Sea Cloud Consulting

Tag: financial modeling

  • Strategic Planning For FP&A: 4 roles That Are Essential

    Strategic planning isnโ€™t easy. When multiple teams and diverse skills come together, the process can go off the rails. ๐Ÿ›ค๏ธ Based on my past experiences, I have realized that there are four roles that are essential for successful strategic planning. Some people can play multiple roles, and multiple people may help execute a role, but โ†’

  • Rethinking ROI in Finance: Key Questions to Ask

    โ€œWhatโ€™s the ROI?โ€ย ๐Ÿค” This is a fair question that I have often asked during my FP&A career, but itโ€™s not always the right one. To be clear, if the amount is large enough and/or the return is forecastable, then ROI is the right way to go.ย However, for โ€˜small-to-medium-sizedโ€™ requests with uncertain payoffs, there is a โ†’

  • Building Scalable Hiring Processes in Finance

    Current and future headcount data is critical for a financial forecast but can become a massive time suck ๐ŸŒ€ for FP&A teams if a scalable workflow is not created from the beginning. Lately, I’ve been working with two clients, one early-stage and one more mature, which has made me reflect on how to build a โ†’

  • How to Balance Your Forecasted Balance Sheet

    A few months ago, I spoke with a financial analyst who didnโ€™t know how to efficiently balance a forecasted balance sheet. Itโ€™s a common challenge, so I thought Iโ€™d share a simple approach that might help those diving into 3-statement modeling. The key? ๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐˜ ๐˜„๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต ๐—ฎ ๐—ฏ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—ฏ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ ๐˜€๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐˜ ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฝ ๐—ฏ๐˜† ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฝ, rather โ†’

  • What Makes a Great Financial Model in Excel?

    In past FP&A roles, I often used the slower days around the holidays to refine and improve my models.ย  Itโ€™s a great time to step back and reflect, and ask the same question that I have posed to candidates over the years:ย What does good financial modeling look like in Excel? Below is my answer: The โ†’

  • How to Validate Financial Models Effectively

    I have seen a lot of posts on how to create a financial model. But how do you check a model done by somebody else? This is how I do it: (1) Validate the change in the forecast with simple mathNo matter how complicated the model, somebody will try to do math in their head. โ†’