The Budgeting Process Fix for FP&A Leaders to End Chaos and Improve Team Impact with Adam Rakich
In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst welcomes Adam Rakich, founder and Consulting Director at North Texas, to discuss why the budgeting process is universally loathed and how to fix it. Drawing from decades of experience implementing planning and consolidation systems, Adam shares strategies to transform budgeting from a burdensome task into a strategic advantage. With humor, insight, and plenty of real-world experience, Adam breaks down common pitfalls and offers practical, actionable advice for finance professionals at every level.
Adam Rakich has spent over a decade streamlining finance processes across industries, working with top software platforms like Adaptive Insights, Workday, and OneStream. As the author of The Business User’s Guide to Data Integration, he is known for making complex finance concepts accessible, especially to non-technical professionals. At North Texas, Adam helps organizations build better, more collaborative FP&A functions without the pain.
Expect to Learn:
Why most budgeting processes are broken and how to shift the mindset to fix them.
The importance of soft skills in elevating finance's strategic impact.
How to avoid the "Jurassic Park" trap of doing more just because you can.
The value of driver-based planning and why simplicity often beats complexity.
The "James Bond Philosophy" of budgeting: when to seduce and when to take a firmer stance.
Here are a few quotes from the episode:
"The James Bond approach to budgeting: seduce when you can, shoot when you have to metaphorically, of course." - Adam Rakich
"Pick your battles. If you ask for everything, people will tune out and give you nothing." - Adam Rakich
"Budgeting works best when it’s not adversarial. Finance shouldn’t be the department of ‘no’." - Adam Rakich
Adam shared valuable insights into why budgeting processes often fall short and how a shift in mindset can make all the difference. He emphasized the power of simplicity, the role of soft skills in finance, and the importance of involving stakeholders in meaningful ways. His practical advice on driver-based planning, managing expectations, and building strong business relationships offers key takeaways for finance professionals looking to lead more effective and collaborative FP&A functions.
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In Today’s Episode
[01:29] - Guest’s Background
[04:06] - Defining Great FP&A
[07:58] - Why People Hate Budgeting Process
[09:28] - 10 Ways to Fix Budgeting
[19:51] - Driver Tree and Revenue Impact
[23:39] - Jurassic Park Hubris and Budgeting
[30:23] - Accountant vs. FP&A Professional
[43:42] - James Bond Philosophy & Budgeting
[46:51] - No.1 Technical Skill
[52:17] - Superhero of Choice
Full Show Transcript
[00:01:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst , and I'll be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A . Each week, I'm joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined on the show by Adam. Adam, welcome to the show.
[00:02:06] Guest: Adam Rakich: Thank you. Paul. Happy to be here.
[00:02:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What's it been about? I think it was six months ago. You're on financial monitor's corner, if I remember right now.
[00:02:14] Guest: Adam Rakich: I mean, I lose track maybe a little longer, but somewhere around that.
[00:02:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think it was somewhere late in 2014. Probably recorded nine months ago.
[00:02:20] Guest: Adam Rakich: But that's probably what's in my head. Yeah. Talking about integrations.
[00:02:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yep. And so now we're going to get the joy of budgets because everybody loves their budget. Right.
[00:02:29] Guest: Adam Rakich: Famously it's everyone's favorite thing to do right.
[00:02:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So let me give a little bit of background about Adam and then we'll jump into things. So Adam has spent more than a decade helping accountants improve, streamline and automate their finance processes at planning and consolidation software companies like Adaptive Insights, workday and One Stream, and is now the founder and consulting director at North Texas, a Venice solutions partner. He has helped dozens of customers across every industry improve their processes, both through technological solutions and simple changes to their approach. He is also the author of the Business Users Guide to Data Integration, a book to help non-technical people, especially accountants, understand how to automate data flows. I love the background. Excited to have you. You know, before we ask the opening question, how's business going? This is fairly new for you. How's the journey of being on your own?
[00:03:30] Guest: Adam Rakich: I think anyone who started a business, I mean, I'm sure you can relate. It's a roller coaster, but I'm new. It's exciting. I'm having a great time. Right. And, um, what's really great when you've been around for a little while and you start getting in touch with people, like there's a lot of support. People are actually really awesome about backing you up and cheering you on, and that's really nice. And said, I'm enjoying it. There's always way too much to be doing, but it's better than the other way. Being bored.
[00:03:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Right? I hear you, I'd rather have too much than too little. I'm going to start with this question. If I was to ask you what great FP&A look like? What is great FP&A ? How would you answer that question?
[00:04:11] Guest: Adam Rakich: It's a really good question because I get asked it quite a lot. Or like, well, people want to have better FP&A or whatever it is. And I in some ways the term for a is a barrier to that because it sounds immediately something very specific in in a bucket in a corner that is done by some people who are in the corner with the bucket, you know, because to me, when you have great FP&A , it's because it's broader than just that team and it's involving lots of people in the business. And it's a true partnership, which is again, I hate saying that because it's so easy to say and people say it all the time, right? Things like business partnering, but moving away from that adversarial real relationship, and we'll probably end up talking quite a lot about that today, I think. Where you go, well, here's finance and there's them. They want money. We've got it. We don't want to give it to them. Great. Fba doesn't have that. It's about we're all here. We're aligned in wanting to have a successful business. How can we help each other make that happen?
[00:05:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I really like that of the whole, you know, how do we make that happen? How do we really find success? So maybe, you know, you look back at your career, have you seen some examples of great FP&A where you've seen an outcome that really helped move the business forward?
