An FP&A Analyst — Financial Planning and Analysis Analyst — is a finance professional whose primary responsibility is to produce the financial modelling, planning, forecasting and analysis that enables a business’s management team to make better commercial decisions. The FP&A Analyst sits within the FP&A function, which is distinct from the financial reporting and accounting function in its forward‐looking orientation. Where the Management Accountant or Financial Controller produces historical financial statements that account for what has happened, the FP&A Analyst models what is likely to happen and what the financial implications of different business decisions will be.
The role has grown in prominence as businesses have recognised that the finance function’s most valuable contribution is not in recording the past accurately but in shaping the future intelligently. FP&A Analysts are the professionals who build and maintain the financial...