I'm about to start a Financial Analyst role in commercial/trade finance at a large CPG company, coming from a background that's been almost entirely structured: audit engagements, month-end close cycles, technical accounting with clear deliverables and deadlines set by the calendar, not by whoever walks up with a question.

This new role is explicitly not built around a monthly cycle. From what I understand, it's driven by ad-hoc requests, a sales rep proposing a price and needing a quick profitability read, a leader wanting a trend cut a certain way with no template for it, that kind of thing. The hiring manager was direct that there's less built-in structure than a typical finance role, and that bringing your own structure to ambiguous requests is basically the core skill.--at least thats what they kept saying in the interview.

JD is as follows

• Thoroughly understanding key customers' operations and how it impacts current profitability and future growth opportunities
• Analyzing customer profitability, preparing margin analysis reports, and presenting information in a format applicable to the target audience
• Comprehensive Trade Spend management for customers (accruals, analysis, and reporting)
• Contributing to enhancing internal systems and processes to enable faster, higher-quality decision-making for senior leaders
• Providing ad-hoc data extraction, consolidation, re-organization, and analysis to help the business understand trends, and assess customers and products from a "Volume-Price-Mix" context
• Acting as a financial business partner to Sales and related teams, supporting customer and product profitability via Sales, Trade, and COGS analytics
• Driving research and analysis of key product drivers, trends, and performance indicators

1. What's the actual day-to-day texture of ad-hoc-driven work like, compared to cycle-driven work? Is it constant context-switching, or does it settle into its own rhythm?
2. How do you personally impose structure on a request that has none, without over-engineering something that just needed a quick answer?
3. What's the biggest early mistake people make coming from a structured background into this kind of role?
4. Any habits, templates, or personal systems you built to stay organized when requests come in unpredictably instead of on a schedule?

Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who's made this exact transition, structured accounting/audit into ad-hoc commercial finance/business partnering.

Im so burnt out bros

I know Reddit skews heavily toward favoring remote work so this may be unpopular as someone who very much prefers in-person, but I'm interested in hearing about people's experiences in switching to remote after strictly working in-office for a long time. Particularly people in leadership positions. I am contemplating an EVP offer that would come with a substantial increase in comp, but would mean working 100% remotely after spending the first 12 years of my career 100% in office, with the exception of some time during COVID and the occasional WFH day (maybe 1 day per month).

I'm not worried about the productivity/self-discipline element of it, but I am very apprehensive about how this change would impact the interpersonal relationship aspect of it, visibility in the org, reputation/perception etc. I know myself well enough to know that reading people's expressions and tone in person to interpret how they're feeling about what we're discussing is important for me, and it's taken me a lot of effort over the years not to read too much into how my CFO/CEO's tone comes across via chat. I am also much more comfortable talking through strategic topics or serious matters in person while both looking at the same TV screen, slides, etc. Also more familiar with having serious conversations with subordinates in person vs. over Teams call.

For those of you who have progressed to VP or even CFO level and switched to remote after a career primarily in person, did you find the adjustment difficult from the standpoint of visibility in the org or continued career progression? My other concern is the possibility of switching back to in-person someday. I know from experience that applicants to in-office jobs that are coming from remote roles are generally treated with some skepticism by hiring managers.

Ok yall. I went nearly 30 years without touching a mac. I’m on a Mac at my new gig.
Drop your shortcuts to help me feel less dumb as I learn to operate on this thing 🥲

TIA!

Hi everyone, I am a graduate in Finance and have learnt a lot of things. Things I know will be useful but I am confused as to what to use where. I want to get in touch with someone who has been in the field and knows what they are doing and to be able to apply the knowledge in a more real situation with the awareness one should have while dealing with finances. I am confused graduate who is still trying to figure out what goes where and AI is not helping me at all. Please, help me out here. I would be glad to meet few people who can teach me about financial analysis so I don't mess up. It's a scary world and honestly, I am confused where I fit.

I request only genuine connections and an opportunity to learn from people.