[00:05:24] Guest: Adam Rakich: You know, the best example I can think of was before I was in space. You know, I was working for this company back in the old country, New Zealand, and a large retailer, and I was in it at the time. So I had my first jobs out of school with IT support, and I was supporting their point of sale systems and things. Nothing to do with that. But they had and I've been with the business for a while. I'd consulted them and then I went in the house and they had this existential threat. You know what they thought might be an existential threat? A major competitor coming in internationally with a new format, going from where they were more of a sort of local corner store sort of thing. And there was this big box operation coming in and it had just demolished all competitors in Australia. Right. And then it came. So they were worried, oh my goodness. And it was incredible. I mean, the funny thing was it actually didn't end up happening and probably not because of anything this company did. It's just that the model didn't work so well in New Zealand. New Zealand is very sparsely populated. You know, you don't have huge population centers. Big boxes don't work quite so well. But the impact on the business was incredible because it united everybody like everybody had seen it happen. And I wasn't privy to what the planning meant. But I saw all the teams in the business, you know, come up with a big box format which they did, and it's still running today. But it took that existential threat to make that happen. And obviously what we want is we want that uniting unity, unity across the business without having to wait for an existential threat.
[00:07:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, we would prefer everybody to get along and finance to work well with everybody without having to threaten the business.
[00:07:07] Guest: Adam Rakich: Ideally, yeah. You know, because you can't manufacture threats to our survival every year. And you wouldn't want to if you could.
[00:07:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I think people would get a little, a little tired with that if you could. The first one might work, but not much after that.
[00:07:21] Guest: Adam Rakich: No, I think it would be a bit tiring for everybody. Yeah.
[00:07:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We've all been there. When, you know, when you're working with the company that everything's an emergency, you just kind of go, aha, I'll get to it when I get to it. You've all worked with the boss or somebody. I need this right away. And then it sits on their desk for a week and you're like, okay, why did I rush that? So you could sit on it?
[00:07:42] Guest: Adam Rakich: I've been there also. It's not my favorite.
[00:07:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think we've all been there. So you recently gave a presentation on budgeting. Titled Everyone Hates Your Budgeting Process. I was offended because I thought everybody loved my budgeting process, but I'm starting to get over it. So first, I'll start with the obvious question: why do so many people still hate the budgeting process?
[00:08:04] Guest: Adam Rakich: Good question. Right. It's something that basically everybody is doing. And yet it's a truth universally accepted that it's terrible, that just no one wants to be there. Finance doesn't want to be there. The budget holders even more don't want to be there. It's just something that people feel they have to do. It's just acknowledged that it's terrible.
[00:08:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What is it on par with taxes or taxes? Still a little lower down the list.
[00:08:31] Guest: Adam Rakich: See, I reckon. I mean, the thing is, if you're talking personal, taxes over here are a lot less stressful than I hear they are.
[00:08:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm thinking, just in general, paying taxes. You know what's worth going through? A budget or having to pay your taxes.
[00:08:43] Guest: Adam Rakich: We don't like paying the taxes, but I think, I think a lot of people would rather prepare their taxes than try and do a budget process.
[00:08:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Fair enough.
[00:08:51] Guest: Adam Rakich: And I think really what the main culprit is and I bang the drum on this a lot. For everyone hating it is the fact that everyone's accepted. It's terrible, right? So many times people, but everyone's miserable going into it. That leads to people being miserable and people are often not trying to change it. They think it's just, well, it just has to be that way. It's ever been thus. So it must be forever. And that's simply not true. But people have to change their mindset on it.
[00:09:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So yeah, and I think that gets into the list. And your presentation, you had a long list and I've run. I want to run through these, you know, kind of this list of ways to improve or think about your budgeting process. And I believe what you just said got to the first one, which you called chin up, you know, can you elaborate on why that was first and kind of what you meant? I think that's kind of the idea, a little bit of what you're talking about. Everybody goes into the process saying they hate it and that has to change.
[00:09:46] Guest: Adam Rakich: Yeah, I mean, I like you , everyone knows dogs can smell fear and can smell fear too. And it really it's it's just like I said, right? If you think it's going to be terrible, it will be terrible. And I lead with that. And I lead with that really often because it colors everything. Right. If you don't have the right mindset going into it, it's just a bad foundation to try and build on. I cringe a bit myself when I say things like mindset, because I think there's often a feeling that that's all are, well, you know, we're serious finance people don't give me any of that hippie nonsense. But it's true, right? It's demonstrably true that people's attitudes affect everything. Your attitude to the process will impact what everyone else in the process thinks about it. So you've got to think this is good. If you don't think it's good, then obviously step one is to fix that somehow. And I think hopefully some of the other things we'll talk about will help people, you know, have more of a belief in the value or that it's going to be a good a good process. I think the way I try to frame it is what else would we be doing? You know, we can't. Are we going to just let everybody spend what they want all the time? Well, no, obviously you can't do that. Likewise, do we want them just to come to us every day for it with a, with a with a list of things they approved that day? We also can't do that right. I think it's unfortunate and unfair that so often these processes look hard, but so much stuff is hard. People get paid to work. It doesn't have to be easy all the time. But for some reason, collectively, as a world, people have decided it's okay to hate on finance for having a hard process that people have to do. And that's not fair. Software.
