Would Your FP&A Forecast Survive an Audit? | Norm Osumi

A forecast can be useful for running a business and still lack the evidence needed to defend it. What happens when accounting and FP&A report different revenue numbers for the same month, and the disagreement comes down to how a contract is interpreted? In this episode of FP&A Today, Sarah Schlott welcomes Norm Osumi to explore the judgment calls that sit between financial reporting, business performance and forward-looking forecasts. Through a SaaS revenue-recognition example, Norm examines why bookings, billings and recognized revenue are not interchangeable, and how implementation fees and sales commissions complicate the picture. The conversation then turns to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, where excluding recurring expenses or making aggressive add-backs can change the story a business tells about its performance. The central question is what happens when an FP&A forecast becomes evidence for an auditor, lender or investor. Norm discusses an auditor requesting five years of purchase orders to substantiate future revenue and explains why assumptions around growth, customer activity and the sales pipeline need to be reasonable and documented. For smaller finance teams, the lesson is not to build more elaborate models. It is to understand which numbers matter, what supports them and when to bring accounting into the conversation. Key Moments Recognized revenue, bookings and billings serve different purposes. A sound FP&A forecast needs to account for the underlying revenue-recognition rules. SaaS implementation fees and subscriptions can produce different monthly revenue outcomes depending on the contract and performance obligations. Sales commissions raise both operational and accounting questions, especially when bookings, revenue and related costs fall into different periods. Adjusted EBITDA requires judgment. Recurring expenses cannot simply become one-time adjustments because excluding them creates a more attractive result. Forecasts can become part of an audit, valuation or financing process. Assumptions may need to be supported by customer activity, purchase orders and a credible growth pipeline. Smaller finance teams still benefit from documenting the handful of assumptions that materially drive their forecasts. Repeated misses against publicly communicated financial projections can damage management's credibility. FP&A and accounting need shared definitions, clear communication and a process for challenging assumptions before numbers reach external stakeholders. Timestamps 05:42 - Why FP&A and accounting can recognize different revenue amounts 09:04 - Bookings versus billings versus recognized revenue 12:21 - How smaller companies should approach accounting for sales commissions 16:46 - EBITDA and the judgment behind adjustments 21:14 - GAAP, non-GAAP and adjusted EBITDA reporting 28:08 - When an FP&A forecast becomes audit evidence 33:33 - What auditors look for in forecast assumptions 36:45 - Documenting assumptions that support revenue projections 42:15 - Does forecast accuracy actually matter? 45:13 - Rapid fire with Norm Osumi Earn CPE Credit If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit: https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening Related FP&A Today episode: The $100M Revenue Mistake Everyone Missed, with Devon Coombs https://www.devoncoombs.com/

The books were closed. The audits were supported. Then the CEO asked two simple questions: which products make the most money, and which ones don’t? Nobody could answer. Purity Kibaki was the consultant hired to implement the system that was supposed to answer them. Purity, CPA(K), leads group reporting, consolidation and finance systems at Hatch Africa. She previously founded Zirconn Black Group. She has been the accountant closing the books, the FP&A analyst who inherited them, and the consultant building the system underneath. She and Sarah explore what happens when finance systems are built around transactions and order-to-cash, but not around the questions FP&A eventually has to answer. The result is familiar to many FP&A teams. Accounting closes successfully, but finance still can’t answer basic questions about product profitability, regional performance, campaigns, utilization or operational drivers without pulling data together by hand. Purity and Sarah discuss why “heroic Excel workarounds” can hide weaknesses in the underlying process. They also cover why FP&A data rarely gets the same scrutiny as accounting data, and why buying another planning tool doesn’t fix a broken source. The conversation also gets practical. Purity explains which dimensions and tags need to be captured at the point of entry. She argues that system requirements should come from the people doing the work, not only senior leaders, and that finance professionals are better placed to become systems-aware than technologists are to become finance-aware. Her core message is simple: fix the source, and let everything downstream flow from it.   Key Moments:   A system can close the books correctly and still fail FP&A if it was never designed around forward-looking business questions.   "Heroic Excel workarounds" may keep reporting moving while hiding weak controls, manual dependencies and missing source data.   FP&A quantity and operational data often does not receive the same audit discipline as revenue, inventory or the general ledger.   Finance and accounting should help define system requirements before a business selects or configures its ERP or planning tools.   Product, region, segment, campaign and cost-driver tags need to be captured at entry if FP&A wants to analyze them later.   The best requirements often come from the person actually doing the work, because that is where undocumented process knowledge and reporting gaps live.   Finance professionals already understand the end result they need, making it easier for them to become systems-aware and use tools such as Power BI, automation and AI effectively.   Buying another tool is not the solution if the source data is still incomplete, manual or inconsistent.   Try This Monday: Trace One Unanswered Question   Pick one question your leadership asked last month that took too long to answer.   What data point would have answered it? Where does that data get entered, and who owns that step? Ask that person for what you need, and tell them why.   Timestamps:   (08:16) - How systems become "designed to forget finance" and push FP&A into Excel (11:43) - Why heroic Excel workarounds can hide the real problem (19:12) - Why FP&A and accounting need a seat at system selection (24:20) - The missing data points that cripple FP&A analysis (33:21) - Why requirements should come from the person doing the work (39:45) - Why it is easier for finance to become systems-aware than developers to become finance-aware (43:52) - "Buying a tool is not the solution" - fix the source first (53:59) - Rapid fire: keep the annual budget only if you actually use it (57:29) - Purity’s Monday move: pass the knowledge down   Earn CPE Credit: If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit: https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate.   Further Reading/Listening:   Purity Kibaki, CPA(K) - group reporting, consolidation and finance systems at Hatch Africa; founder of Zirconn Black Group (2021-2025).   Purity on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/puritykibaki/

