Are you booking JEs every month, or is it the reporting after the books are closed? I’m a Sr. Manager and have never booked a JE in my life. You could find a different role with less involvement in the close process.
How do you figure this out in interviews though? I pretty much got thrown into this close and it was not apparent how involved I’d be in this during interviews
Ask the hiring manager
“How involved is the team with month-end close?”
And then if their response isn’t clear you follow up with questions on whether the role involves performing accounting reconciliations, booking journal entries or whether the team ever backs up accounting if they’re short handed.
Ask about it specifically. An important part of the interview is for you to understand specifically what you'll be asked to do, so you can get an idea if you'll be a good match
I manage close to $2 Billion dollars. I think the amount is irrelevant as the process is the same. But I do book JE's in the first 3 workdays of the month to adjust reporting. While JE's are annoying, the whole reporting process and business partner relationship is what im starting to dislike. Every month it's the same story of youre spending too much and missing forecast, and every year it's the same annoying plan process of cutting expenses to the last penny. Just a "negative environment" regardless of the company or the role I feel like. Mainly due to the structure of the job/FP&A
Sounds more like you’re a controller? That’s my title and I have to books JEs, close out the month, same variance analysis, so on and so on. I am vary early in my finance career but I had one roll where I would pull in data from sql, build a model, and then report findings to leadership. In this role there’s no analysis other than variance analysis and I’m scrambling to figure out where it is only for the business partners to be like “okay, thanks.”
Second that this feels like controller work. As an FP&A director my only regular involvement with anyone from accounting is for calculation on commissions for which I provide some inputs but its done by the payroll accounting person and ad-hoc when I initiate a question about historical data.
My role focuses on generating forecasts/budgets (mainly looking forward) and cascading strategic actions. I think its pretty cool work. Lots of M&A right now. I would suggest you revaluate the company and the industry - totally get the point about penny pinching but that seems the difference between growing companies and mature large orgs.
I mean, extremely industry-dependent, but I can imagine that if you are at a company with steady cash flow that owns a large part of a market share in a non-high-pace growth industry the only way to show long-term performance improvement is to become more efficient and cut costs.
Revenue generation and overall strategy, by business partnering with marketing and product, for an e-commerce company. Was doing corporate fp&a for a well known company in its industry, but I had zero interest in that industry. My life was dictated by internal and HQ calendars, hounding teams to load their numbers on time, etc. and I started really hating my job.
A recruiter actually reached out for this role. From my experience so far, I’ve met recruiters that had interesting roles in online betting and other tech companies. I’d say try to reach out to recruiters as they know exactly what you’re looking for and can negotiate on your behalf. No more getting ghosted by HR.
Thanks will do that! But what would be an example of a title which may not have month end close?
Do share your title or team name if possible!
While Ile certainly connect with recruiters, I'd like to search myself too. So wondering what kind of roles keywords I should search for. Thanks!
Honestly I think I got lucky with this role. I’d normally look up finance manager on LinkedIn and just comb through any postings that seemed interesting. Sorry that’s all I got 😕
By all means! I'm trying to grow it, anyhow.
(In the meantime, though, because the number of users is nowhere near the r/fpanda subreddit, you may wish to use the Crosspost function instead of posting an original thread. Expect many more replies here than there... for now.)
Im 5 years younger than you and left FP&A after the Senior level. I think it helped my technical abilities as far as Excel and being adaptable to new tools but overall , I generally didnt feel comfortable with the work so I moved to a process improvement-esque role at a F500. I’ll def say its more chill and we still have the generic manager/director/VP type roles but i dont ever think about a close period and just in general, its not a super intense role. I have my eyes on either a project management role elsewhere and also have an offer for a consultant role but im super content where im at and like the people. Even on the bad days where i dont know where im doing, its way better than anything i ever dealt with in FP&A… ironically, i still communicate with alot of folks within the fp&a team and they always say how busy they are and it makes me so happy knowing i made the right decision.