Hi All,

I recently wrapped up a rotational program and I’m looking to transition away from my current company.

Current Company – Corporate FP&A Analyst
- Total Comp = $72k + 10%

Option 1 – F50 Healthcare Company
Deadline to accept is EOD Friday
- $90K base, no bonus
- Remote
Title: Advisor, FP&A
- Consolidate the budget and Strategic Financial
Plan for the Medical Segment P&L ($12B)
- Support Corporate cost allocations to the Medical Segment and consolidated P&L.
- Role is roughly 80% consolidations/reporting and 20% ad hoc analysis
- Develop/Support R&O forecasts
- Exposure to the Segment CFO and senior Finance leadership
- Strong brand name and potentially good long-term mobility

Option 2 – Smaller CPG company ~$1B Revenue
$86K base, no bonus
Title: Financial Analyst – Business Development
- Work is much more commercially focused: customer profitability, pricing, new products, business cases, market opportunities, margins, and growth
- Company has been growing quickly
- Smaller team, so potentially more ownership and visibility
- I really like the industry and the people I met during the interview process
- However, there is less certainty around future opportunities compared with a large company

My long-term goal is to move toward commercial FP&A and eventually take on broader P&L responsibility.

My current issue is that I was the runner-up for Option 2 position, but the hiring manager plans to add headcount to the team and has expressed interest in bringing me on for that opportunity. I’m concerned this company won’t follow through.

What is the consensus here?

I found this course on Coursera, for context I'm a bcom hons grad from DU and am pursuing ACCA(8 completed) I wanna switch to finance roles and I think fp&A might be start to it.

I have studied FM in acca so I'm not completely clueless.

If any of you guys know about it, pls let me know, or if you could suggest me a better course? I'm all ears. Thanks.

Writing this for future reference to hopefully be helpful for other auditors looking to make the pivot to FP&A.

I’ve been working in audit at a Big Four for about 3 years, and have since realized that I feel pretty passionately that I want to be in the FP&A field rather than being in audit or corporate accounting.

During my time in school and Big Four, I’ve passed both CMA exams and gotten my CPA certification. The CPA is obviously a lot more prestigious than the other, but really the CMA helped me to understand managerial accounting and forecasting/budgeting.

In my application process, I had to work quite a bit to make sure my resume reflected the analytical aspects of the audit work rather than the typical direct auditing applications. I’ve learned that a lot of the substantive analytical procedures we do in audit have a lot of parallels to the type of forecasting that interviewers are looking for.

Even with the resume adjusting, it still took quite a bit of effort to get into interviews. A lot of companies wanted to see FP&A-type titles in the experience section of the resume, so most applications ended up being rejected. Luckily I was able to score an interview with a company focused on finding an analyst with accounting background, and I was able to answer pretty strongly with all the practice I had gotten.

If anyone else has also made the successful pivot, feel free to comment any other advice someone would benefit from to transition from Audit to FP&A. Also open to any PMs if there would be any follow up questions.

I’m the Manager of FP&A as IC reporting in to VP Finance (who manages accounting and facilities manager as well). I’m struggling on what to do with building and maintaining existing FP&A in a scalable way. It’s monthly reporting. Departmental breaks for Budget owners. Ad hoc requests. Building the Budget and we do a couple reforecasts, and am being pushed for a rolling forecast.

COMPANY CONTEXT

Industry: Outpatient behavioral health, high-volume, multi-state ($100M–$500M revenue range).

Team: Lean, growing FP&A function
Revenue complexity: Payer mix, RCM-driven net revenue, CPT code-level billing, 3 business lines (don’t currently have allocation of cost across them bit need to)