The most expensive finance hire can be the one that looks senior enough to feel safe but solves the wrong problem. Tom Hunter of Story Recruitment joins FP&A Today to explain why the first finance hire at a startup is often not a CFO. Story Recruitment focuses on first-CFO and first-finance-hire searches for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups, and Tom also hosts The CFO Track Podcast. His starting point is simple: before choosing a title, define the financial problem the business actually needs someone to solve. That often means building the basics first. Tom describes financial controls, governance and reliable reporting as the foundation that FP&A and strategy have to sit on. He also shares an example of a founder who included GST in ARR, overstating revenue and contributing to a chain of due-diligence concerns that ultimately cost the company its lead investor. For growing businesses, the finance function itself becomes a signal of how organized and decision-ready the company really is. The back half of the conversation looks at how the finance skill set is changing. As AI and better tooling reduce the moat around some technical work, communication, commercial judgment, project management and the ability to influence better decisions become more valuable. Tom argues that finance professionals should not see themselves as ticket takers or back-office support. The strongest finance people operate as commercial enablers who understand the problem, explain the numbers and help move the business forward. Key Moments Build the foundation before the forecast. Controls, governance and reliable reporting need to be in place before FP&A can confidently layer forecasting and strategy on top. The first finance hire is usually not a CFO. A Controller, Head of Finance, VP Finance or fractional leader may be a better fit depending on the company’s stage, scale and complexity. Investors judge the finance function as a signal. Clean models, trustworthy reporting and an organized data room can influence how investors perceive the broader business. Write the job around the problem. Rank the financial challenges the business needs solved, then build the role and job description around those priorities rather than around a prestige title. Candidates need to prove outcomes. The strongest finance candidates can explain what problem they faced, how they approached it and what changed as a result. Communication is becoming more valuable. As AI and tooling take on more technical work, finance professionals who can communicate clearly, influence stakeholders and lead decisions become more differentiated. Stay proactive in your career. Continuous learning and volunteering for opportunities gives finance professionals more control than waiting for promotions, vacancies or recruiters. Finance should be the commercial enabler. The best CFOs and FP&A leaders help the business make better decisions instead of operating only as a reporting or support function. Timestamps (03:45) - Why controls and reporting come before FP&A and strategy (09:01) - Why investors see the finance function as a signal of how organized the business is (10:23) - The ARR reporting mistake that helped cost a founder the lead investor (16:04) - Do you actually need a CFO - or even a full-time finance hire? (20:02) - Build the finance role around the business problem it needs to solve (26:26) - Why communication is becoming one of the most important finance skills (37:17) - Staying relevant by learning, leveling up and being proactive (52:12) - Why the best CFOs are commercial enablers, not ticket takers Earn CPE Credit If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit: https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening About Tom Hunter Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment - first-CFO and first-finance-hire search for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups. Host of The CFO Track Podcast. You can find Tom at: https://storyrecruitment.com.au Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-hunter-story/ Story Recruitment: https://storyrecruitment.com.au Anders Liu-Lindberg on finance funding its own transformation: https://youtu.be/G892qsanpwQ?si=ZUupn7Pw4M6dgHTf

