll cover: 
✅ How to turn analysis into insights with actual calls to action 
✅ How to structure your work around what leadership is really asking 
✅ What separates a real analysis from just another report

👇 Register now and start the shift from reporting data to driving decisions.

#FPandA #FinancialPlanning #SAPData #insightsoftware #LinkedInLive

Turning Data Into Decisions: FP&A's Guide to High-Impact Analysis

Josh Aharonoff, CPA

Fractional CFO | Founder & CEO at Mighty Digits | Follow Your CFO Guy for Finance & Accounting tips!

I build tools that make financial reporting effortless — starting with Model Wiz, the Excel-based FP&A platform used by accounting firms, founders, and CFOs. 

I also teach finance and Excel to a community of 400,000+ across YouTube, LinkedIn, and my newsletter. 

When I’m not creating, I work as a fractional CFO helping companies turn their financial data into action.

Check out some helpful resources here:

🔗 www.modelwiz.com - Get beautiful dashboards + forecast right in your excel file

🔗 www.yourcfoguy.com - Learn Finance & Accounting like you’ve never seen before

🔗 www.mightydigits.com - Get hands on support

CEO and Founder

Mighty Digits is a consulting firm specializing in Accounting and Finance services for early stage startups. Services include Financial modeling, Month end Close, AP / AR Management, Payroll, Compliance Filings and more.

12 Ways to present a P&L

1. 📔 ACCRUAL basis
❔ What it is → showcases income when earned, expenses when incurred
💡 Why it’s valuable → gives you a more practical understanding of what’s actually happening

2. 🤑 CASH basis 
❔ What it is → showcases income when cash is received, expenses when cash is paid
💡 Why it’s valuable → simple to prepare / understand

3. 📂By CLASS
❔ What it is → showcases your activity based off of tags
💡 Why it’s valuable → using tags, you can add a 3rd dimension to your data

4. 🗓️MONTHLY
❔ What it is → showcases your information on a month to month basis
💡 Why it’s valuable → allows you to understand what’s happening over a short time window

5. 🗓️ QUARTERLY
❔ What it is → showcase your information on a quarter by quarter basis
💡 Why it’s valuable → allows you to identify trends & seasonality across the year

6. 🗓️ ANNUALLY
❔ What it is → showcase your information on an annual basis
💡 Why it’s valuable → helpful in seeing where you’ve been, and where you’re going

7. % of REVENUE
❔ What it is → divide each section of your P&L by revenue
💡 Why it’s valuable → helps you understand what are the biggest drivers of your business activity

8. 📁 By CATEGORY
❔ What it is → showcase your P&L based off of cost type, or summary groupings
💡 Why it’s valuable → gives you a zoomed out view of what’s happening, allowing you to drill deeper where necessary

9. 👥 By DEPARTMENT 
❔ What it is → showcase your activity based off of each department’s activity
💡 Why it’s valuable → allows you to understand what area of your business is consuming your resources

10. 🕧 vs LAST PERIOD
❔ What it is → showcases your activity as compares to last period
💡 Why it’s valuable → understand how you are progressing each month

11. ❓ vs BUDGET
❔ What it is → show what happened vs what you thought would happen
💡 Why it’s valuable → gives you confidence & insights into where your assumptions are accurate vs need adjustment

12. 📅 vs LAST YEAR
❔ What it is → compare your results against the same time period last month
💡 Why it’s valuable → allows you to compare seasonality, and how much you’ve grown in 12 months

===
Those are my 12 ways to present a P&L!

What are some other ways that you present your P&L?

Join us in the discussion in the comments below 👇

Building World-Class Financial Models in Minutes | 450K+ Followers | Model Wiz

Claude just built a full CFO presentation from my Excel file. I didn't touch PowerPoint once.

Comment "PowerPoint" and I'll send you the link.

I've been a fractional CFO for years. Worked with over 100 companies. So when Anthropic announced Claude for PowerPoint, I had to know.

Can it actually create a legitimate CFO summary? Or is this just another AI demo that falls apart with real data?

So I tested it. Let me tell you why you should care.

Here's what I cover in the video:

→ How to set up your prompts before you even start. Garbage in, garbage out. This step saves you hours of back and forth.

→ What happens when you upload a real three-statement model. Not some demo file. Actual financials with projections.

→ The moment Claude did something I didn't even ask for. I wasn't expecting this one.

→ Where it struggled. Because yeah, it wasn't perfect. I'll show you exactly what went wrong and how I fixed it.

→ The final presentation. 10+ slides. Charts, KPIs, commentary. And whether the numbers actually matched my Excel file.

I said out loud at one point, "This would have taken me hours and hours to set up." Man, I was totally blown away.

But here's the question I can't stop thinking about.

What does this mean for my job? For analysts? For anyone who builds financial presentations?

Watch the full video. I'll let you decide.

Comment "PowerPoint" below and I'll send you the link.

I've built dashboards for 100+ companies. These are the 10 that actually get used.

Not the ones that look pretty in a presentation. The ones leadership opens every month without being asked. Big difference.

Let me walk you through them.

→ Summarized P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flows

The big three. Custom mappings across any time period. If your leadership can't see these in one view, you're making them work too hard. And trust me, they'll let you know.

→ Budget vs Actuals

This is where the real conversations happen. Variances, trends, what's off and why. I've never worked with a company that didn't need this one. Not once.

→ KPI Dashboard

The 8 metrics that actually matter. Compared against prior period and prior year. No fluff, no vanity numbers. Just the stuff people make decisions with.

→ Comparison Financials

P&L with custom mappings against prior period and prior year. One glance tells you if things are getting better or worse. Your board will love you for this one.

→ Profit Margins

Gross, operating, net. All in one place. If you're not tracking margin trends, you're flying blind. I learned this the hard way early in my career.

→ Executive Summary Dashboard

P&L and cash flows with custom commentary. This is the one the board actually reads. Everything else? They skim. This one they study.

→ Cash Out Dashboard

Projected cash out date, current cash, monthly burn, runway remaining. If you're a startup, this one isn't optional. It's survival.

→ SaaS Metrics

MRR, ARR, churn, retention. If you're running a subscription business, these numbers run your life. You probably check them more than your text messages.

Here's the thing most finance teams get wrong. They build way more dashboards than anyone needs. Dozens of tabs, fancy charts, color everywhere. Then wonder why nobody looks at them.

Start with these 10. Add more only when someone actually asks. You'll be surprised how rarely that happens.

Now here's the thing. Even if I gave you all 10 templates right now, you'd still spend hours importing data, fixing formulas, and making sure everything ties. I've been there. It's painful.

That's why I built Model Wiz. It's a free Excel add-in that connects to your QuickBooks, pulls your data automatically, and generates all 10 dashboards with one click. No manual imports. No broken formulas. Just your numbers, ready to go.

Which dashboard does your team rely on most?

I've built dashboards for 100+ companies. This is the one CEOs actually open every week.

Not because it's fancy. Because it answers the question they actually care about: are we growing or is it just seasonality?

Let me explain.

Monthly sales numbers lie to you. December always looks great. January always looks terrible. Compare them and you'll panic for no reason. I've seen it happen. Finance teams running around thinking the sky is falling when really it's just... January.

The fix is simple. Stop comparing month to month. Start comparing this December to last December. This Q4 to last Q4. Apples to apples.

That's what trailing 12 months does. Smooths the noise. Shows you what's actually happening.

Here's what this dashboard gives you.

Total sales at the top with prior period comparison. You see the number and whether it's up or down in one glance. No digging.

A 12-month trend chart in the middle. Not 47 charts. One chart. Clean. You can actually see where you're heading instead of squinting at a rainbow of lines.

Quarterly breakdowns below that. Each quarter compared to the same quarter last year. This is where seasonality gets exposed. Q1 up 32%. Q2 up 56%. Q3 up 76%. Q4 up 95%. That's not a lucky December. That's real momentum.

And at the bottom, monthly detail. Side by side with prior period. For the people who want to dig deeper. You know who you are.

When your CEO asks "are we actually growing?" you don't guess. You don't fumble through five tabs while everyone waits. You pull this up and the answer is sitting right there.

That's what a good dashboard does. Makes the answer obvious before anyone finishes asking the question.

That's exactly why I built Model Wiz. It's a free Excel add-in that connects to your QuickBooks, pulls your data, and builds dashboards like this one automatically. No formulas to write. No manual updates every month. Just connect your data and it's yours.

What's your system for separating real growth from seasonal noise?