[00:11:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I really liked the part you did say about mindset. Yes. Often people are like, oh, that's the soft stuff. But the data is indisputable that changing your mindset will improve things if nothing more than helping you feel better about it. And people like you said, they smell fear. Uh, one of the favorite things my partner and I do all the time, people will be like, oh, I can never be good at Excel or I'm no good at Excel. And what we've started doing is we always add the at the end to something like that. Yeah, I'm no good at Excel. Yeah. To change that mindset, say, okay, I haven't learned it, but I can't. And there's just so much value in that. So I'm a big fan of yours. And it kind of gets into the second point. I think a little bit which you had is your second point is you can change. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:12:24] Guest: Adam Rakich: You have to believe it's going to be good. And often to get there. You have to think that you have to know that you can own it. Um, I've seen people doing weird and outdated things because while it's terrible, no matter what we do, what is the point of trying to make this better? Well, well, not with that attitude. You're right, you know. But you need to have the attitude that you can improve things. And the other one, which is way more common than I would have ever thought, is because everyone's just accepted that this is a whole terrible process. Sometimes I'm talking to teams, and the way they talk is like, this is a process happening to them. And I have to say, this is your process, guys. You know, you can make it whatever you want it to be. It's not an unchangeable feature of the world that you find yourself in. When you start thinking that way, then you're in the right place to start making improvements.
[00:13:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I really like that. I, you know, if you got to remember, this is your process I've gone through. I've restructured and rebuilt, you know, budgeting, forecasting processes and it makes a difference. People appreciate it. They notice if you take effort to try to streamline and make it, uh, a more collaborative and easy process to do.
[00:13:44] Guest: Adam Rakich: And it comes back, you know, you mentioned the soft skills piece and that that's a drum that I don't think could be banged enough. Right. The world is full of very technically capable finance people. What separates them from the top level is those soft skills. And the thing is, because budgeting and forecasting are always around, are always with us, there's always an opportunity to start building that. It's a great way to improve your profile within the business in a positive way, you know, individually and for your team.
[00:14:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I would agree with you. So the third point you had in this presentation is you are not special. And I keep thinking of the book I have in the other room called You Are Special by Max Max Lucado. So tell me why I'm not.
[00:14:29] Guest: Adam Rakich: You know, I, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Uh, one does in this sort of space, and it just seems so often every other thing is like, wow, oh my goodness. This is unprecedented. That is unprecedented. You know, this where we are now, there's never been anything like it. I think if you believe that, then you start to think, well, what's the point? You know, I can't, I can't do anything. You know, the world is so crazy and insane. No one else has ever had to do with this. So I can just give up, right? Everything's too hard for me. But, you know, people have been talking about. I think the quote I gave was. It was from Heraclitus 500 BC. Change is the only constant or whatever the actual quote is, right? People have been, you know, we've had political upheaval forever. We've had constant change forever. So look, the AI stuff is new, the details are new, but change isn't, you know, ten, 20, 30, 40 years ago, people are not sitting down reading the headlines and just thinking, oh well, nothing much is going on. Fortunately, everything's super relaxing. I just don't want people to fall into the trap of thinking that it's all too much. Right. Your planning can't compete with this. It's like, look, your planning can compete. It will be like it always has. It'll be wrong. Like it always has and always will be. You know, you can never predict the future perfectly. And. But that 100% doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to do it and to do it better.
[00:16:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Now, you remind me that you know it will never be right. George box. All models are wrong. Some are useful. All plans are wrong. But it is your. Is your plan useful?
[00:16:13] Guest: Adam Rakich: Exactly.
[00:16:14] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And it is a good reminder that we're not special. Yeah. We all talk about how the rate of change is accelerated in the world. I think there's definitely some of that at the same time. You're totally right. There's been upheaval or World War one, World War two, so many other things through decades and decades. Not like what we have going on. Today hasn't happened before.
[00:16:34] Guest: Adam Rakich: I have a feeling as well there's a good one and I won't swear to it, but I think it's a pattern quote that plans are useless. But planning is everything.
[00:16:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it's something to that effect, George. Yeah. It's, uh, I think it was either Patton or Eisenhower. It was. I think it was Pat. I think you're right. I think it was the patent that said that one. And I think it's a good sum up, basically. Look, the actual plan. Odds are you're not going to follow that to the T. Highly unlikely. But if you have no plan then you're not following anything. So that leads to the fourth one which you labeled pick your battles.
[00:17:12] Guest: Adam Rakich: And pick your battles is all about. If you try and do too much at once or ask for too much at once, it becomes noise to people you know. You have to be disciplined in what you're asking them for, form. Obviously, we want more revenue. We want the margins to be higher. We want the opex to be lower. But if you just say, okay, this year we're going to do everything better. Well, it just doesn't register with people. And look at the sea level. They do want everything to be better. Fine. But if you want to actually drive some sensible change in a particular process, you really want to focus on one thing and ideally something narrower than those broad headings like how particularly are we going to do it? Right. You have a better chance of putting all your pressure behind a scalpel point than a broad hammer.
[00:18:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You're better off if you want detail. Maybe you drill in really tight on headcount or T&E versus saying, I want you to give me the full details of every single line item and every dollar we spend. Right? That people are going to be like, I don't have time for that. But if they see one area and you can show the importance of it, they're much more likely to. I'll spend a little bit of extra time here. I get it. It's important leadership.
[00:18:33] Guest: Adam Rakich: There's an element of it that made me think the other day about if you've ever seen a show where someone's spinning plates, you know, they put all the poles up and then they did. They spin a plate, they spin a plate. And if you spin all the plates faster, it just won't happen. Right? What you do is you spin that plate. Workforce class. Right. We'll do that. Okay. Next process we're going to do some stuff with custom materials or whatever it might be. Then of course, eventually you'll drift away and you'll have to come back and work on the workforce costs again. Fine. That's not a failure of a process. That's just naturally what happens, right? You give attention to different areas over time because you simply can't focus all your attention on everything at once.
[00:19:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I had a really good leader who said, if I have more than 3 to 5 key priorities, I'm going to be good at nothing. Basically, I was like, I need a few things to work on so that I can really be good at those versus trying to do everything.