Building FP&A from scratch isn't primarily a spreadsheet problem. It's a people, process, and alignment problem. Katelyn Stienen, Director of FP&A at Good Day Farms and a top-16 finisher at the Excel World Championship, joins FP&A Today to share what happens when you walk into a five-year-old business with more than 170 legal entities, around 10,000 budget lines, no dedicated planning system, and department heads who have never worked with a structured P&L. After experiencing established finance processes at much older organizations, Katelyn is now building the FP&A function from the ground up. One of her biggest lessons was that introducing FP&A is not as simple as sending out a budget template. Katelyn had to establish what a budget actually means, connect operational budgets with the numbers being communicated to leadership and investors, and create a common financial playbook across the business. She explains why bottom-up planning creates better accountability, why finance should approach variance conversations as investigators rather than enforcers, and how seemingly small misses across individual entities can become material when consolidated. The conversation also explores planning inside the highly regulated cannabis industry, when a growing company is ready for dedicated FP&A software, and how better systems can shift finance away from simply collecting numbers and toward understanding what is driving them. For Katelyn, the real job of FP&A is turning the stories coming from the business into numbers - and being able to explain why reality ultimately differed from the forecast. Key Moments ● Building FP&A from zero starts with financial understanding, not templates. Before introducing a detailed budget, finance needs to understand how department leaders currently think about spending, forecasting, and accountability. ● The business needs one financial playbook. Operational teams cannot manage against one version of the numbers while leadership and investors work from another. FP&A has to connect the two.  ● Bottom-up budgeting creates better conversations. Greater line-item detail gives finance something concrete to challenge, explain, and manage with department leaders rather than simply holding them to a top-down target. ● FP&A should investigate, not assign blame. Katelyn shares her Director of Finance's description of finance as "reporters" trying to understand what happened rather than punish teams for missing a number.  ● Small variances can become significant at scale. An expense miss that looked insignificant at individual stores became a roughly $50,000 variance once Katelyn consolidated it across the organization.  ● Complex businesses require scenario thinking. Different regulations, tax treatments, markets, and operating models across states mean FP&A has to combine financial modeling with knowledge from legal, operational, and commercial teams. ● Technology should move FP&A from gathering numbers to asking better questions. With stronger reporting and consolidation in place, finance can spend less time finding the numbers and more time understanding what is driving them. ● Forecast accuracy is not the whole story. Katelyn would rather miss a forecast and be able to explain exactly why than hit the number without understanding what drove the result. Timestamps 09:51 - What established companies taught Katelyn about what good finance processes look like 16:44 - "I'm starting at absolute zero": building a budgeting process where none existed 19:13 - Getting operations and leadership onto the same financial playbook 24:25 - Why FP&A should be "reporters," not a function that assigns blame 29:56 - Managing reporting and planning complexity across more than 170 entities 39:37 - Turning business stories and market knowledge into numbers and forecasts 42:09 - When is a company ready for dedicated FP&A planning software? 53:09 - Would you rather be lucky or good? Rethinking forecast accuracy Earn CPE Credit If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit earmarkcpe.com/fpa. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening Katelyn Stienen - LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelyn-stienen/

