It’s always month-end, isn’t it?

Don’t ask the finance team a question during month-end, but it can sometimes seem like it’s month-end for the whole month, right?

The numbers that come out of month-end only matter if they change something: a decision, a conversation, a course of action. If your finance team is spending three weeks producing a pack that gets a twenty minute read and a nod, the process is working but the point is being missed.

The shift from reporting what happened to influencing what happens next is the difference between a finance function that's working and one that's working well. This doesn’t mean working faster or producing more, rather it should be about asking, every month, what does this actually tell us and what should we do about it?

That question sounds simple. In practice, it requires month-end close discipline, quality MI, a finance team that understands the business well enough to have a view and budget holders that are fully bought into why this information is meaningful. If the output is meaningful, the process is valuable and respected.

Over the next few posts I'll dig into what your finance team should be producing, and why this is important.

And if you're an FBP or finance leader thinking about where your team sits on that spectrum, please have a look at the training course that I've built to help you shape your FBP development: https://payhip.com/b/HM1fN