[00:19:25] Guest: Adam Rakich: I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you see, because I think that is a big thing behind the, oh, chaos, you know, that a lot of people have, uh, like, and I've seen businesses, I've been in businesses where they've been doing the OKR thing, pick on these things. And so often they get them really wrong because they do things. I will pick three things. Oh, revenue margin, operating expenses like no, these are two way too high.
[00:19:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You haven't done the driver tree to get down. What's the root thing that people can impact? Tell me revenue. What's the action?
[00:19:57] Guest: Adam Rakich: Exactly. Yeah. And for most people there's very little they can do. Obviously if you're in marketing, if you're in sales. But huge parts of the business can't drive revenue, what can they drive?
[00:20:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: If I'm the call center support for the business where I'm supporting the internal people, not much I can do to help us grow revenue. You know. But yeah, I'm with you. It's true. And that's. Yeah, we can have a whole discussion around that of human behavior and incentives and how you think about, you know, key results and all those things because it's a science and an art. All right. Number five, you had on your list, and I'm curious to hear more on this one. Pick your expectations.
[00:20:38] Guest: Adam Rakich: I had a lively debate with a customer about this one not too long ago because unfortunately, a lot of the tips, a lot of the things it does increase the phantom workload a little. But I think the ROI on it is really good. So when I say expectations, I tell this sort of story and you have to try and think about the budget holder's perspective, right? The budget holder sits down to do their operating expenses. And that's the thing. You also have to assume, because it's true, that the bulk of people in the business are operating in good faith, right? They're giving it a good go, you know, based on the directions they're given, right? So they're saying, right, okay, I know what I need to do this year. So this is I think I need this higher, I need this, etc.. And then they feel good about themselves. All right. Yeah. This is what I need to run my department. Now they submit that now a usual process that goes to their manager or their managers or wherever it goes, or the finance, and then inevitably it gets bounced back down and it says, well, it needs to be how many dollars pounds, whatever less, or you need to trim 10% or these sorts of things. When you just accept the process, you think, well, of course, you know, and it makes sense because we've collected from everybody and then we have to decide we've got scarce resources.
[00:22:06] Guest: Adam Rakich: Fine, I get it. But to the budget holder, they just go, well, why did I spend all that time? If you're just going to tell me now? And it's not necessarily a fair assessment, but it's how it makes people feel. There's so much psychology in budgeting as in everything in life. So what I think is worth a try for most organizations is rather than doing that, any template that you hand out to someone should have a number at the top. And I said, well, that's the sort of thing that we would consider valid. People get worried when I say that, because they worry that people will just spend extra to get there, and I get that you can make it a bit lower than you think it will actually be, if you like or whatever, but you just say, if you need more than that, then you can ask for it. Yeah. And we'll, we'll assess it and or whatever, you know, put it whatever terms you like, the results are the same. And the budget holders submits and they say, well, actually, you know, you said I have 200,000, but I've actually requested 240,000. And this is why. And they may or may not get it. But if they don't get it, they feel a lot better. They don't feel that they've just been trampled on. Right? They feel they've been they've had, they've had a process that they've been a part of which is reasonable.
[00:23:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. That makes sense. I can see that one. I like the way you titled number six. You might have to explain that for some people, but number six, avoid the hubris of Jurassic Park. So first, what is the hubris of Jurassic Park? And then how does that tie to budgeting?
[00:23:44] Guest: Adam Rakich: I fancy Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all time. Uh, I have.
[00:23:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The original or the new one.
[00:23:49] Guest: Adam Rakich: The original, obviously.
[00:23:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay, I figured out how to check, though.
[00:23:53] Guest: Adam Rakich: I was about the perfect age for it. To be fair, I came out when I was 12, so I was like prime dinosaur boy time. I try to jam it into all sorts of business requirements as much as I can. But there's a comment by the character Doctor Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum. Yes, scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could. They never stopped to think if they should. And I think that applies to a lot of things, but particularly in a budgeting process. So the specific example I like to give is, you know, I get asked, you know, and I, you know, I put in place then a solution for customers. So they're often been struggling with spreadsheets and they go, oh now we've got this. Can I do this? Can I you know you mentioned can I then bring this planning down to this granularity. I couldn't do it before. Can I add in this. Can I add in that. And the answer is almost always yes, but it's often the wrong question. You don't want to spend so much time thinking about whether you could. You need to think about whether you should, which in this case will it add value? Will the amount of time. Because if you add detail, of course somebody has to spend time to put that detail in. Does it add more value than it costs? Which is the basic equation for everything, right? The simplest example that I can give that where detail is almost always good is people, right. For most, for most particularly if we're talking salaried, if we're talking salaried employee base, it's almost always better to just have a list of employees rather than trying to get me to come up with what my salary per month is for my department. Right? I'm never going to do that. Right?
[00:25:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: 100% agree.
[00:25:36] Guest: Adam Rakich: But if you talk about marketing, right, it might be that previously marketing did a plan for their spend per period per channel. You know, say maybe they do a lot of online stuff. We'll say, this is my Facebook span, this is my Google, whatever it might be. So then you could ask the question, well, actually, no, I want you to do it by campaign. And will there be a good idea? I don't know, it depends on your business. Right. So some where you've got very large campaigns spend a lot of lead time. You might be able to sensibly do that. I know for a lot of smaller businesses, if you said in a year or 18 month or two year process what campaigns you're doing, they don't know. Certainly not beyond a 3 or 6 month horizon. Right. So forcing them to do it that way is not a positive thing. I don't know the answers. The answer to whether it's worthwhile or not never comes from me. But they have to come from you and your knowledge of the business. The main thing is, and if you decide yes, this will give us value, then great, do it. But you just want to avoid sleepwalking into something that might not add any value, but takes a lot of time.
