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Forward-deployed for finance & FP&A

A forecast you can defend, without the scramble.

We build AI into the cycle finance already runs: variance commentary drafted before the monthly review, a rolling forecast back-tested every month, and a cash view checked weekly against the bank. Analysts spend the time they save advising the business.

Request an assessmentHow an engagement runs

Where the hours go

  • Forecasts rebuilt by hand
  • Variances explained late
  • One metric, three definitions
  • Requests answered from scratch

What a pod builds

  • Driver-based rolling forecast
  • Variance investigation
  • Thirteen-week cash forecast
  • Scenario models

What gets measured

  • Forecast accuracy (MAPE) and bias
  • Forecast cycle time
  • Days from close to management pack
  • Hours spent on variance commentary

I / Where the hours go

What we look for first.

  • Forecasts rebuilt by hand

    Each cycle begins with exports from the ERP, CRM, and HR system, stitched together in spreadsheets before anyone can ask what changed or why.

  • Variances explained late

    By the time FP&A has chased budget owners for the reason behind each variance, the decisions that analysis was meant to inform have already been made.

  • One metric, three definitions

    Revenue, margin, and headcount mean slightly different things in the ERP, the planning model, and the BI dashboard, so meetings start by reconciling definitions.

  • Requests answered from scratch

    Ad hoc questions from leadership arrive daily, and each is answered with a fresh spreadsheet that nobody else can check or reuse.

II / What we build

Systems, not slideware.

  • Driver-based rolling forecast

    Rolls the forecast forward each month from operating drivers (volume, price, headcount, and churn) in your planning model, back-tests it against actuals, and proposes changes that FP&A accepts or rejects line by line.

  • Variance investigation

    Traces each material budget-versus-actual variance to the transactions, drivers, and owners behind it, then drafts the commentary, so analysts edit explanations instead of chasing them.

  • Thirteen-week cash forecast

    Builds the weekly cash view from bank balances, receivables, payables, payroll, and debt service, compares every week with what actually cleared, and warns the treasurer when liquidity or covenant headroom starts to thin.

  • Scenario models

    Runs what-if cases (a price change, a hiring freeze, a rate move, or an acquisition) on the same driver model as the forecast, so every scenario ties back to the plan finance owns.

  • Price and margin analysis

    Bridges margin by price, volume, mix, and cost-to-serve for each customer and product, finds discounts granted outside policy, and models proposed price changes for commercial and finance leaders to decide on.

  • Capital request review

    Checks each capital request against your template and the actual returns of similar past projects, recalculates NPV, IRR, and payback the same way every time, and leaves the decision with the investment committee.

  • Management and board packs

    Drafts the monthly management pack and quarterly board deck from the close and the forecast, with figures tied to source and commentary marked as draft, for the CFO to edit and approve.

  • Finance question desk

    Answers ad hoc questions from leadership against one governed set of metric definitions, shows the query behind every figure, and hands anything outside governed data to an analyst.

III / A first vintage

Variance investigation and commentary

First production deployment, Six to ten weeks

A pod maps your chart of accounts and cost centers to the drivers in your planning model, sets variance thresholds with FP&A, and runs the agent beside the team for two month-ends before its commentary reaches budget owners.

Judged by

Hours spent on variance commentary, days from close to management pack, and how much of each draft survives FP&A review, each compared with where the Survey found it.

An illustration of a first deployment, not a description of a past client.

IV / What we measure

Baselined before we build.

  • Forecast accuracy (MAPE) and bias
  • Forecast cycle time
  • Days from close to management pack
  • Hours spent on variance commentary
  • Cash forecast variance to actuals
  • Turnaround on ad hoc requests
  • Price realization and discount leakage

Set during the Survey and reported every season after.

Systems we work inside

Your stack, not ours.

  • Anaplan
  • Workday Adaptive Planning
  • Pigment
  • OneStream
  • Planful
  • Vena
  • Cube
  • Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM
  • NetSuite
  • SAP S/4HANA
  • Kyriba
  • Snowflake
  • Power BI
  • Tableau
  • Excel and Google Sheets

Named for familiarity, not partnership. We integrate with what you already run and recommend new tools only when the work requires them.

V / Guardrails

Where people stay in control.

  • Every number has an owner

    Nothing reaches the board, lenders, or investors without a named owner’s approval. Every page stays marked as a draft until then, and each sign-off is logged against the exact version approved.

  • Forecasts treated as models

    Forecast models are documented, back-tested, and monitored for drift, borrowing the discipline banks follow under SR 26-2, which replaced SR 11-7 in April 2026. Forecasts behind impairment tests and other SOX-relevant estimates get a management review your auditors can test.

  • Inside information stays inside

    For public companies, forecasts and unreleased results are treated as material nonpublic information. Access follows your insider list and blackout calendar, and nothing meant for outside readers leaves until investor relations and counsel have checked it against Regulation FD.

  • Lineage and least privilege

    Every figure carries its lineage: source system, query, model version, and who changed what. Agents work in your tenant, read-only unless a workflow needs more, and nothing they see trains a model outside your tenant.

Related

Work that tends to travel with this.

Begin with the Survey.

Two to three weeks inside your team, a fixed fee agreed up front, and a ranked plan you keep whether or not we build it together.

Request an assessmentRead the practice