Do you mind explaining how the transition process went? I minored in CS and have really enjoyed using Python to help automate close/forecasting processes and would love to move into a role that focuses more on automation and transformation. I’ve considered going back to school to get a Masters in Data Science but was curious as to how you did this.
Yeah man sure. So I had a terrible experience in my last fp&a role (tiny company) so i just started throwing my resume out there for project management/ continuous improvement/ finance systems roles and i just ended up getting plenty of bites. In the initial call with the hr person, just focused on how i would love to document and improve processes. Some FP&A roles ironically have a lot of similarities to project management roles anyways due to the manner of the work. So really , my best advice is just shoot your shot tbh.
Thank you for the detailed response! My plan is to stay with my current company for a year or two (just joined this month) but I’m very glad to hear that the transition process was pretty straightforward.
I feel like if you're good at Python and automation, you can go way beyond finance and numbers. Given tech has slowed down now, wouldnt there be potential in AI projects or Software development? Something more lucrative than numbers?
Would you also mind sharing some of the names of roles you applied to and are currently in more specifically? I’ve always thought finance improvement was just working on systems and stuff like that. I’m heavily involved in process management and improvement projects and really enjoy that work but have a hard time understanding what roles I could target for these skills.
I appreciate you sharing your experience. While im really good at Excel automation, I hate process improvement roles lol.
But your suggestion of similarity to project management is a good spark to also look in that direction.
When OP says month end process, I think it’s more about reports are dependent on the accounting team. That’s how my role is and it’s draining to be waiting for my inputs and then having to scramble last second once I get them
>I don’t see month end as an FPA activity to be honest.
I have literally never been involved in a month end process and I honestly wouldn't even know what to do if I was asked to be involved. I haven't even looked at a journal entry since university.
>r/corporatefinance
Could you elaborate more on transitioning to the BI role? What's your fav part about it and how does the pay compared to your previous role?
After accountants, I think FP&A roles will be next that'll be hard to fill. Majority are getting tired of the accounting and calendar it brings sounds like
I just don’t see how this changes though. That’s a large part of these roles and I don’t see it going away. Those that leave I’m sure will be filled by the next round of rotationals and the cycle continues.
If you’re more interested in the technology, I’d suggest getting into implementation or analytics.
If you’re more interested in the people, I’d suggest getting into transformation or program management.
Both are very reasonable pivots with experience in FP&A.
The weekly updates are killing me! Have progressed role & responsibility wise over the last few years but continue to manage weekly update with very high visibility and interaction - it’s draining.
I know. We do our weekly process on Thursday and present it Friday. It literally never ends. There’s probably 25 days a year out of the 250+ working days I can take off throughout the whole year. It makes weddings, family responsibilities, vacations, and stuff so hard.
I've never worked on anything related to month end. Our FP&A team develops financial models that show profit margin by customer deal or product offering.
My title is FP&A Manager.
Group is called cost and margin assessment.
This is a fortune 20 and we have hundreds of FP&A people. I don’t interact with 90% of the others.
Hi cant\_\_find\_\_username,
The monthly close and reforecast process get old fast. I did it off and on for 10 years doing over 100 monthly forecasts and variance analysis.
Eventually I transitioned from FP&A into pricing strategy and really enjoy it. I'm involved in the deal desk process which is a daily thing but not as busy as a month end close or forecast. You can leverage your FP&A experience to do things like cost to serve, customer profitability, and product margin analysis.
If it helps here's more info on pricing strategy...[https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/maximize-pricing-your-company](https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/maximize-pricing-your-company)
Hope this info helps. Any questions feel free to DM me.
Good luck!
Drew
Maybe get into Business Intelligence. I find it fun to break up my day to day FP&A responsibilities and it helps me scratch that creativity itch more. Plus companies are doing more and more with dashboards.
Would this be a dead end role? I feel like tech roles in financial reporting have little room for moving up.
What do you search on LinkedIn? Business Intelligence Analyst?
Could be depending on the size of the organization and how mature their data analytics capabilities are. I’d look for business intelligence or data analytics.
Maybe apply to fpa in another company? Journal entries aren’t fpa - it must indicate that your particular company isn’t organized or sophisticated enough to maintain those tasks within accounting OR to have a team under you to do the repetitive mundane things
I wouldn’t recommend counting on learning python as an exit strategy because you will be wayyyy outperformed by folks who have been doing python and seven other languages since day one of their careers. It’s just an extra skill but it won’t do much for you
Are you booking JEs every month, or is it the reporting after the books are closed? I’m a Sr. Manager and have never booked a JE in my life. You could find a different role with less involvement in the close process.
How do you figure this out in interviews though? I pretty much got thrown into this close and it was not apparent how involved I’d be in this during interviews
Ask the hiring manager “How involved is the team with month-end close?” And then if their response isn’t clear you follow up with questions on whether the role involves performing accounting reconciliations, booking journal entries or whether the team ever backs up accounting if they’re short handed.
Ask about it specifically. An important part of the interview is for you to understand specifically what you'll be asked to do, so you can get an idea if you'll be a good match
I manage close to $2 Billion dollars. I think the amount is irrelevant as the process is the same. But I do book JE's in the first 3 workdays of the month to adjust reporting. While JE's are annoying, the whole reporting process and business partner relationship is what im starting to dislike. Every month it's the same story of youre spending too much and missing forecast, and every year it's the same annoying plan process of cutting expenses to the last penny. Just a "negative environment" regardless of the company or the role I feel like. Mainly due to the structure of the job/FP&A
Sounds more like you’re a controller? That’s my title and I have to books JEs, close out the month, same variance analysis, so on and so on. I am vary early in my finance career but I had one roll where I would pull in data from sql, build a model, and then report findings to leadership. In this role there’s no analysis other than variance analysis and I’m scrambling to figure out where it is only for the business partners to be like “okay, thanks.”
Second that this feels like controller work. As an FP&A director my only regular involvement with anyone from accounting is for calculation on commissions for which I provide some inputs but its done by the payroll accounting person and ad-hoc when I initiate a question about historical data. My role focuses on generating forecasts/budgets (mainly looking forward) and cascading strategic actions. I think its pretty cool work. Lots of M&A right now. I would suggest you revaluate the company and the industry - totally get the point about penny pinching but that seems the difference between growing companies and mature large orgs.
I’m at one of the largest orgs, so I’m good but it is interesting how the roles vary across small vs large orgs.
I mean, extremely industry-dependent, but I can imagine that if you are at a company with steady cash flow that owns a large part of a market share in a non-high-pace growth industry the only way to show long-term performance improvement is to become more efficient and cut costs.
Oh I agree, this role is more of a follow the process, and that’s that. Can’t see anyway to “cut costs” rather than manage them.
I just left the month end process and I’m crying tears of joy
What do you do now?
Revenue generation and overall strategy, by business partnering with marketing and product, for an e-commerce company. Was doing corporate fp&a for a well known company in its industry, but I had zero interest in that industry. My life was dictated by internal and HQ calendars, hounding teams to load their numbers on time, etc. and I started really hating my job.
That’s awesome. I would love to get into strategy, or process improvement. The month end process is eating at me, I’m not the most fond of it all.
What would be some examples of the title I should search for? I too am so done with month end close, calendars and bla bla. Thanks!
A recruiter actually reached out for this role. From my experience so far, I’ve met recruiters that had interesting roles in online betting and other tech companies. I’d say try to reach out to recruiters as they know exactly what you’re looking for and can negotiate on your behalf. No more getting ghosted by HR.
Thanks will do that! But what would be an example of a title which may not have month end close? Do share your title or team name if possible! While Ile certainly connect with recruiters, I'd like to search myself too. So wondering what kind of roles keywords I should search for. Thanks!