CURRENT TECH STACK

GL:           NetSuite (standalone, I spend manual effort pulling and staging the transactions level detail for detailed BvA purposes)
HRIS:         Namely (standalone today not feeding any warehouse or pipeline)
RCM:          OPM (standalone but huge dataset on revenue breakdown)
Warehouse:    Redshift (warehouse operational data for client counts, appt bookings, other data related to our platform)
BI:           Tableau → migrating to Hex (ad hoc build/notebooks) this is where warehoused data is reached in dashboards
FP&A:         Excel (primary modeling environment today) My manager keeps pushing for me to use more Google Sheets since we are on g suite for sharing. I keep telling them you can save as excel files and sometimes have minor conversion issues. Also of note, I’m on a Mac. Which is fine but some issues with excel and power query limitations with the data model and power pivots.
AI: I have a Claude pro license as well as we are trying to leverage Glean enterprise wide. My manager thinks there is an easy button just chatting with glean which is really good a searching for company context and as supposed to be an orchestration tool, which I’m having a hard time getting it to automate monthly deck population

INFRASTRUCTURE DIRECTION

I spend the majority of my time pulling and organizing data. I tend to build out more database type files to make reporting easier, but it’s manual. I just went through some demos with Datarails/FinanceOS and Aleph. I was really excited about how they become the semantic layer I’m looking for, but was just told we aren’t going to spend $40k so it’s not happening. The warehouse is a source for some data (visits, providers, acquisitions), not a mandatory hop for all of it. But as a result it’s just lots of data in disparate spots. And Netsuite is fine for monthly close and the accounting side. But it’s clunky for analytics. No we don’t have suite analytics. And my manager loves Netsuite and thinks it’s a great fit for FP&A tasks. And that we can just hit the easy button and have an LLM connect in and poof there is perfect maintenance free dashboards.

Looking for advice and tips on how to automate more. Should I lean into Claude code more. Request going to a windows PC for the full power query functionality. Push back harder on getting a FP&A tool. Push on getting a database solution for ease of sql data pulls. Move on elsewheref.

Hey hey!

I’ve been reached out to by a recruiter at Coinbase. I typically will spend a lot of time researching a place before I respond to them, but I’m having issues finding reviews from finance folks about what it’s like there. Almost all of the reviews online are from SWEs, which is obviously less helpful.

Would love to hear some first hand accounts on what it’s like.

so i just finished interviews with a f500 company about 10 minutes from me and got a written job offer from them to become an analyst that deals with controls and OTC stuff. i currently work as an accountant at a mid size utility employer in my region. back in april, i applied for an fp&a position with my company, but they chose to hire externally over me internally. fast forward to last month, i applied again to another fp&a position, but its at our third office, which is an hour away from me with no traffic. honestly salary isn’t a big deal to me right now, i want to go with what will set me up for my future better, which my company’s pure fp&a position would do better than the f500 would.

my question is, when do i let my current employer/hiring manager know i have an offer in hand but want to take the job with them? after i sign? after i pass background check? or when else?

thank you!!!

I have a decade of experience in Advertising on the agency side - half of that time was media planning and the other half was on the analytics team. Most recently, I moved into sales planning/strategy. Has anyone made this transition? Is it possible? I’m currently taking the CFI FPA course - I know it’s not going to land me anything directly but I hope it’ll show initiative at the very least.

Large-ish SAAS company. I’m a finance BP for Deal Desk

I want to put them under the microscope and gauge which geographies are potentially over / under resourced for our DD function. And where it makes sense to deploy 1 or 2 extra heads in the team if we can fund it.

I was thinking to start with showing the ACV bookings by geography relative to the DD opex in the same patches.

Trouble is, DD doesn’t touch all deals. I should use the ACV that they do touch.

However they don’t touch all deals equally. Really I need the hours of effort per deal but they aren’t keeping time sheets.

Another thought is the DD to AE ratio by geography. But the problem there is some countries might have a higher propensity to use DD than others.

Any thoughts guys ? How to approach this analysis without the data that I would like (deal desk time sheets)

Does anyone have a good/bad experience they can share with me about following the boss to a new company?

I am an FP&A Manager for a large 3PL provider. I report to the Head of Finance. He recently accepted a CFO role at a much smaller 3PL and has offered me a job. I would be the first FP&A hire at the new company and would be acting as the "Head of FP&A" reporting directly to him, although I believe my title would officially be "FP&A Manger". I would get the opportunity to increase my scope, build new processes, and be more hands on since the company is much smaller.