[00:26:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's a good point, I like it. I see where you're going with that. So number seven does the least amount of work first. This is a man after my true heart. After after my heart. Here I try to do the least amount of the work. Not just first, but talk about the least amount of work first.
[00:27:07] Guest: Adam Rakich: That comes down to managing your relationship with the rest of the business. And I just had a discussion. Right. Deciding on whether it's worth doing an amount of detail or something like this. And I always say, if there is ever doubt whether you should do something or not, should I add this in or not, then don't. For now, I think generally most of the things in the process you should be able to reach over, grab me by my shirt and say, this needs to be in here and we have conviction. Well, maybe it'll be useful. Don't just throw it in because to you, it's easy to throw something into a template, but it's creating real work for someone else. Yeah. If the next process you decide, you know, actually it would have been useful to have something broken down by detail, then fine, add it in. But it's much better to do it that way than to put in some detail. Force people to spend their time doing it and then realize that you actually didn't. You're not using the detail later on. And then one of two things happens. Either hopefully you're brave enough to own your mistake and you remove it. But that's not good, right? Because the budget holder knew. Well, why have I. Oh, they've learned their lesson. Finally they've taken that out. Right. That's not good for their feelings towards you. Or the worst thing is that you don't take it out. You just leave it in art or they're doing it anyway, which is also a bad thing.
[00:28:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And now a brief message from our sponsor. You know the numbers. Now it's time to own the story. The new FP&A professional certification from CFI is built for finance professionals who want to lead with insight, not just report the data. With FPAP, you'll learn how to build real-world forecast models, analyze performance with precision, and design dashboards that drive strategic conversations. You'll sharpen your Excel skills, unlock the power of tools like Power BI and Power Query, and master the workflows top FP&A teams use every day. Whether you're supporting growth, evaluating projects, or presenting to the CFO. FPAP gives you the practical skills and a strategic edge to step into bigger roles, ready to lead where it counts. Build the skills. Own the strategy. Learn more at CFI. Go to the Corporate Finance Institute.
[00:22:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I know it makes sense. What are your top operaYeah. If you're making them do work that they're never going to use, or you made them do a bunch of work, they didn't. You didn't use it and then you took it away. Neither of those are a win. They're not going to be real happy with any of those, uh, scenarios.
[00:29:45] Guest: Adam Rakich: There will always be things you get wrong. Right. And this is this thing. I think it's, um, one of the reasons sometimes planning is hard for finance professionals is because there are so many in finance, you can't make mistakes, right? You when you're doing your statutory accounting, there's no oh, you'll make mistakes, you won't or you go to jail. Uh, whereas the budgeting process is a lot more fluid. You have to be a lot more comfortable with making mistakes. But having said that, step one is to make as few mistakes as you can. And so if you're not sure about stuff, don't do it. It probably won't hurt you.
[00:30:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: When you said go to jail, do you know what the difference is between an accountant and an FP&A professional?
[00:30:28] Guest: Adam Rakich: I do not.
[00:30:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: When an accountant gets creative, they go to jail. When an FP and a professional gets creative, they get promoted. That is the reason why I work in FP and not accounting.
[00:30:43] Guest: Adam Rakich: I do a lot of consolidation work in my role as well. But planning is always the most interesting for me as a consultant. Right. Because I'm obviously taught that's the bit that varies the most between businesses. So I enjoy that.
[00:30:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure. Yeah. Consolidation is pretty rule based.
[00:31:00] Guest: Adam Rakich: It is what it.
[00:31:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Is necessary, but pretty. Pretty similar. I could see a lot more variance in the budgeting conversations. And that kind of leads to number eight I think a little bit driver based planning.
[00:31:14] Guest: Adam Rakich: Driver based planning. You know, I hesitated about putting this in because I Have seen so many. You know, when I worked in planning companies the number of webinars we did about. Driver based planning was insane. And I remember talking well over ten years ago at this point and I was like, has the message been done? Like people. But my experience out there suggests that that it's still something that needs to be shouted about. And all the driver base planning is I think most people know what it's about, but they're not necessarily sure how they can get it in the hands of people. Are, generally speaking. Most people in the business are happier not having to come up with a spend with an amount per GL code. That's what we need ultimately. But that doesn't make budget holders happy. It stresses them out. You know half of them. The maths is scary. You know much better for them to be able to input things that are based on their their day to day, what drives their slice of the business. And this is, again, this is one of these things that I said adds complexity to the FP&A job, right? Because that's going to be different for all the different parts of the business. You just need to deal with that. But it's so worth it. You know, you will know as the thing is, well, whenever I have this conversation with someone, people know if they've got retail, they've got foot traffic.
[00:32:46] Guest: Adam Rakich: Um, so many people will be driving business. They've got website traffic, conversion rates. If you're a hotel, guess what? Convert. You know how many guests convert into having breakfast, lunch and dinner. Average spend. You know, people know what it is. But even parts of the business where you think, on the face of it, they'd be happy with financial numbers. I often give the example of sales. Right. So because sales is always thinking about what they're selling, it's a huge part of their compensation. But even there it's better for them to be able to say numbers of deals, average deal sizes, right. And just have everything calculated from there. And actually a huge amount of these things don't have to be very, don't have to be specific. What I mean by that is everybody's got people so many costs drive off people. Right. When you've got a new starter they're going to need. Again, if we're talking about, you know, salaried staff, they're probably gonna need to get a computer, right. We want to drive that we want it to come up there and to hit the fixed assets straight away. Right. We just don't have to think about it. Training costs, onboarding costs, software subscriptions, all these things that we can just remove the need for the budget holder to interact with.
[00:34:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There's a reason you have overhead numbers for people, right? To make it simple, it's okay. Benefits and training on average load this much per person. Keep a driver base. Keep it simple.