The best FP&A professionals don't just explain the numbers. They understand the business well enough to influence it. Gauri Tambe, Head of Finance & Accounting at Genezen, joins FP&A Today to explore what finance looks like inside the world of cell and gene therapy. Scientific uncertainty, capital-intensive programs, customer funding risk, strict quality requirements, and constantly changing timelines mean that simply consolidating the numbers is not enough. For Gauri, understanding the day-to-day operations of the business is fundamental to being an effective finance leader. Gauri estimates that only 40% of her role is running and reporting the numbers, while the other 60% is influence: aligning sales with operational capacity, helping R&D and supply chain make better decisions, building contractual protections around uncertain programs, and keeping teams focused on the same business outcomes. She also shares how Genezen uses probability-weighted pipelines, weekly flash reporting, and a 13-week cash plan to manage uncertainty. The broader lesson for FP&A is that you have to become a strong business professional before becoming an effective finance professional. As AI is increasingly used for reporting and analysis, understanding operations, challenging assumptions, influencing people, and knowing what is happening behind the numbers is becoming more valuable. Key Moments ● FP&A has to understand how the business actually operates. In a high-risk environment, knowing the numbers without understanding operations makes it difficult to identify the real risks and opportunities. ● Influence can matter more than reporting. Gauri describes her role as roughly 40% running the numbers and 60% influencing R&D, operations, sales, and supply chain. ● Finance connects the organization. When sales forecasts demand that operations cannot deliver, finance is uniquely positioned to bring teams together and reconcile ambition with capacity. ● Forecasting uncertainty needs more than one forecast. Pipeline probabilities, contractual protections, bad-debt reserves, weekly flash reporting, and cash planning all work together. ● Contracts are part of financial planning. Upfront payments, cancellation provisions, and stage gates can protect capacity and capital when customer programs change unexpectedly. ● Cash can tell a different story from the P&L. Finance teams should challenge a strong-looking P&L by asking whether the same strength is actually showing up in the bank. ● How Genezen operates as a finance function with five people in accounting and a team of two in FP&A. ● AI raises the expectations placed on finance professionals. If reporting and basic analysis can increasingly be automated, junior finance professionals need to develop operational understanding, critical thinking, and cross-functional experience earlier in their careers. Timestamps 08:18 - Why finance leaders need to understand operations, not just the numbers 11:13 - Gauri's 40% numbers, 60% influence philosophy 19:00 - When strategic misalignment needs a meeting, not an email 28:03 - Using contracts and cancellation clauses to protect against revenue risk 31:27 - How Genezen uses 50-90% probabilities to forecast its opportunity pipeline 41:35 - Weekly flash reporting and managing a 13-week cash outlook 50:41 - Why a good finance professional must first be a good business professional 56:30 - Stop relying on your P&L and look at your cash flow statement Earn CPE Credit If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit https://earmarkcpe.com/fpa. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening Gauri Tambe & the Genezen Leadership Team https://www.genezen.com/about-us/meet-the-team/ Genezen - Cell & Gene Therapy CDMO https://www.genezen.com/ Pitt Hopkins Research Foundation https://pitthopkins.org/ Sarah discusses her daughter's Pitt Hopkins diagnosis in the episode and the role foundation-funded research can play in advancing rare-disease therapies

For FP&A, the most dangerous revenue number may be the one that looks credible enough not to question. A $100 million acquisition was just three weeks from closing. The target had been audited, the opinion had come back clean, and the deal looked compelling. Then Devon Coombs, CPA, spent a weekend digging through the contracts and came back with a very different conclusion: the revenue story did not match the contractual rights and cash flows underneath it. In this episode of FP&A Today, Devon explains why FP&A cannot automatically treat invoicing as revenue, how principal-versus-agent decisions can make the same transaction appear as either $100 or $3 of reported revenue, and why worsening cash flow can reveal problems that a strong top line hides. The conversation also looks ahead to AI and consumption-based pricing, where minimum commitments, usage, overages, invoicing cadence, and contract structure can make forecasting and revenue recognition substantially more complex. The bigger lesson for FP&A is simple: understanding revenue means understanding the contracts and economics behind the number, not just the number itself. Key Moments Revenue and cash flow need to tell a coherent story. Rising revenue and income should trigger questions when operating cash outflows continue to deteriorate. An invoice is not automatically revenue. Recognition depends on contractual rights, performance obligations, and when those obligations are actually satisfied. Gross versus net revenue can dramatically change the top line. The same $100 transaction could result in $100 or $3 of reported revenue depending on the company's role in the transaction. Good diligence starts before management explains the numbers. Devon describes looking at the financials first, forming an independent view, and then going directly to the underlying contracts. Contracts are an FP&A input, not only an accounting or legal document. Pricing, billing, and commercial terms can materially affect forecasts and the economics FP&A is trying to model. Standardization reduces revenue risk. Clearer offerings, pricing structures, contracts, and RevRec processes make it easier to scale without discovering problems during a transaction. AI and consumption pricing are changing the forecasting problem. Minimum commitments, overages, usage, breakage, and billing cadence can produce very different revenue patterns. Finance teams need a revenue architecture strategy. FP&A should understand how pricing, contracts, billing, revenue recognition, and forecasting fit together as one system. Timestamps 05:29 — Should the same transaction produce $100 of revenue or $3? 08:15 — Why invoicing does not necessarily equal revenue 12:30 — The $100M acquisition everyone wanted to move forward with 17:58 — Devon's diligence method: start with the numbers, then read the contracts 18:42 — How the buyer avoided a $100M mistake 40:40 — Why SaaS, AI, and consumption-based pricing are changing the revenue model 48:45 — Practical steps for aligning offerings, contracts, and RevRec 56:05 — The revenue architecture question every FP&A team should be asking Earn CPE Credits If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit earmarkcpe.com/fpna. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further Reading/Listening Devon Coombs — Website & Resources: https://www.devoncoombs.com/ Connect with Devon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devoncoombs/ The 10 Laws of Finance: https://www.devoncoombs.com/book