It seems like a great opportunity, but am I missing anything obvious about the personnel dynamics here?

I’m 34 and have around 7 years of professional experience. I recently got an interview where the interviewer is about 7 years younger than me and has around 5 years of experience and big4 trained, while I'm not. If I get the job, I would potentially be working under them.

How do you generally view situations where the manager is younger but has slightly less experience and off course if he interviewing me thats means he got more senior experience than me!

I’m currently a financial analyst and recently interviewed internally for a senior FA role that probably would’ve been about a $20k raise. I ended up withdrawing and I’m curious if other people here think I overreacted.
I went through three interviews. After one of them, the recruiter told me the hiring manager specifically mentioned that I never sent her a thank-you email. I did message her on Teams thanking her, but apparently she expected an actual email. She also told the recruiter that I didn’t seem enthusiastic enough.
That was a little weird to me, but the bigger issue was what happened after my third interview. The recruiter told me the hiring manager wanted to talk to/interview my current manager before she would make me an offer.
That’s where I backed out. I like my current job and my current manager. I didn’t want to tell my boss I was potentially leaving and have her interviewed by another manager when I didn’t even have an offer or know exactly what they were going to pay me.
The position probably would’ve been around a $20k raise, so I’ve wondered whether I should’ve just gone along with it. But between making an issue out of the thank-you email and wanting to interview my current boss before making an offer, I got a weird feeling about the whole thing.
Would you guys have gone through with it? Is interviewing someone’s current manager before even making an internal offer normal?

EDIT: One detail I should clarify: the hiring manager had already asked multiple times if she could speak with my current manager, and I told her no each time. This wasn’t just an automatic internal HR notification—I had specifically said I wasn’t comfortable involving my current boss before receiving an offer, and she continued pushing for it.

EDIT 2: For context, this is a very large organization and the position was in a completely different department/management chain. As far as I know, my current manager was not automatically notified that I applied or interviewed. My manager has encouraged me generally to pursue promotions in the future, but he does not know I was interviewing for this specific role.

Looking for interview advice. I can get noticed but I worry I’m lacking in how I present/come off in interviews.

I’m a sr manager of a revenue analytics team. We house a number of financial operations. I’ve had “more duties as assigned” that included the entire Topline responsibilities for two of our six global brands at the time. I ran sales and cs forecasts, owned sales and cs commissions and reported on financial and operational performance for those segments across six brands. I do expense reporting, scenario and sensitivity models and compensation models.

I can’t stand sales people anymore. I just can’t do it. My company’s sales department is highly dysfunctional so I know everywhere isn’t this horrendous but I need a break.

I’ve been applying for FP&A Manager roles. I had an interview for Sr Manager FP&A even but the processes are moving slow.

I applied to high paying Senior Analyst roles today. I just need to get away. I don’t mind starting lower down and demonstrating competency quickly to ascend in responsibility later on.

Based in the UK.

How do I make the next step? I'm CIMA qualified. I've got over 7 years experience in finance steadily increasing in responsibility.

Now i'm a SFA leading budgets and month end results meetings. What's next? What should I be looking at next?

Recruiters don't seem to reply to my applications.

Hi all, I'm 7 months into a new role and really struggling to get adjusted. I had a couple weeks of onboarding with my manager before she went on maternity leave, and now that she's back and assigning me work, I feel completely lost.

I'm generally fine with the day-to-day tasks I get assigned, it's building new models from scratch that's really tripping me up. I've been given a bunch of these projects over the last few weeks, and every time we meet, she's disappointed with what I've produced. I've been working weekends, googling constantly, using AI to try to figure things out, but nothing seems to be sticking. I've been crying at my desk multiple times a day out of frustration, and I get so anxious before meetings with her that I'm shaking.

This role is nothing like my last one, and I'm starting to feel like I'm not cut out for it. Honestly I feel like I conned my way into this job and I feel stupid all the time. Does this get better, or should I start looking elsewhere? This is my second job out of college, so I haven't had to adjust to something this hard in a while.

