#175 Scaling FP&A 2 Choosing the right FP&A tools with Paul Barnhurst and Catherine Marks

In the second of a 3 part series on scaling your FP&A capability, Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A Guy, and Catherine Marks, head of FP&A and team training at GrowCFO, join Kevin Appleby to discuss FP&A tools. They discuss scaling finance operations with a focus on infrastructure and choosing the right FP&A tools for growing organizations. Paul is a Finance Professional with 12+ years of finance and FP&A experience, including business unit CFO roles. He earned a business bachelor's degree from BYU and an MBA and Master of Science in Information Management from Arizona State University. He is known for his deep understanding of the FP&A software planning space and has recently published an FP&A software market guide. Paul runs his own business providing training services, is a content creator, and hosts two popular finance podcasts FP&A Today and Financial Modeler’s Corner. He provides consulting services for small and mid-sized companies. Paul provided insights on getting infrastructure right and selecting the right planning tools, including * Future-proofing FP&A systems with agility, flexibility, and consideration of future needs and strategies. The importance of data organization and having an end-user champion was emphasized. * Thoroughly selecting the right business planning tool by considering factors like market size, industry, systems integration needs, and process complexity. Excel limitations and risks were discussed. * Implementing performance management systems through a focus on pre-work like defining KPIs and metrics, and experimenting with machine learning/AI capabilities. * Keeping processes efficient through a growth mindset, documentation, and continuous innovation as organizations scale. * Successfully transferring planning processes to new tools by focusing on design improvements rather than just porting spreadsheets over. * Practical advice is to start small, do homework on requirements and avoid being swayed by new tool features without clear needs. * https://youtu.be/IFMQB81jk2A Links * Catherine Marks on LinkedIn * Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn * Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn * The FP&A Guy * A guide to 3rd Generation FP&A tools * Episode 174 Scaling FP&A 1 Building Your FP&A Team * Episode 176 Scaling FP&A 3 Navigating an Acquisition with the Virgin Media O2 FP&A Team * GrowCFO FP&A Competency Framework * GrowCFO FP&A Bootcamp Timestamps