[00:34:10] Guest: Adam Rakich: And I always say this to people as well, if you're not quite sure. Um, which I think most people are, but if you're not the people who really get this is, uh, startups, you know, and I'm talking like that, you know, particularly the US startup community, where if you if you Google start up financial model for whatever industry, they love having those things with the drivers, which they can tweak. You know, they like to put it in front of investors when they're trying to raise funding and things like that, they get it. The other thing that I love to add about driver based planning is so first of all, they're happier. But also they're more likely to do a good job because again, in finance, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that most people are not used to looking at these big numbers and making sense of them. Doing a driver base plan can surface things that might not make sense, that might have been hidden. So you take a sales example, you might have a commercial director and there's a 2 million number. They look at that. And yeah, I guess that seems fine. But when it's driver based and to do that there needs to be 200 deals. Given the current ACV then they start. Might start thinking, oh, hold on a minute. That's a lot of deals for my current sales team. Do I need to hire these sorts of things? It's it's letting them speak in the language that makes sense to them. And that's beneficial in more than one way.
[00:35:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think we're going to cover two more. So we round out at ten, then we're going to get to the James Bond philosophy. And then I have a few custom questions for you. I'm sure we could talk all day, but I'm not sure. Everybody wants to listen to me talk all day. I talk way too much as it is. So we're going to do number nine here. I thought you said everybody hated the budgeting process. But here you tell me to talk to them about budgeting. Won't they just hate me?
[00:35:55] Guest: Adam Rakich: Well, part of the reason that they hate you is because you're probably not talking to them enough about it. And when I say that, that can take a lot of different forms. And so sometimes that means that people go, well, why should I get them involved in the process? Right? They don't want to be there. It's more work for me. It's probably just easier if I've got so much to do. Right. I don't have the time. I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to do it and then hand them the budget. But obviously I think that's wrong. That's why I put that whole thing into the topic. You have to view being able to talk to the business as a, as a big opportunity for you. It gives you a chance to build a relationship with all these different departments and make friends. Yeah, because probably a lot of people in the business think of finance as a taker, right? They're either coming and demanding something from me, from reporting or figures or something like that, or they're telling me, no, I can't have something right. If instead of that you go and talk to them, get involved and ask a simple thing like, how can we make this process easier for you? You will be blown away by how many people who have been hard to work with start talking to you and they've got ideas. They've thought about it, but a lot of time, a lot of the time, people just have never asked.
[00:37:22] Guest: Adam Rakich: And then fringe benefit. You do other things in the budget, but this is your foot in the door. But you've got other things to talk about. If you understand how they need to plan, you've probably got a great understanding just at the department as a whole. If you're in there, you're asking open ended questions, not what rows do you need on the spreadsheet and more about. Tell me about the day to day work. What's difficult for you to plan for when we're doing the budget? And that one is a really powerful one, because so often if something is difficult to plan for, it's just difficult. And the more you can understand the difficulties in the department, that gives you a chance to help them. And as I say, you don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. What do I see on LinkedIn? All the time? Every one wants to be a strategic partner to the business, right? That is how you do it. And when you're there, what else can you do for them? Can you improve a report? Can you change a KPI, add a KPI, these sorts of things? Again, I'm making work for you, I appreciate that, but this is if you want to build your profile. If you want to improve things for yourself, that's how you do it.
[00:38:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It gets back to the principle I really like, and I've seen Christian teach it a lot and I use it is, uh, the whole emotional bank account in finance, by the nature of the role we have are times we have to say no. There's times we have to go ask for cuts. We're just told, hey, expenses have to come down. Restructuring all of these things that withdraw from that emotional bank account just by the nature of the job, no matter how well we do it. If I go to the VP and say, you got to cut your staff by 40%, they're not going to like me. They may not, you know, directly me, but they're not going to like the message, right? There's no good way to be like, oh, Kumbaya. We're all happy now. It's going to be that withdrawal, that emotional bank account. So the more you focus on solving pain points, helping make life easier for them, really doing things, whether it's in the budget or in general, you build up that emotional bank account so you're not in a negative when those big withdrawals come. Because like the budgeting process, no matter how well you make it, there are going to be some negatives with there going to be some negative withdrawals throughout that process because it's a little bit painful and there are parts people don't like. And I haven't seen anyone that's had a perfect budgeting process where everybody comes away perfectly happy and loved it.
[00:39:44] Guest: Adam Rakich: And that's okay. But it's like you say, the more you can, the more you can take the opportunity to build up positivity with people, the better it is. And that's not just a budgeting thing, as you say.
[00:39:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well, yeah, this is you to me. Yeah. You want your emotional bank account to be in a positive position. And I think finance especially so because like I said, there are just some areas where there's negative withdrawals that are part of the job, more so than maybe some other roles. All right. I'm going to ask one more question. And then we're going to get to James Bond, who thought I'd get to talk about James Bond on an FB and a podcast. I'm excited for this. So number 12, do not make it look easier by giving them predictive forecasts. Come on. I love my statistics stuff so help me understand this one.
[00:40:28] Guest: Adam Rakich: So probably an unpopular opinion you know.
[00:40:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But that's what I want. We got to have a few unpopular opinions. It makes this show more fun.
[00:40:37] Guest: Adam Rakich: I think that it's often underestimated how weird statistics is, you know? And if you haven't spent a lot of time with it, you're not likely to understand it. I'm putting myself in that bucket, you know. And I did some statistics at university. So much of it is that it's really hard to relate to reality. If you're unless you're an expert. And to me, the same should go for predictive forecasting. Yeah. I think when I go out there and I see things, I think predictive forecasting for the vast bulk of businesses that I speak with, it's simply not suitable as a core forecasting methodology, because most of these relatively easy things that you can do to generate predictions. They rely on simple historical data. And almost every business I speak with, they change too much. Right. You know, you need to have 36 months of sensible history. But you've introduced new products, you've opened a new office, new service, the existing product You halve the price, you double the price. There's all sorts of things that change. And when I don't try and convince people of this so much, I say, prove it for yourself. Right. If you want to go and give budget holders the ability to do this.
