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    One cycle, run every month

    A named analyst and a named reviewer join your team and run the same cycle every month: close, variance, forecast and board pack. After two or three cycles it stops being an effort, and the routine can be handed back.

    There is a calendar everybody knows: close by a date, variance by a date, review on a date. (read where we wrote it)

    4Weeks to each cycle: close, variance, forecast, review

    Who closes, explains and forecasts your month?

    A named analyst and a named reviewer, who join your calls and work inside your team.

    1. The monthly cadence

      Close, review and variance on a calendar everyone knows, so the month ends the same way every month.

      • Books closed on a fixed date, and reviewed within the week
      • Each gap from the plan explained, with one person owning each line
      • One report, one version, sent to the people who act on it

    2. Forecast and reforecast

      The plan kept live. A forecast that was right in April and never touched since is a historical document.

      • The forecast updated every month, when the books close
      • Other outcomes tested before you decide, not after
      • Cash and months of runway updated with profit and loss, not separately

    3. The board and lender pack

      The reporting your investors, board or bank actually asked for, produced from the same numbers the team runs on.

      • A board report written for the people reading it, not to a template
      • Lender reports and loan-condition checks, on time every period
      • Questions answered from the report, without a fresh study each time

    4. The team inside your team

      Analysts and a reviewer who join your calls, learn your business and hand the cadence back when it holds without us.

      • One named analyst and one named reviewer, not whoever is free
      • Your tools, your calendar, your definitions
      • Written down, so the monthly routine carries on after we hand over

    What does the team do each month?

    The same four jobs, every month, so each month can be compared with the last.

    1. Close the month on a date, every month

      A close calendar with owners and a hard date, so the conversation about performance happens while there is still time to change the outcome.

    2. Explain the variance, not just report it

      Each material gap to plan traced to a cause and an owner. A variance report without an explanation is a list of numbers that have already happened.

    3. Keep the forecast live

      A rolling forecast updated with what the close just taught us, so the number the board is holding is the number the business currently believes.

    4. Produce a board pack people read

      One document carrying the story of the month, the decisions needed and the risks, rather than forty slides of appendix.

    What do founders ask about running FP&A every month?

    What does FP&A stand for?

    Financial planning and analysis. It covers turning a business plan into a forecast, a forecast into a budget, and then into the monthly conversation about what actually happened and why.

    How is FP&A operations different from FP&A consulting?

    Operations is the monthly cadence run as a service: close, review, variance, forecast and board pack, every month, by a team that sits inside yours. Consulting fixes how the company plans, reports and prices so that the operations have something worth running.

    When does a company need FP&A?

    Usually when the founder can no longer hold the whole picture, or when a board starts asking for a forecast that has to be defended. Before then a monthly review and a simple model is genuinely enough.

    Can our accountant do this?

    Accounting produces the numbers and FP&A decides what they mean for the next quarter. The skills overlap only partially, and asking one person to do both usually means the close wins and the planning does not happen.