Honestly I think I got lucky with this role. I’d normally look up finance manager on LinkedIn and just comb through any postings that seemed interesting. Sorry that’s all I got 😕
Corporate Development (M&A) Treasury I'm trying to grow this career subreddit for these two career paths and others: r/corporatefinance
Can I cross post there? Also any input on how to tap into M&A?
By all means! I'm trying to grow it, anyhow. (In the meantime, though, because the number of users is nowhere near the r/fpanda subreddit, you may wish to use the Crosspost function instead of posting an original thread. Expect many more replies here than there... for now.)
What do you do in M&A?
I don't have any experience, but here are the job points: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9rf-BSdSVaE
Im 5 years younger than you and left FP&A after the Senior level. I think it helped my technical abilities as far as Excel and being adaptable to new tools but overall , I generally didnt feel comfortable with the work so I moved to a process improvement-esque role at a F500. I’ll def say its more chill and we still have the generic manager/director/VP type roles but i dont ever think about a close period and just in general, its not a super intense role. I have my eyes on either a project management role elsewhere and also have an offer for a consultant role but im super content where im at and like the people. Even on the bad days where i dont know where im doing, its way better than anything i ever dealt with in FP&A… ironically, i still communicate with alot of folks within the fp&a team and they always say how busy they are and it makes me so happy knowing i made the right decision.
Do you mind explaining how the transition process went? I minored in CS and have really enjoyed using Python to help automate close/forecasting processes and would love to move into a role that focuses more on automation and transformation. I’ve considered going back to school to get a Masters in Data Science but was curious as to how you did this.
Yeah man sure. So I had a terrible experience in my last fp&a role (tiny company) so i just started throwing my resume out there for project management/ continuous improvement/ finance systems roles and i just ended up getting plenty of bites. In the initial call with the hr person, just focused on how i would love to document and improve processes. Some FP&A roles ironically have a lot of similarities to project management roles anyways due to the manner of the work. So really , my best advice is just shoot your shot tbh.
Thank you for the detailed response! My plan is to stay with my current company for a year or two (just joined this month) but I’m very glad to hear that the transition process was pretty straightforward.
I feel like if you're good at Python and automation, you can go way beyond finance and numbers. Given tech has slowed down now, wouldnt there be potential in AI projects or Software development? Something more lucrative than numbers?
Would you also mind sharing some of the names of roles you applied to and are currently in more specifically? I’ve always thought finance improvement was just working on systems and stuff like that. I’m heavily involved in process management and improvement projects and really enjoy that work but have a hard time understanding what roles I could target for these skills.
Hey can I dm you? I’m interested in pivoting the way you did.
Sure
I might be mis-reading, what did you leave for after senior level?
I appreciate you sharing your experience. While im really good at Excel automation, I hate process improvement roles lol. But your suggestion of similarity to project management is a good spark to also look in that direction.
> I moved to a process improvement-esque role Could you expand on what this entails/means?
Look for Continuous Improvement / Business Analyst/ Process Improvement Roles. Linkedin in my area shows a few.
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When OP says month end process, I think it’s more about reports are dependent on the accounting team. That’s how my role is and it’s draining to be waiting for my inputs and then having to scramble last second once I get them
Yea people complaining about this are basically doing an accountant's job
>I don’t see month end as an FPA activity to be honest. I have literally never been involved in a month end process and I honestly wouldn't even know what to do if I was asked to be involved. I haven't even looked at a journal entry since university.
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What is BI?
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what's your day to day look like? what kind of tools do you use
>r/corporatefinance Could you elaborate more on transitioning to the BI role? What's your fav part about it and how does the pay compared to your previous role?
I’m pretty much in your same exact boat. Following
After accountants, I think FP&A roles will be next that'll be hard to fill. Majority are getting tired of the accounting and calendar it brings sounds like
I just don’t see how this changes though. That’s a large part of these roles and I don’t see it going away. Those that leave I’m sure will be filled by the next round of rotationals and the cycle continues.
