FP&A in a nutshell

"Discerning" (discerning2003c5z) 02/06/2019 at 11:30 • Filed to: None

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I’ve even encountered cases where Goal Seek was a last resort “solution.”

WilliamsSW > Discerning 02/06/2019 at 11:43

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Hey- that’s my life too!

MonkeePuzzle > Discerning 02/06/2019 at 11:45

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b oy, these stats sure look bad when shown in a graph. I guess we’ll just throw away some of the outliers until the graph looks smoother and less offensive

WilliamsSW > MonkeePuzzle 02/06/2019 at 11:59

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Changing the x and y axis scale can sometimes fix that too

MonkeePuzzle > WilliamsSW 02/06/2019 at 12:13

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or adding a second axis scale for that one data set that stands out. 

LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com > MonkeePuzzle 02/06/2019 at 12:16

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Try logarithmic scales. Maybe only on one axis.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Discerning 02/06/2019 at 12:18

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I’m asked to do the same thing all the time.

The Dummy Gummy > Discerning 02/06/2019 at 12:22

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If we can’t accurately project 1 year, how can we project 5; is my go to response. every.damn.time.

MonkeePuzzle > LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com 02/06/2019 at 12:27

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the ultimate cheat!
I always feel cheated when I realise someone has a log scale on their axis

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Discerning 02/06/2019 at 14:00

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Recent conversation with a client’s FP&A analyst-turned corporate development guy :

Him: “Here’s the deal model. ”

Me: “Great, I’ll run our model off of these pro-formas.”

Him: “So the thing is, don’t. Those pro-formas aren’t accurate.”
Me: *Silence*

Him: “We had to juice the deal model the get the deal done.”
Me: *Silence*

Him: “See the FYE 2017 performance? Model Year 1 like FYE 2017, except a little worse.”

Me: “What about the growth you’re showing in the pro-formas?”

Him: “Oh yeah don’t do that either. We’re expecting almost no growth.”

I have really got to get out of consulting and into a corpdev role.

WilliamsSW > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/06/2019 at 14:07

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I’ve had a lot of internal conversations like that.  I’m high enough up that they usually ended with “no, you committed to that model when we did the deal, so you’re either gonna have to live with it or explain the variance dude”

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > WilliamsSW 02/06/2019 at 14:21

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Had that call yesterday after the client put some similar language in an e-mail. As an outside consultant I’m here to reduce compliance risk, bar none , and one e-mail like that is enough to drop them into some serious hot water when coupled with my projections deviating from their internal pro-formas.

The footnote in my report is about a paragraph long describing the reasons for the deviation, the date of the conversation, the medium of exchange, and the parties on the call.

WilliamsSW > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/06/2019 at 14:28

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Sheesh - what an idiot.  That will really play well if things go pear-shaped and he/she gets deposed...

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > WilliamsSW 02/07/2019 at 10:09

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Literally my exact words. Half of my job is working transactions on the front end to ensure compliance and the other half is expert witness work in litigation cases where things have blown up, so I tend to have a pretty severe perpsective on these things. But come on, man. You know why I’ve been hired!

WilliamsSW > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/07/2019 at 10:38

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Yeah, I’ve been deposed over a solvency issue. It was not a lot of fun. 

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > WilliamsSW 02/07/2019 at 10:51

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Funny you say that, I just found out last night that a client of mine I helped buyout assets from a JV they were in with a bankrupt entity is being sued by former shareholders of the bankrupt entity, which means I now have to at least be deposed concerning my entire work file which spanned about two years of work.  Woo!

WilliamsSW > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/07/2019 at 11:02

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Yuck - I do not envy you. For me, the worst part was that I was deposed in late 2014, over work that I did in 2007, for a company that went bankrupt in 2009.

And the lawyers (on the company’s side) had my PC, but no one was able to get into it.  So I spent 10 hours answering questions on emails that I sent to other people - all they had were emails that had been *received* by others.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > WilliamsSW 02/07/2019 at 11:04

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I’m often the guy feeding questions to attorneys about how to grill other corporate finance people in a deposition, so I’m getting my just deserts here, ha!

WilliamsSW > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/07/2019 at 11:08

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Haha! I’ve worked with plenty of guys like you - most of my last 12 years has been in PE portfolio companies. They like to bring in consultants to cover their tracks whenever they’re doing something big. *E xtremely* helpful when done right - but in this case, the guys who did the solvency opinion (a Big 4 firm...) fucked it up, and put *their* mistakes in writing, which gave it the appearance of having been engineered to give the answer the PE firm wanted.  

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > MonkeePuzzle 03/25/2019 at 09:59

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I just saw this and this comic immediately came to mind: