The Ledger

Institute of Management Accountants: Overcoming FP&A’s Biggest Challenge: Predicting the Future

The Institute of Management Accountants released a report that “is designed to serve as a guide for organizations trying to forecast what’s ahead in their markets”. It poses and expands on these 9 ways to improve forecasting in the future:

1. Expand the data available
2. Tools: Start small and add on
3. Use scenario planning
4. Address the knowing-doing gap
5. Model Building: Think causality
6. Establish data collection systems
7. Improve assumptions and estimates
8. Monitor results and quickly identify the business reasons behind variance
9. Improve analytical skills

Read More at Institute of Management Accountants >

Deloitte: Crunch Time Series for CFOs: Finance 2025 Revisited

This Deloitte report re-visits their 8 finance trend predictions for CFOs in 2025:

“Finance will, as predicted, focus more on service, analytics, and business insights, all of which mandate new capabilities. CEOs will continue turning to Finance for an integrated view of business performance, as they did
during the pandemic. Financial planners will need to bake operational components into financial models to assess potential top- and bottom-line impacts—even as the goalposts keep moving.”

Read More at Deloitte >

CFO Dive: Work Backwards When Replacing Legacy Systems, Accounting Specialists Say

“When replacing your legacy finance and accounting system with something automated and cloud-based, first understand what both you and your non-finance business users need out of the system, and organize implementation around that.”

Read More at CFO Dive >

SF Magazine: Forecasting the Future

5 ways to use predictive analytics:

1. Expand the data available
2. Tools: Start small and add on
3. Use scenario planning
4. Address the knowing-doing gap
5. Model building: Think causality

Read More at SF Magazine >