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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Financial Planning & Analysis Manager

💰 $110,000 - $170,000

FinanceFP&AManagement

🎯 Role Definition

The Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Manager is responsible for delivering accurate, insightful, and timely financial forecasts, budgets, and management reports that enable strategic decision-making. This role blends advanced financial modeling, operational partnership, and leadership to translate business drivers into measurable financial outcomes. The FP&A Manager partners with senior leaders across Sales, Operations, Product, and Accounting to shape strategy, challenge assumptions, and drive performance against company goals.

Key SEO / LLM keywords: Financial Planning & Analysis Manager, FP&A Manager, budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, financial modeling, management reporting, cash flow forecasting, scenario planning, Anaplan, Adaptive, Hyperion, Power BI, Excel.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Financial Analyst (FP&A)
  • Accounting Manager or Senior Accountant
  • Commercial Finance Analyst or Business Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Director, FP&A
  • Senior Director / Head of Finance
  • VP Finance or Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Lateral Moves:

  • Corporate Development (M&A) Manager
  • Treasury Manager
  • Financial Systems / FP&A Tools Implementation Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead the annual budgeting process end-to-end, including timeline management, consolidation of business unit inputs, challenge sessions with department heads, and delivery of a coordinated enterprise budget aligned to strategic priorities.
  • Develop and maintain rolling monthly and quarterly financial forecasts (short-term and long-term), reconciling forecast drivers to actuals, and producing reforecast scenarios that reflect business changes.
  • Build, own, and continuously enhance complex financial models for revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, capital expenditures, and cash flow to support strategic initiatives and board-level reviews.
  • Design and deliver monthly management reporting packages and board materials that summarize P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, KPI trends, and narrative explanations for variances and key risks/opportunities.
  • Perform rigorous variance analysis (actual vs. budget vs. forecast) across revenue, COGS, and operating expenses; identify root causes and recommend corrective actions to business leaders.
  • Partner with Sales, Product, Marketing, and Operations to translate operational KPIs into financial outcomes; align forecasts to pipeline metrics, bookings, and customer metrics (ACV, ARR, churn).
  • Own monthly close controls relevant to FP&A, including reconciliations, journal entry validation, and coordination with Accounting to ensure accurate financials and timely month-end reporting.
  • Drive scenario and sensitivity analysis (best case, base case, downside, stretch) to quantify financial impact of strategic decisions, pricing changes, cost initiatives, and market shifts.
  • Lead creation and tracking of department-level dashboards and KPI scorecards using BI tools (Power BI, Tableau) to enable data-driven decision making at the executive level.
  • Manage and mentor a team of financial analysts: set goals, provide coaching, review deliverables, recruit top talent, and create a high-performance FP&A function.
  • Optimize FP&A tools and processes—implement or improve systems such as Anaplan, Adaptive Planning, Hyperion, or Excel-based solutions to streamline planning, reporting, and variance analytics.
  • Present findings to senior leadership and the board with clear recommendations, supporting data, and an actionable implementation plan.
  • Conduct post-mortem analyses following major initiatives (product launches, pricing changes, cost reductions) to capture lessons learned and update planning assumptions.
  • Support pricing strategy development by modeling price elasticity, margin impact, and competitive scenarios to guide go-to-market decisions.
  • Collaborate with Accounting to ensure GAAP/IFRS compliance of reported results and support external audit requests related to budgeting and forecasting processes.
  • Lead financial due diligence and integration planning support for M&A activities, modeling acquisition synergies, and running pro forma forecasts.
  • Drive cost optimization and margin improvement programs by identifying expense reduction opportunities and tracking implementation benefits against targets.
  • Maintain and expand in-depth knowledge of the business model, industry benchmarks, and competitive landscape to provide proactive advisory to the executive team.
  • Coordinate cross-functional planning efforts, ensuring alignment between strategic initiatives (e.g., new product development, go-to-market changes) and financial plans.
  • Ensure the FP&A function provides ad-hoc financial analysis and modeling for special projects, including capital allocation, RFP responses, and strategic investments.
  • Implement controls and documentation standards for financial models, assumptions, and forecasting playbooks to guarantee consistency, reproducibility, and audit readiness.
  • Lead cash flow forecasting and working capital analysis, partnering with Treasury to manage liquidity needs and plan for financing or investment decisions.
  • Drive continuous improvement in forecasting accuracy by establishing forecasting KPIs, monitoring forecast error, and instituting process refinements.
  • Serve as a trusted strategic finance partner to business leaders—actively challenge assumptions, influence prioritization, and support long-term planning decisions with quantitative analysis.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide ad-hoc analysis and scenario support for executive requests, investor meetings, and board materials.
  • Contribute to system selection, implementation, and roadmap for FP&A tooling and reporting automation.
  • Facilitate cross-functional alignment workshops to harmonize assumptions and data definitions across Sales, Operations, and Finance.
  • Support month-end close activities by validating key accruals, reserves, and one-time adjustments that affect management reporting.
  • Train business partners on financial concepts, KPIs, and self-service reporting tools to increase financial literacy and accountability.
  • Assist in defining and tracking incentive plans and compensation impacts on operating expense forecasts.
  • Coordinate with HR and Business Ops on headcount planning, hiring ramps, and labor cost modeling.
  • Participate in periodic process audits and help implement remediation plans to strengthen internal controls.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced financial modeling and valuation skills using Excel: multi-scenario modeling, sensitivity analysis, and model auditability.
  • Mastery of budgeting and forecasting methodologies (zero-based budgeting, driver-based planning, rolling forecasts).
  • Deep experience with FP&A systems such as Anaplan, Adaptive Insights, Oracle Hyperion, SAP BPC, or similar enterprise planning tools.
  • Proficiency with Business Intelligence tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) to create executive dashboards and automated reports.
  • Strong SQL skills for extracting and transforming financial and operational data from data warehouses and reporting tools.
  • Familiarity with ERP and accounting systems (NetSuite, Oracle, SAP) and ability to reconcile system outputs with FP&A models.
  • Knowledge of GAAP and IFRS accounting principles and how they interact with management reporting.
  • Experience with cash flow modeling, working capital optimization, and capital expenditure planning.
  • Competency in scenario planning, stress testing, and Monte Carlo-like sensitivity frameworks for risk analysis.
  • Experience supporting M&A processes: due diligence, pro forma modeling, integration planning, and synergy tracking.
  • Solid understanding of revenue recognition, subscription accounting (ASC 606), and metrics for SaaS (ARR, ACV, churn) if applicable to the business.
  • Familiarity with automation and scripting tools (VBA, Python, R) to streamline repetitive FP&A tasks is a plus.

