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Guide to Financial Planning and Analysis

Meow Advisory, LLC

Meow Advisory, LLC

Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) plays a crucial role in helping businesses assess their overall financial health, make informed decisions, and plan for the future. This guide will provide an in-depth look at what FP&A entails, its key components, processes and best practices, benefits, roles and responsibilities, technologies and tools, emerging trends, challenges, and why it creates significant value for organizations.

Key Components of FP&A

There are four main activities that comprise financial planning and analysis:

Planning and Budgeting

This involves figuring out how much money is needed to achieve business goals, allocating resources efficiently, and setting financial boundaries across the organization. FP&A professionals work with all departments to create budgets.

Integrated Financial Planning

This goes beyond budgeting to develop a comprehensive long-term strategic financial plan that identifies objectives, actions, responsibilities, and key milestones. The goal is to ensure business units and budgets align.

Management and Performance Reporting

FP&A teams analyze financial data to create reports that provide visibility into the company’s past performance and current standing. These insights help guide decisions.

Forecasting and Modeling

FP&A professionals use data, assumptions, statistical models, and their knowledge to estimate future revenues, costs, cash flows and other metrics. This allows leadership to understand possible scenarios.

FP&A Process and Best Practices

An effective FP&A process involves:

  • Analyzing the company's current finances
  • Setting short and long-term financial goals
  • Considering different scenarios through financial modeling
  • Creating an actionable strategic financial plan
  • Continuously evaluating results and adapting as needed

Best practices include ensuring business alignment, monitoring progress, collecting quality data, assigning clear responsibilities, holding people accountable, and implementing effective financial reporting systems.

Benefits of FP&A

The key benefits of FP&A include:

  • Strategic guidance for executive decisions
  • Optimized allocation of capital and resources
  • Identification of new opportunities for growth
  • Enhanced forecast reliability to understand changes needed
  • Increased collaboration and visibility across the organization

Ultimately, FP&A powers the company’s profitability and shareholder value by equipping leadership with data-driven financial insights.

Common FP&A Roles and Responsibilities

Typical roles on FP&A teams include:

  • FP&A Analysts - Gather data, create models and summaries, analyze information, spot patterns and insights
  • FP&A Managers - Oversee analysts, ensure consistency of analysis and reporting, highlight issues and opportunities to executives
  • Directors and VPs of FP&A - Guide strategic decisions, present forecasts and recommendations to C-suite
  • CFO - Reviews analysis and makes the final calls on budget, resource allocation, investments, etc.

FP&A Technology and Tools

Key technologies that support FP&A include:

  • Planning and Budgeting Software
  • Financial Reporting Dashboards
  • Data Visualization Platforms
  • Financial Modeling Tools
  • Scenario Analysis Solutions

These help automate repetitive tasks, reduce errors, create projections quickly, enable collaboration across the organization, gain insights, and guide decisions.

Emerging Trends

Trends that are transforming FP&A include:

  • Cloud-based planning and analysis solutions
  • Predictive analytics and AI for accurate forecasts
  • Unified financial/operational data platforms
  • Increased focus on continuous planning
  • Driver-based modeling and planning
  • Automation of reporting and dashboards
  • Remote collaboration tools for FP&A teams

Overcoming Key FP&A Challenges

Common FP&A challenges and ways to address them:

  • Data Management - Implement a data warehouse with standard reports, metrics, master data framework with governance protocols
  • Conflicting Priorities - Facilitate sessions for aligned cross-functional planning between departments
  • Bias and Poor Assumptions - Construct models with diverse data sets, conduct sensitivity analysis, keep historical error statistics

The Value of FP&A

With advanced financial insights and visibility into possible future scenarios, FP&A enables data-backed strategies and decision making so that companies can maximize opportunities and shareholder value. By guiding budgets, planning, forecasting and performance analysis, FP&A creates immense and lasting impact.

Meow Runway

Meow offers enterprise-grade FP&A tooling to visualize all aspects of your business' finances. Click the button below to get started.

Brokerage services are provided by Atomic Brokerage, LLC ("Atomic Brokerage"), a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Neither Meow Advisory LLC nor Atomic Brokerage are a bank. Investments in securities are Not FDIC insured, Not Bank Guaranteed, and May Lose Value. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Before investing, consider your investment objectives and the fees and expenses charged. For more details about Atomic Brokerage, please see the Form CRS, General Disclosures, and the Privacy Policy. Check the background of Atomic Brokerage on FINRA’s BrokerCheck. Custodial and clearing services are provided to Atomic Brokerage by Pershing LLC. Technology services may be provided by AtomicVest.

