Timing is everything and the launch of Microsoft Co-pilot, Season 5 Finale of the Financial Modelling Podcast and the release of this article could not have come at a better time...one could argue this it fate! 😁

Of all the articles in the financial modelling series, the topic of financial modelling standards seems to be the most controversial! 😱

So I opted for an AI co-author (ChatGPT) instead, who wasn’t afraid of getting grilled. 🤖

What is important is adopting something vs nothing. ☝

The latter is still largely the current state of model building in accounting and finance teams. 😥

Most people building models simply don’t follow any consistent best practices and propagate lots of errors! 😜

As a result, #Excel is to blame (not people avoiding best practices)! 😲

Here is a reality check!

Companies sell you software to take you out of #Excel to do what many of the standards advocate! 🤣

Follow some basic principles (like no hardcoding please!) and you will go very far and probably save millions of dollars on software that is rigid! Included in the article are a self-assessment and a few questions you can benchmark yourself against. 👊

Financial modelling still is one of the most highly sought-after skills in todays digital age with a complex business landscape.

Free links and lots more information in this article. 🤑

Thanks again to Khaled Chowdhury (my co-author) for the massive effort to get this latest article out in the series! 🙏
He also made some awesome gifs and videos to explain it, even more, simpler than I could. 🙌

We are certainly getting them out quickly! 😅

Tools are valueless without people who can leverage them.  😨

If you have yet to encounter Power BI, you should, as it has become a necessary tool and skill set for finance professionals. 😁

Don't get left behind and if you read this article we will make sure you don't! 👍

We have shared many links to other experts and ideas that will get you started and beyond! 🚀

Both Khaled and I will be speaking at the upcoming Global Power BI Summit, so be sure to register if you haven't yet in the link below. 👇

Out with the old, In with the new! ♻

Not all DataDear replacements are created equally. Whilst one solution exits the market, others have joined (including us) and that's good for people looking for alternatives, but not all options are the same so be careful. Read this article to gain some useful factors to consider in your search for a replacement.

We have broken this down into 10 key factors you need to consider when transitioning to an alternative before the deadline comes at the end of October 2022.

Keep #Excel and leverage the cloud!

Is all this tech talk and Finance Transformation getting a bit much? 😵

Where do you start and stop? 🚦

There is so much on offer from RPA to Analytics to Modelling. 📈

Read my co-authored 🙌 article with Anders to learn more and demystify all the jargon and pick some practical solutions you can try. 👍

#finance #futureoffinance #analytics #Excel #cloud #digitization #FinancialModelling

I often get direct messages on LinkedIn from people asking me for either a job, career advice or helping them understand financial modelling and how do they apply for jobs in Australia, thinking Australia is immune to accountants losing jobs or unable to get them.

I wrote this blog to help the many that are lost in this fast evolving work force.

3 years ago I stepped out of the corporate world and became, what I didn't realise at the time, a virtual CFO for Banjo (Fintech lender).

I don't really like the word VCFO but it's what we have for now so let's just roll with it. Probably a blog on its own.

This post is some more tips and tricks I learnt along the way and especially clearly proving the Power of One = Power of None.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Over the past year I've met many finance professionals as part of our FOFM world tour and future of finance workshops.

Despite all the hype of digital finance transformation and the rise of analytics and advanced AI and ML there is one thing that still concerns me deeply about our ability to adopt change, innovation and better Excel skills.

I'm not even referring to adopting new tools and technologies (many of which will radically change our work today and are here now) but changing how we use our existing tools.

This is a technical architectural blog on the best system archicture for future of finance. It has to be Agile and yes, have a bit of Excel mixed in the middle.

Enjoy