I've built P&Ls for 100+ companies. The best ones all look like this.

Simple. Clean. Boring, even.

And that's the point.

I used to overcomplicate everything. 50 accounts. Color coded sections. Fancy formatting. Looked impressive. Nobody understood it. Including the CEO who was paying me to explain it.

Now I keep it stupid simple.

Revenue at the top. COGS below. Gross Profit on its own line. If yours doesn't have that, fix it today.

Operating expenses grouped into five or six categories. Not 30 accounts nobody remembers creating. Marketing. Payroll. Professional Services. Technology. Travel. Done.

Net Operating Income. The number that actually tells you if your business works.

Net Income at the bottom. The number everyone skips to anyway.

That's it. One page. One story. Revenue came in, this is what we spent, this is what's left.

I've sat in board meetings where CFOs spent 20 minutes walking through the P&L. Eyes glazing over. Questions nobody could answer. All because the format was a mess.

A good P&L doesn't need explaining. It explains itself.

This exact P&L template is inside Model Wiz.

It's a free Excel add-in I built to make financial reporting stupid simple. Connect your QuickBooks, click a button, and your data fills in automatically. Same format I use with every client. Takes about 30 seconds to set up.

How complicated is your P&L right now?

I used to lose an entire day just updating last month's numbers.

Not because the model was complicated. Because I hadn't built it to survive the roll forward.

Most models break the same way every month. A new account shows up that your formulas don't recognize. Someone inserts a row and half your references shift. The dashboard pulls from the wrong period and nobody catches it until the board meeting.

After rebuilding the same things over and over, I started doing a few things differently.

→ Keep your raw data on its own tab. Never mix imports with formulas.

When you paste new data into a tab full of calculations, you're asking for trouble. I keep one tab that's only for QBO exports. Everything else references that tab. When I update the data, the model updates itself.

→ Use named ranges instead of cell references.

Formulas that point to B14:B87 break the moment someone adds a row. Named ranges don't care where the data moves. Define them once and your formulas stay intact no matter how the structure shifts.

→ Build your formulas to expect new accounts.

SUMIF and XLOOKUP don't break when new line items show up. VLOOKUP with a hardcoded range does. I stopped writing formulas that assume the data stays the same. It never does.

→ Lock your periods in one place.

If your current month is referenced in 40 different formulas, you're updating 40 cells every roll forward. I use one cell that says "December 2024" and everything else points to it. Change it once, the whole model follows.

These changes cut my roll forward time in half. But I still wanted it faster.

At Model Wiz we handle all of this with one button. Click Roll Forward and it moves the timeline, detects new accounts, preserves your formulas, and keeps your dashboards intact. Two minutes and you're done.

What's the most annoying part of your roll forward?

Why does a fractional CFO charge 5x what a bookkeeper charges? The answer has nothing to do with Excel skills.

I get this question a lot. Usually from founders who see the rates and think "that's insane for finance work." Fair enough. Let me explain why it's actually a bargain.

Here's how the rates break down.

Bookkeeping sits at $100/hour. Solid work. Someone has to categorize transactions and keep the books clean. Month-end close is around $150/hour. Payroll, $125/hour. Tax services, $200/hour. Audit management, $250/hour.

Strategic finance and fractional CFO work? $500/hour.

Same industry. 5x the rate. What's going on?

The difference isn't the technical skills. A great bookkeeper might actually be faster in Excel than a CFO. Seriously. I've seen it.

The difference is what you're responsible for.

Tactical finance reports on what happened. Strategic finance decides what happens next. One fills in the spreadsheet. The other decides if the spreadsheet even matters.

Let me make this concrete.

A tactical role follows processes someone else built. A strategic role builds the processes everyone else follows. A tactical role tells you that you burned $200K last month. A strategic role tells you why, whether that's a problem, and what to do about it.

That's the gap. And that gap is worth a lot of money to founders who don't have time to figure it out themselves.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Full-time CFO? $250K+ per year. That's a big check for an early-stage company. Fractional CFO at 15 hours a month? Around $75K per year. You just saved $175K and still got strategic leadership.

But the real ROI isn't the salary savings. It's what changes in the business.

→ Cash runway extends 3-6 months because someone is actually watching burn and optimizing it. I've seen founders add months of runway just by having better forecasting. That's not nothing.

→ Valuations improve 20-40% because your financials are clean and investor-ready. Messy books kill deals. I've watched it happen. Painful every time.

→ CEOs get 50+ hours back because they're not playing CFO on the side anymore. That time goes back to product, sales, whatever actually grows the company.

→ Fundraising moves 90% faster because due diligence doesn't turn into a fire drill. When your documentation is already buttoned up, investors notice.

Most founders wait too long. They think "we'll hire a real CFO when we're bigger." Then they burn cash they didn't need to burn. Or they fumble a raise. Or they miss something that costs them six months.

The smart ones bring in strategic finance early. Not because they have extra money. Because they can't afford the mistakes.

That's why I built Model Wiz. You don't move up the value stack by working harder at the bottom. You move up by getting the bottom off your plate completely.

What layer is your finance function at right now? Execution, process, or strategic?

5 dashboard templates. KPI. Sales. Cash flow. Budget vs actuals. Summary financials.
They cost $139. Today they're free.
Register for my live webinar with ApprovalMax and they're yours 👉 https://lnkd.in/dYxbHmUX

I built every one of these from real client work.

Not a course project. Not a YouTube tutorial. 

These are the actual dashboards I open on day one when I take over as fractional CFO and need leadership to see what's happening immediately.

Here's what you're getting:

✅ KPI Dashboard with real time visibility into the five metrics leadership actually tracks
✅ Sales Dashboard that shows pipeline, revenue, and conversion in one view
✅ Cash Flow Dashboard so you can see exactly where every dollar is going by week
✅ Budget vs Actuals Dashboard that highlights variances the moment they appear
✅ Summary Financials ready to drop into any board deck without reformatting

Getting the templates is one thing. 

Knowing how to build them, customize them, and make them work for your specific setup is where the real value is.

That's what the webinar is for.

Most finance teams I've worked with build dashboards the same way. Open Excel. 

Start making charts. 

Copy a layout they saw somewhere. Hope it looks good enough for the board meeting.

No framework behind it. No system for where the data comes from, how it flows in, or how the formulas connect to each other.

And then month end hits, something breaks, a formula pulls the wrong number, and suddenly the CFO is questioning everything on the screen.

I've spent years figuring out how to avoid that. 

How to structure a dashboard so the data flows in clean, the formulas do what they're supposed to, and the whole thing actually holds up when leadership starts asking questions.

On March 18th at 11:00 AM ET, I'm going live with ApprovalMax to walk you through the full system.

You'll learn:

◾ The framework I use to structure every dashboard from scratch, so the data flows in clean and the formulas connect properly from the start

◾ The 7 specific Excel formulas that power every dashboard I build, from SUMIFS to GETPIVOTDATA, and exactly how each one is used

◾ How to build dashboards that update closer to real time instead of static month end snapshots you have to rebuild every cycle

◾ What to actually put on a board deck so leadership gets what they need on the first look, without 30 tabs of noise

◾ How to set up your file so that when someone else opens it, they can follow the logic without calling you

March 18th. 11:00 AM ET.

Grab your templates and save your spot 👉 https://lnkd.in/dYxbHmUX

A former Uber and Plaid product leader just raised $23M to automate the most hated workflow in finance. Here's why every CFO should pay attention.

The company is called Stacks. Lightspeed led the round.

And if you've ever lost weeks of your life to month-end close, you already know why this matters.

Reconciliations. Journal entries. Variance analysis. Reporting workflows. All manual. All repetitive. All soul-crushing.

Stacks automates the entire thing.

Now here's what actually caught my attention.

→ 30+ enterprise customers globally

→ 100,000+ hours saved annually

→ Close cycles reduced by up to 50%

Read that last one again. 50%.

The founder, Albert Malikov, built product at Uber and Plaid. He watched finance teams stay stuck in spreadsheet hell while every other function got AI upgrades.

So he fixed it.

The platform connects to your ERP, pulls external data, and builds a unified financial view. Then it handles reconciliation, categorization, and variance investigation. With explainable, account-level analysis.

Your team stops doing grunt work and starts doing strategic work. You know, the stuff you actually got hired for.

They just launched AI Flux Analysis. It automates variance investigation and kills those spreadsheet commentary reports nobody wants to write. We've all been there.

But here's the bigger picture.