Soft Skills

  • Strong executive presence and exceptional presentation skills; able to craft concise narratives and tell the financial story to non-finance leaders.
  • Excellent stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration; able to influence without direct authority.
  • Strategic thinker with ability to translate high-level strategy into actionable financial plans and KPIs.
  • Leadership and people management skills: talent development, performance feedback, and team building.
  • High attention to detail and commitment to accuracy while operating in a fast-paced environment.
  • Proactive problem solver with intellectual curiosity and business acumen to uncover root causes and recommend solutions.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to manage competing deadlines and ad-hoc executive requests.
  • Change agent mindset: comfortable leading process improvements and driving adoption of new tools and ways of working.
  • Ethical judgment and sound commercial instincts when handling confidential financial information.
  • Resilience and adaptability; able to work through ambiguity and evolving priorities.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • MBA, Master’s in Finance, or professional qualification such as CPA, CFA.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Business Analytics
  • Data Science (beneficial for analytics-heavy environments)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5 – 10+ years in financial planning & analysis, corporate finance, or management reporting roles.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years with progressive FP&A experience, including people management.
  • Demonstrated experience in a high-growth, technology, SaaS, or complex multi-entity environment.
  • Hands-on experience implementing or enhancing planning platforms (Anaplan, Adaptive, Hyperion) and BI reporting solutions.
  • Proven track record of partnering with executive teams and delivering board-ready financial narratives and analyses.
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