[00:41:54] Guest: Adam Rakich: First of all, don't. What I want you to do is take the time, do the budget the way you're doing it now. Put the predictive models alongside and then see what happens. Yeah. And if it works, you can send me a message and I'll apologize to you for being wrong. Yeah, but most of my experience tells me you either have one of two things. One is they're just hilariously wrong. Right. They do it like, oh my God, if we'd just done this as cor, it's the worst thing in the world. Or they make it work, but they spend so much time massaging it and amending it that they might as well have just done it the original way. And the danger with these is that they introduce a gigantic risk, because if you give budget holders a button that says predict how many of them are just going to push the button and submit, I'm done. You know, what they need to do is go predict and then look at it and assess it and amend it. But how many will really do that versus just take the easy way out?it's too much of a risk, in my humble opinion.
[00:42:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. So I'm going to title this I think we say, uh, hot take. Adam says predictive forecasting sucks.
[00:43:05] Guest: Adam Rakich: I can earn that.
[00:43:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, there's lots of different opinions on it. I'm a little more on the side of where I can see some value in it, but I do see a lot of the things you're talking about. And again, company sizing, so many things matter. There is a huge amount of understanding statistics. A lot of the things you addressed are the challenges. If you're going to use it, you have to really think about it. But I've also seen some areas where work works well. So I'm probably a little more bullish on it. But I have dealt with a lot of what you're mentioning. So I can appreciate both sides of that. All right. So before we move on to some standard FP questions we like to ask every guest. What is the James Bond philosophy? I thought James Bond was just about. Cars, guns and girls.
[00:43:48] Guest: Adam Rakich: So I mean you're right. And it's the and I'm going to talk about two of those things when I talk about applying the philosophy of James Bond. So girls write James Bond, famous seducer of women. And I think that applies to what FBA has to do. You need to metaphorically seduce your budget holders to get them involved. I stress metaphorically, but you're helping them. You're highlighting the benefits, right? You are using the positive. Right. And seduction is a marvelous way to get what you want. And James Bond does a lot of that. But what James Bond also recognizes is that not everybody can be Seduced. And so sometimes, to get what you want. You have to shoot someone again. Cannot stress enough the metaphorical nature of this reference. You know, but there will always be some people that you can't seduce and that you need to metaphorically shoot. This is an important thing you are doing. It needs to get done. If you're having difficulties, you can bring in the big guns. You know, it might be getting your executive sponsor involved now, maybe at your boss now. There's a lot of sensitivity. I'm not just saying do it. Use it like a blunt instrument. Like tell them. Right. Um, but actually. But there are ways to do it. And what I really want people to take as well is that when that happens, that's not a failure on you. I think some people think if they can't convince everybody they have failed, it's just, look, there's a lot of people in the world, you know, you won't get along with all of them. Some of them will just hate finance forever. They've just been 30 years hating finance. And I'm going to stop now. That's life. It's not a failure on your part. You do what you have to do.
[00:45:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There are some relationships that are never going to be the level you want. Mostly you can make progress. You can almost always make progress and prove you can do things. But yeah, there's going to be some people that are gonna be difficult till the day you die. And so I've got this. They're all predictive forecasts. Seduce and shoot your partners. How's that for a time? Yeah. All right. Now that we've got.
[00:45:56] Guest: Adam Rakich: To sign my name.
[00:45:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I'll put big words metaphorically at the end.
[00:46:03] Guest: Adam Rakich: Or you have, like, one of those things with, like, the asterisk or the star or whatever you call over there and then down in, like, tiny, tiny writing down the bottom. Or we have, like, those, um, pharmaceutical commercials, right where there's like a really, really quickly at the end, they rattle off all the side effects.
[00:46:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: My favorite is the ones I'm listening to, and they start listening to them all and like, you start seeing death and all, you know, all these, uh, one of them was a medicine for. I want to say it was insomnia. And one of the side effects is. Potentially can't sleep at night. It's like, okay. Yeah, it's. I just got it made me laugh. And then it said death and all these other things. And I'm like, think I'll take my chances with insomnia after this list.
[00:46:44] Guest: Adam Rakich: Yeah.
[00:46:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So back to f, p and A. These are some standard questions we ask guests. In your opinion, what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master?
[00:46:56] Guest: Adam Rakich: In some ways the number one technical skill is hiding their technical skill. And what I mean by that is if you're talking say Excel, it needs to look simple. But often there's a lot of complicated stuff in there. And I've seen so many templates where they're just laid out because there's so many calculation steps and things like that. It's overwhelming for the end consumer of it. So to be able to do all that but have the interaction layer be simple is to me the most important thing you can do.
[00:47:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I've heard someone else say that is the ability to take complex and make it simple. One of my favorite quotes is simple as hard, complex is easy. All right. Number two is what's the number one soft skill we should master.
[00:47:39] Guest: Adam Rakich: It's being able to talk to all these people and to get them to spend time with you, which is not always easy. You know, and we talked a lot about talking to the business, finding out what makes them tick and things like that. Just being there and listening and having them think that you're listening is not always easy. And that's something. But more importantly, it's something you have to carve out time to do and you have to work on it, and you won't get it right the first time. But as we say, right, these are the sort of skills that separate great from fine.
[00:48:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's the soft skills, it's the human side. It's the relationships, the act of listening. You know, all those things that allow you to go from average good to great. All right. This is a fun one. If Excel removed one feature tomorrow, which one would cause you the most panic?