Close automation is just the entry point. The real vision? Transform finance from a backward-looking reconciliation function into a real-time, insight-driven strategic partner.

Manual → agentic. Spreadsheets → AI-native systems. That's where this is going.

Congrats to Albert and the Stacks team on the raise.

Full announcement from Albert in the comments.

This post is sponsored by Stacks.

Brand partnership • Building World-Class Financial Models in Minutes | 450K+ Followers | Model Wiz

"How's cash looking?"

If that question makes you nervous, you need this dashboard. Every finance leader gets asked this. Most scramble for the answer.

Let me show you what I mean.

Four KPIs at the top. Revenue, COGS, Opex, Ending Cash. Each one shows where you are and how it compares to last year. Green means up. Red means down. No digging required. Your board can read it. Your CEO can read it. Even your cousin who "works in finance" can read it.

Below that, a 12-month trend chart. You can see exactly where things are heading. Revenue climbing? Great. Cash dropping? Problem. Both visible in the same view. No tabs. No hunting. No "give me a second."

Here's the thing. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a meeting where someone asks "how are we doing?" and the finance lead starts pulling up tabs. Five spreadsheets. Three exports. A pivot table from last week that may or may not still be accurate. Classic.

By the time they find the answer, the room has moved on. Or worse, someone else answers for them. That's not a good look.

This dashboard fixes that. One glance. Full picture. Conversation moves forward.

The numbers in this example tell a story. Revenue up 67%. Opex up 78%. Cash down 87%. That's a company growing fast but burning faster. You see it immediately. No one has to explain it. The dashboard does the talking.

That's what a good dashboard does. It makes the answer obvious before anyone asks the question.

I built this one inside Model Wiz. It's a free Excel add-in that connects to your QuickBooks, pulls in your data, and generates dashboards like this one automatically. No formulas to build. No templates to customize. Just connect and go.

What's the first question your CEO usually asks?

When I started my fractional CFO firm almost 6 years ago, I kept hearing the same thing 📢

"Hire slow, fire fast."

I spent a lot of time struggling with this saying.

Why should I hire slowly when my business is moving 100 MPH?

Why should I fire someone fast, and what message will that send to team morale?

I prided myself on being a people-first organization.

Wasn't going to let any boilerplate saying dictate the type of CEO I'd become.

As time grew, however, I started understanding what the phrase really meant.

Now I'm a believer in everything it says.

➡️ YOUR PEOPLE ARE EVERYTHING

When setting our company core values, #1 was a breeze to choose.

"Respect trumps all."

I had several career experiences where people I worked with were nasty.

Sometimes a manager, other times a coworker.

The feeling left me tense, anxious, sad, trapped.

Your work is huge part of your life.

When you work with someone who treats you poorly, it affects you during work and even when you go home.

I promised myself I'd never create that environment when managing others.

It's close to impossible for consulting firms to scale without heavy investment in people.

Your staff isn't just people who "get the job done."

They represent you, allow you to work on bigger picture, outperform you where you're weak.

They collectively make your organization stronger.

➡️ HIRE SLOW MEANS PROPER DUE DILIGENCE

Hiring is challenging, time intensive, expensive.

Even under best circumstances, you're still at risk of hiring wrong person.

Technical skills are just one part...there's people skills, where they are in life, what they're experiencing outside work.

Some want casual 9-5, others want environment to grow quickly in chaos.

Some seek incredible meaning, others just want big paycheck.

None are right or wrong...just matter of finding right fit both sides.

Here are costs of hiring wrong person:

Lost investment in training time and resources.

Negative morale when employee becomes disgruntled.

Expensive severance packages plus salary while employed.

Risk of employee litigation if terminations aren't handled correctly.

Missed company targets due to underperformance.

➡️ FIRE FAST DOESN'T MEAN HEARTLESS

Taking quick action doesn't need to mean letting someone go immediately.

Unless there are financial constraints, everyone should get performance improvement plan opportunity.

This protects from wrongful termination lawsuits.

Gives employee time to consider options for another role.

Communicates to team that you invest in people's success.

When someone isn't right fit after feedback, PIP, and still not performing...time to part ways.

If employee is poor cultural fit, part ways before their morale affects others.

If underperforming, part ways before best performers feel they're compensating with extra work.

Cost of working with wrong person is too large.

Have you struggled with balancing people-first culture and business needs?

5 SaaS Finance Templates I Charge $180+ For Are Yours for Free This Week
Register for my free masterclass with Maxio and get all five 👉 https://lnkd.in/ed7pWgHy

I built these templates over years of working as a fractional CFO with SaaS companies at every stage.

Every engagement had the same gap. The metrics existed somewhere, scattered across billing systems, spreadsheets, and dashboards nobody trusted.

ARR calculations that didn't match between finance and sales. 

Deferred revenue schedules built on formulas that broke every time someone added a new contract. SaaS P&Ls that took a full day to rebuild for board meetings.

So I built a set of templates that cut SaaS reporting from days to minutes. And I've refined them through every client engagement since.

Here's what you're getting:

✅ ARR, MRR, and Logo Forecasting Template that lets you project revenue and customer count with real assumptions your board can trust

✅ ARR Calculation Dashboard showing exactly where your recurring revenue stands across new, expansion, contraction, and churn

✅ SaaS P&L Template built for subscription businesses so your financials actually make sense to investors

✅ Deferred Revenue Template that tracks and recognizes subscription revenue without the manual reconciliation that eats your weekends

✅ SaaS Metrics Template covering CAC, LTV, ACV, and more so you always know which levers move the business

On Wednesday, March 4th at 1:00 PM ET, I'm hosting a free masterclass with Maxio where I walk through all five live.

You'll see exactly how each one works. How to plug in your own data. And how to adapt them to your specific setup.

Here's what else we'll cover:

→ How to build an ARR forecast you can defend in a board meeting

→ The exact process for tracking deferred revenue without breaking your formulas

→ Why most SaaS P&Ls confuse investors and what yours should look like instead

→ Where manual metric tracking falls apart and what the modern toolkit looks like in 2026

===

Register here and get all 5 templates 👉 https://lnkd.in/ed7pWgHy

Maxio Webinar

Gen Z scores 38% on financial literacy tests.

They're also about to inherit $84 trillion.

See how Zogo is preparing them before the money moves:
https://lnkd.in/eC66JibW

#ad | This post is sponsored by Zogo.

→ They're Already In The Deep End

Gen Z started investing at 19 on average. Boomers didn't start until 35.

That sounds impressive until you look at the results.

50% of Gen Z investors admit they've made at least one investment driven by FOMO. Credit card balances jumped 62% in just two years. 

Delinquency rates are running higher than Millennials at the same age.

Young employees making financial decisions with confidence but without the foundation to back it up. Buying crypto on a TikTok tip. 

Maxing out credit cards cuz they don't understand how compound interest works against them.

→ Here's What Should Worry Every Credit Union Executive

$84 trillion in wealth is changing hands over the next two decades. The vast majority of it from Boomers.

And the data on what happens next is brutal.

70% of heirs leave their parents' financial advisor after inheriting. Not some of them. The majority. Gone.

Most financial firms don't engage with heirs at all until the transfer is already happening. 

By then you're chasing someone who's already opened an account somewhere else.

One study tracked 3,200 wealthy families over 20 years. 70% lost their wealth by the second generation. 90% by the third. 

→ Why The Typical Approach Fails

A meta analysis of 200+ studies found that financial education effects vanish after about 20 months without reinforcement.

Think about what that means for the industry's current playbook. A one time seminar in February is forgotten by Thanksgiving.

But when education hits at a "teachable moment"... right before a first credit decision, a first loan, a first investment... the effects are 3x larger across 76 randomized controlled trials.

The timing changes everything.

→ How Zogo's 360 Integration Delivers Education At The Right Moment

Zogo is a financial literacy app that credit unions and banks white label into their own platforms. Think gamified language learning, but for money, built for the exact moment a member needs it.

2M+ users. 250+ financial institution partners.

→ 2 to 3 minute micro lessons tied to actual financial decisions members are about to make

→ Rewards that keep Gen Z coming back (gift cards, cash back... not another branded pen)

→ Intent data showing institutions what their members are actively learning about

One of the largest credit unions in the country replaced their previous financial education provider with Zogo. 

===

Start building that relationship now:

https://lnkd.in/eC66JibW

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The Battle

Paul Barnhurst, The FPandA Guy

Josh Aharonoff, CPA

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