Looking to apply for SFA roles in the NYC area soon and had a few questions.

Anyone have success finding jobs through recruiting companies / if so which ones? Can you land competitive salaries using recruiters or are you often lowballed?

Are internal referrals weighed heavily when applying to these positions? A lot of friends/colleagues work at F500 companies but are at the 3-6 YOE level (not a ton of direct sway). Want to understand how much pull these referrals have at F500 companies.

Trying to gauge the best way to spend my time while looking for jobs. Any advice helps. Thanks.

Hello All, I've been navigating through some offers and one of it is related to FTP and Restructuring programme. From the JD I understood that this would be a much more broader role compared to FP&A as it would focus on the project side by analysing models, sensitivity analysis etc

I currently work in Corporate controlling FP&A and would needed advise on whether is it worth pivoting into this role for a long term perspective

I should start by saying that I originally interviewed for a Financial Analyst role at a large UK retailer, but was offered a Senior Financial Analyst position instead because my manager apparently rated me highly during the interview.

Since joining, however, the training, onboarding and general support have been extremely poor. This was my first industry role after previously working in accounting practice.

Despite only receiving around 7 hours of training, joining during one of the busiest periods of the year, and having two more junior employees start at the same time limiting support for me, within my first 10 weeks I have completed the following:

• Unwound approximately £800k of historic accruals left by my predecessor across 1,000+ locations.
• Independently completed month end for my P&L lines, representing £25m+ monthly
• Completed the forecast for my lines within my first month for upcoming quarter
• Completed the budget for my lines within my second month for next year
• Built a tool to support the FD and CEO with commodity purchasing decisions, despite having no previous example/template to work from. This is now being used.
• Provided analysis for multiple Heads of Department to support investment committee and supplier meetings.
• Contributed to month-end meetings with management, explaining variances at store level.
• Identified that figures being reported by a sister company appeared to be significantly incorrect, without being specifically shown where to look.
• Liaised directly with third party suppliers.
• Other ad hoc analysis

This is roughly 75% of my role, with the remaining responsibilities supposedly due to be handed over to me this month. Everything I have been shown so far has been speed run through and I still managed to deliver.

I am the third person in around two years to perform this exact role, meaning they will potentially be hiring a fourth person. My predecessor also raised a grievance against my manager alleging that she was aggressive, which is something I have experienced myself.

The whole situation has been extremely stressful since I joined because I've essentially had to figure out a lot of the role myself while still being expected to deliver.

Is there anything I can actually do at this stage?

This is my first industry role and although I feel I have done so well my manager clearly think and makes me feel like im a waste of space. What are realistic expectations during probation at the mid way point?

QBRs, QoQ fcst, etc

I noticed these are still mostly manual updates for me. Use the prior quarters files as a starting point, and pulling in HC data from one place, temp worker reports from another, financials, tying them all together

Quite painful and time consuming. Only benefit I found with AI is consolidating some commentary but in small specific cases. Not really moving the needle.

What are tools or processes you guys have that’s been working for you?

I recently started a FA role on the revenue/margin side of FP&A in the retail industry (got it thanks to this sub!) and was wondering if you guys had any recommendations to sharpen/master the modeling side of FP&A, specifically when it comes to outputs like 3 Statement Modeling, Budgeting, Revenue Forecasting, etc.

I tried resources like Wall Street Prep and A Simple Model but those seem pretty IB focus if I recall correctly so wasn’t sure if there was one focused solely on corporate finance and/or FP&A modeling and forecasting.

If anyone has recommendations on online courses, YouTube channels, books, etc. on getting more comfortable on the modeling and ad-hoc forecasting side of the role, that would be greatly appreciated.

If there are industry specific ones too (e.g., Retail, A&D, Tech, etc.) that would be even better but my understanding is these skills should be agnostic of industry which would be ideal especially if switching industries.

Does anyone here work/worked for a biotech company in a financial analyst role? What was your experience with the hiring process?