As the fiscal year comes to a close, it's a particularly challenging time for founders and finance professionals as they work to close out forecasts for the current year and prepare for the year upcoming, especially given the macro situation many businesses find themselves in.
Be nice to Finance people this time of year. We are getting bombarded with 'how are we going to end the year?' questions weekly in an uncertain time, trying to get v18 done of the budget where we are taking hard lines on cost, prepping for the audit, oh and holidays too.
— MM PE Backed CFO (@cfo_mm) November 22, 2022
To help with that, I'll be posting content to help people through these typical challenges. To kick that off, here's a couple things happening right now:
A free workshop on November 29th at 12 PM ET with Christian Wattig, Financial Storytelling with Chris and Taylor. We will cover how to communicate key insights about the financials of a business with stakeholders, focusing on how to tell a story with numbers. Sign up here, and if you can't make it live, register so you can watch the replay.A special 30% off discount using the code YE30 through Nov 28, 2022 for templates and courses;$25 USD off all model purchases using the code STARTNOW.
As you're working on 2023 budgets, some frameworks and best practices to consider:
- Revenue-Led Planning by Taimur Abdaal at Causal is less about planning for revenues, more about creating budgeting processes to connect (a) operational and financial data and (b) operational and financial teams.
- How to Present an Operating Plan to a Board walks through a way to present an operating plan for two years for a SaaS business, breaking down the reporting and key metrics he proposes that are important to understand a SaaS business.
- Popular Planning Methods Compared, by Chris Wattig helps break down three popular ways to create budgets and helps you think about when to use each one.
- Heuristics of Forecasting, a podcast with Brian Weisberg, CFO at Tidelift, focusing on efficiently planning for headcount.
More content and posts to come on year-end closing and forecasting for the new year. Questions, contact me anytime.