Are you an interested in making the transition to ?
FP&A
Accountant
How do your skills translate to FP&A?
Which new skills do you need to acquire?
In general terms, you’ll need to learn to be comfortable with ambiguity — giving up rules and precision for being directionally right — to turn your gaze forward, and to develop strong ties with business partners.
Skill Set
1
FROM CAPITAL REPORTING TO CAPITAL ALLOCATION
Historical
Accounting records the transactions.
FP&A is consumed with the question of where the company should put that money to work, in order to create the most value and the best long-term returns.
Future
VS
Accounting
FP&A
Next
FP&A serves management and the business leaders who want a blend of financial and operational metrics.
Business Partners
Accountants provide information to management but also reports to shareholders, creditors and regulators.
Investors
FP&A can create reports that suit management and are tailored to different users throughout the organization and may include visualizations, dashboards and scorecards.
Management Reporting
The format for accounting is standardized and must comply with set rules, such as GAAP or IFRS.
Financial Reporting
Skill Set
2
FP&A may see small variability and identify it as a potential start of a trend or business change.
Not Too Small to Care
Accountants may dismiss small variations that do not meet their materiality thresholds.
Deciding What’s Material
The challenge is making the leap between the small details in front of you on a particular process, product, service, or general ledger expense line, and connect that to the entire enterprise.
The Big Picture
As an accountant you focus on the small details taking place and removing context from it.
Granular
FP&A recognizes that data is seldom perfect or complete, but decisions need to be made in changing markets
Directional
Accounting requires a very high level of accuracy.
Precision
FP&A
VS
Accounting
FROM CERTAINTY TO AMBIGUITY
2
Skill Set
3
Skill Set
FP&A takes this information and tries to peel back the layers to truly understand why that happened and how it can be used going forward.
The Why
Accountants give you the balance sheet and the income statement and tell you what happened.
The What
FP&A builds relationships with business partners to analyze operations and make decisions.
Partnership
Accountants, early in their career, typically interact with other accountants.
Internal Function
FP&A
VS
Accounting
BUSINESS RELATIONS
3
Skill Set
FROM CERTAINTY TO AMBIGUITY
FROM
TO
INTERNAL FINANCE
Download the Guide
AFP Guide:
The Transition from Accounting to FP&A.
Find out more about how to acquire the skills you need in
ambiguity
TO
Certainty
FROM
CAPITAL ALLOCATION
TO
CAPITAL REPORTING
FROM
Compare the three skill sets below, then download
the
The Transition from Accounting to FP&A
to learn more.
AFP Guide: The Transition from Accounting to FP&A
Download
guide
You may be eligible to waive Part I of the Certified Corporate FP&A Professional Exam.
Learn More.
Are you a CPA (US), CMA or CTP?