Top FP&A business consultant Anders Liu-Lindberg joins FP&A Today four years after his first appearance on the show to talk about the radical changes in FP&A and CFO transformation over that period. In the time since, Anders has cemented his reputation as one of the most in-demand consultants for finance transformation, sharing his practical, on-the-ground experience. 4 years on: what's changed in FP&A transformation How career-minded FP&A professionals are enjoying the best era ever A real example of a finance transformation that didn't land 3 metrics to measure the impact of business partnering Why CFOs should obsess over value If you would like to earn CPE credit for listening to the show, visit earmarkcpe.com/fpna. Download the app, take a short quiz, and get your CPE certificate. Further reading/listening Communicating Financials to Executives: by Anders Liu-Lindberg (Author), Christian Frantz Hansen  FP&A Today: More than 12 ERP implementations later…Cindy Vindasius

Peter McKenzie, GM at a Blackstone portfolio company, professor at IESE Business School, and speaker at 50+ conferences across the world, talks frankly about executive presence for finance professionals, developed through 25+ years of C-suite experience   He coaches FP&A teams and CFOs on what exactly separates the executives who get recognised from the ones who don't (Communicate with influence, not just authority and focus on strategy and what boards actually want).  In this episode What the board reads (and skips) in a board deck  What “business partnership” actually means  What knowing the numbers means  How to draw a narrative “red line”  Now that AI writes a competent narrative, what's the role for finance? 

After two years in the host's chair, Glenn Hopper passes FP&A Today to its new host, Sarah Schlott:  a 20-year FP&A leader. The two swap stories on their unlikely paths into finance (including Glenn's forgotten 2006 indie film ), then dig into what's next for the show: more curiosity, more challenging of FP&A's "sacred cows".    Glenn's new book: The AI-Ready CFO: A Strategic Guide to Evaluating and Implementing AI, Automation, and Analytics https://www.amazon.com/AI-Ready-CFO-Evaluating-Implementing-Automation/dp/1394415885   Two recommended follows for AI content  https://www.youtube.com/@AIDailyBrief   https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@matthew_berman⁩    

Colin Moss worked for more than 10 years at Mars, which produces some of the world's best-loved brands including Royal Canin, M&M’s and Snickers. In this role, he partnered with the global Finance leadership team to design to stand up the new FinTech function, strengthening the connection between Finance and IT and leading a portfolio of 40+ initiatives, establishing resource and financial management disciplines (before that he was at famed confectionary maker Cadbury). In 2025 he took the leap to set up his own business, CM Strategies working  with organisations navigating growth and complexity, helping them redesign how the finance department partners with the business and builds capability .   His message about the function of FP&A is resonant and powerful: “One  of the ways that I've seen it described is that your business, and  leadership team is, is the “head”, and FP&A is the “neck” because FP&A is showing that team where to look. In this context, FP&A is helping what's the context we're operating in? What's the strategy that we're executing against? And what does that mean for where we focus? What do we put our attention on? And that can be showing up in what KPIs we look at, but also what processes we need to improve.?”   In this episode Path to creation of my own business (in a “hard to leave” business) Early audit roles as the foundation of my career My early lessons about business partnership at Cadbury and Mars  Lessons from global finance transformation at Mars including KPI design and management reporting Power of judgement in FP&A    Find out more about CM Strategies at  www.cmstrategies.co.uk