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*Disclaimer: Meow Advisory LLC is a registered investment adviser. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training.
For accounts opened through Atomic Brokerage LLC: Meow Advisory LLC has an engagement with Atomic Brokerage LLC (“Atomic Brokerage”), a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC , to bring you the opportunity to open a brokerage account. Brokerage services for customers of Meow Advisory LLC are provided by Atomic Brokerage. For more details about Atomic Brokerage, please see the Form CRS, General Disclosures, and the Privacy Policy. Check the background of Atomic Brokerage on FINRA’s BrokerCheck.
For subadvisory services for accounts opened through Atomic Invest LLC: Meow Advisory LLC has an engagement with Atomic Invest, LLC (“Atomic Invest”), an SEC-registered investment adviser, to bring you the opportunity to open an investment advisory account. Investment advisory services are provided by Atomic Invest. Companies which are engaged by Atomic Invest receive compensation of 0% to 0.85% annualized, payable monthly, based upon assets under management for each referred client who establishes an account with Atomic Invest (i.e., exact payment will differ). Atomic Invest also shares a percentage of compensation received from margin interest and free cash interest earned by customers with Meow Advisory LLC. Meow Advisory LLC is not a client of Atomic Invest, but our engagement with Atomic invest gives us an incentive to refer you to Atomic Invest instead of another investment adviser. This conflict of interest affects our ability to provide you with unbiased, objective information about the services of Atomic Invest. This could mean that the services of another investment adviser with whom we are not engaged could be more appropriate for you than Atomic invest. Advisory services through Atomic Invest are designed to assist clients in achieving a favorable outcome in their investment portfolio. They are not intended to provide tax advice or financial planning with respect to every aspect of a client’s financial situation and do not include investments that clients may hold outside of Atomic Invest. For more details about Atomic Invest, please see the Form CRS, Form ADV Part 2A, the Privacy Policy, and other disclosures. Brokerage services for Atomic Invest are provided by Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC (“PAS”), a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC.
Neither Atomic Invest nor Atomic Brokerage, nor any of their affiliates, is a bank. Investments in securities are Not FDIC insured, Not Bank Guaranteed, and May Lose Value. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Before investing, consider your investment objectives and the fees and expenses charged by Atomic Brokerage and/or Atomic Invest.
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Meow currently partners with three banking providers. Banking services are provided by Third Coast Bank SSB; Member FDIC, Grasshopper Bank, N.A; Member FDIC, and FirstBank, a Tennessee corporation; Member FDIC.

By opening a Maximum Checking account through Meow and if you choose to receive banking services provided by Grasshopper Bank, N.A, you deposit your funds into a deposit account at Grasshopper Bank, N.A. which sweeps those funds into deposit accounts across a network of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”)-insured banks, for up to the current standard maximum deposit insurance amount (“SMDIA”) of $250,000 per eligible depositor, per destination institution, for each ownership capacity or category, subject to applicable terms and conditions, including Grasshopper's ICS Deposit Placement Agreement. Grasshopper Bank, N.A. uses a third-party vendor and agent to help administer this sweep process. Visit https://www.intrafi.com/network-banks/ for a list of the banks and savings associations with which we/Grasshopper, N.A. have a business relationship for the placement of deposits at destination institutions, and into which your deposits may be placed (subject to applicable terms with you, and any opt-outs by Grasshopper, N.A. or you). The current maximum deposit insurance amount for your funds is up to $125 million in FDIC insurance through the sweep network of Grasshopper Bank, N.A, subject to change at any time with notice from Meow and/or pursuant to applicable law. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to applicable rate sheet. Interest rate on checking products quoted in Annual Percentage Yield (APY). Interest rates and yields are effective as per the date on the applicable rate sheet. See applicable terms and restrictions and refer to the applicable rate sheets for additional information.

By opening a Maximum Checking account through Meow and if you choose to receive banking services provided by Third Coast Bank SSB, you deposit your funds into a deposit account at Third Coast Bank SSB. If you also hold funds in a sweep program with Third Coast Bank SSB, Third Coast Bank SSB sweeps those funds into deposit accounts across a network of FDIC-insured banks, for up to the current SMDIA of $250,000 per eligible depositor, per receiving bank, for each ownership capacity or category, including any other balances you may hold at that receiving bank directly or indirectly through other intermediaries, including broker-dealers. Third Coast Bank SSB uses a third-party vendor and agent to help administer this sweep process. Visit Third Coast Bank SSB for a list of the banks and savings associations with which we/Third Coast Bank SSB have a business relationship for the placement of deposits at receiving banks, and into which your deposits may be placed (subject to applicable terms with you, and any opt-outs by Third Coast Bank or you). The current maximum deposit insurance amount for your funds is up to $50 Million in FDIC insurance through the sweep network of Third Coast Bank, subject to change at any time with notice from Meow and/or pursuant to applicable law. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to applicable rate sheet. Interest rate on checking products quoted in Annual Percentage Yield (APY). Interest rates and yields are effective as per the date on the applicable rate sheet. See applicable terms and conditions and refer to the applicable rate sheet for additional information.

By opening a Maximum Checking account through Meow and if you choose to receive banking services provided by FirstBank, a Tennessee corporation, you deposit your funds into a deposit account at FirstBank, which sweeps those funds into deposit accounts across a network of FDIC-insured banks, for up to the current SMDIA of $250,000 per eligible depositor, per destination institution, for each ownership capacity or category, subject to applicable terms and conditions, including FirstBank's ICS Deposit Placement Agreement. FirstBank uses a third-party vendor and agent to help administer this sweep process. Visit IntraFi for a list of the banks and savings associations with which FirstBank has a business relationship for the placement of deposits at destination institutions, and into which your deposits may be placed (subject to applicable terms with you, and any opt-outs by FirstBank or you). The current maximum deposit insurance amount for your funds is up to $125 million in FDIC insurance through the sweep network of FirstBank, subject to change at any time with notice from Meow and/or pursuant to applicable law. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to applicable rate sheet. Interest rate on checking products quoted in Annual Percentage Yield (APY). Interest rates and yields are effective as per the date on the applicable rate sheet. See applicable terms and restrictions and refer to the applicable rate sheet for additional information.

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FirstBank’s general policy is to allow you to withdraw funds deposited in your account on the first business day after the day we receive your deposit. Funds from electronic deposits will be available on the day we receive the deposit. In some cases, we may delay your ability to withdraw funds beyond the first business day. Then, the funds will generally be available by the SECOND business day after the day of deposit.