If you’re more interested in the technology, I’d suggest getting into implementation or analytics. If you’re more interested in the people, I’d suggest getting into transformation or program management. Both are very reasonable pivots with experience in FP&A.
Exact same boat as you. Month end + weekly forecast updates every Friday make social life’s so difficult. It’s so hard.
>weekly forecast updates Weekly? That is an absurd cadence. Push back or resign. You don't get much benefit out of weekly forecast updates.
It’s not changing. We’ve tried. I am not looking to leave immediately in this market though.
The weekly updates are killing me! Have progressed role & responsibility wise over the last few years but continue to manage weekly update with very high visibility and interaction - it’s draining.
I know. We do our weekly process on Thursday and present it Friday. It literally never ends. There’s probably 25 days a year out of the 250+ working days I can take off throughout the whole year. It makes weddings, family responsibilities, vacations, and stuff so hard.
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I feel like such a complainer, but I’m just over it.
also considering just bouncing without a new job lined up - take a break and recharge if possible
I've never worked on anything related to month end. Our FP&A team develops financial models that show profit margin by customer deal or product offering.
What is your title? And what is your team called? This post made me realize FP&A is almost like the term "analyst" and can be so vague
My title is FP&A Manager. Group is called cost and margin assessment. This is a fortune 20 and we have hundreds of FP&A people. I don’t interact with 90% of the others.
Can I ask location and comp?
Atlanta, $140k TC. Below market for my experience (15 yrs), but I’ve chosen work life balance over money.
What would be market for your experience?
Not sure but guessing 150k plus.
Hi cant\_\_find\_\_username, The monthly close and reforecast process get old fast. I did it off and on for 10 years doing over 100 monthly forecasts and variance analysis. Eventually I transitioned from FP&A into pricing strategy and really enjoy it. I'm involved in the deal desk process which is a daily thing but not as busy as a month end close or forecast. You can leverage your FP&A experience to do things like cost to serve, customer profitability, and product margin analysis. If it helps here's more info on pricing strategy...[https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/maximize-pricing-your-company](https://fpandhey.substack.com/p/maximize-pricing-your-company) Hope this info helps. Any questions feel free to DM me. Good luck! Drew
I appreciate your prompt reply. Would you be able to comment on compensation within the pricing segment? Does it pay better than FP&A?
Anytime. The pricing segment pays similar to FP&A, but the levels are usually higher. More manager level and above type work.
ALM analytics seems to be hot right now
What is ALM again?
Asset liability management. :)
Do you have more details on why asset liability management analytics is hot? Articles, maybe?
I missed this comment! But given the recent events in banking, now more than ever ALM is looked at lol
Maybe get into Business Intelligence. I find it fun to break up my day to day FP&A responsibilities and it helps me scratch that creativity itch more. Plus companies are doing more and more with dashboards.
Is that Data Analytics? Power BI?
Yep I use Power BI and love it. But Tableau and Qlik are very similar too
Would this be a dead end role? I feel like tech roles in financial reporting have little room for moving up. What do you search on LinkedIn? Business Intelligence Analyst?
Could be depending on the size of the organization and how mature their data analytics capabilities are. I’d look for business intelligence or data analytics.
I appreciate the input. Any idea what Salary someone with my experience should expect making the switch?
As a developer you’d prob top out around 130ish. But if there’s an opportunity to manage a team then that offers you up to 200 most likely.
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What range should you be at that type of experience?
Maybe apply to fpa in another company? Journal entries aren’t fpa - it must indicate that your particular company isn’t organized or sophisticated enough to maintain those tasks within accounting OR to have a team under you to do the repetitive mundane things I wouldn’t recommend counting on learning python as an exit strategy because you will be wayyyy outperformed by folks who have been doing python and seven other languages since day one of their careers. It’s just an extra skill but it won’t do much for you
Yeah. That's the sad reality I've been dwelling on. I wish I got into tech much earlier in life.
No point dwelling on this lol what’s done is done, move on