[00:48:34] Guest: Adam Rakich: For me, it's got to be grouping because that comes back to, you know, when you're doing planning, there's so many steps and so many detailed things you need. And if there's no way to just hide those, it's the worst. And the funny thing is I see so many spreadsheets, but the fact that it very much has not been removed from Excel people, a lot of people seem to not be aware of it or just don't use it very much. And oh yeah, here's a template. And it's just it's like, oh, come on, man, just.
[00:49:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'll.
[00:49:06] Guest: Adam Rakich: Close up some of that stuff.
[00:49:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: For those who are wondering. And you can group something. It doesn't take much. Highlight it and try that next time. Yeah I think that's a good one I had I would have never thought of that but I, I can see where why you chose that one. So number one trick or tip you have learned over your career that's helped you the most when you're working in Excel?
[00:49:30] Guest: Adam Rakich: You will be having a chat before the podcast about Excel levels, right, and I wouldn't consider myself an advanced user, but you know, from time to time I try to go and increase my skill set. But it's so hard to get to learn that is appropriate to where you are because there's so. Oh, yeah. Has intermediate or sometimes advanced training. And I look at it, I'm like, this is not advanced. This is basic. I've done it. And so I think it's really easy to miss amazing features. And I have to put my hand up guiltily. That irony recently found out about analyzing data. It's so good. I'm like, oh, wow. I don't know when that came in or how I missed the memo in it, but I'm really glad that I that I learned it.
[00:50:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I teach that in almost all my training sessions. Anytime we're doing pivot tables, I start with analyzing the data. Like if you don't know much about pivot tables, just go press the button and at least it's going to give you some ideas. It may not get you all the way there, but it's going to create that table. It's going to give you some views. It's going to give you a quick, easy way to understand your data. Then you can dig in further with your skills. So I do like analyzing data. I teach that one a lot.
[00:50:37] Guest: Adam Rakich: Like in general. I mean I've been working with some people on it for completely non budget related things. But it's also really useful when you're reviewing other people's work and you don't want to sit there and do it line by line. Right. Like call it out, tell me stuff Excel can do it for.
[00:50:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know we're definitely getting a lot better resources. Ai is getting better at that too. It's like, okay, analyze this and tell me. I had a situation where somebody, uh, analyzed the government contract and found a $200 million mistake in a $1.2 billion contract by having AI analyze the model. So you know that that's not I don't. I feel bad for the model builder, but I'm glad somebody caught it.
[00:51:15] Guest: Adam Rakich: Yeah. Uh, we've all been in that chair. Just hopefully not that expensive.
[00:51:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, exactly. We've all. I mean, I could, I could do multiple episodes on just the Excel, uh, mistakes I've made, and it would fill up quite a few. Although I doubt anyone would listen to that many. So we'll move on past that one. So we just have a few more questions. I'll let you go. I know we're coming up on time. This is our get to know you section. Favorite hobby or passion? What do you like to do in your spare time?
[00:51:39] Guest: Adam Rakich: so my main thing that I like to get out and do is tennis. Um, I'm very fortunate,that about a seven minute walk for me is a really beautiful park. We've just got a wonderful community tennis club, eight courts. You know, I find I say to the guy I play tennis with, I like playing tennis, but actually, it's just a good excuse to be standing outside for an hour a few times a week, which I often don't do because I'm doing this.
[00:52:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. It's over my hobbies. It's just about getting out sometimes as much as it is even the activity. All right. If you could be a superhero, what superhero would you be and why?
[00:52:22] Guest: Adam Rakich: Either I'm going to go see. I don't think there's very much interest in being Superman. It's too, too powerful, you know. You know, there's no no interest. It's like you handed the keys to everything. And where's the struggle? So I like where I've been. I'm a long time Spider-Man fan. I like Spidey's cool powers, but not invincibility. Still struggling and just web swinging. Looks fun. Or also any of the telekinetic ones like Jean Gray from the X-Men. I love the thought of moving things with my mind when I'm feeling lazy, and I want to get something from the fridge.
[00:52:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, when you're lazy, it's like, bring. Bring the drink over to me. Bring the remote over, bring the paper, bring my kids over so I can tell them what to do. All right. Last great song you listened to.
[00:53:12] Guest: Adam Rakich: So the one I'm into right now, which I, I, I oh, I'm not as good at exploring new music music as I should be. Spotify has been a bit better at surfacing things for me. Um, and I'm quite enjoying, Austin by Dasha. I don't know if that's sort of a poppy country, isn't it? I had, my my wife and I took a road trip from Memphis to New Orleans and all the a few years back, and we got a little bit into the country radio station.
[00:53:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. The country.
[00:53:44] Guest: Adam Rakich: Yeah.
[00:53:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Territory.
[00:53:46] Guest: Adam Rakich: so I think Spotify picked up that we had a few playlists for the songs that we'd enjoyed when we did that. And, um, yeah, I'm enjoying that one right now.
[00:53:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love it. All right. If you could have dinner with one person in the world today, who are you taking to dinner?
[00:54:01] Guest: Adam Rakich: So there's a guy that that is is probably not particularly well known, uh, on your side of the pond, but, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I'm a huge fan of, like, Victorian An engineer, I believe, is Tuttle, but he just did so much with one life. I'm just so jealous. So he was a huge pioneer in the railways. So there are stations at Paddington station in London, Bristol Temple station that he was, you know, responsible for building. But he also built the first tunnel under the Thames in London, the Thames River in London. He also built what at the time was the largest ship in the world, the SS Great Britain, which you can go visit in Bristol today. It basically capsized immediately. It was not a big win for him, but.
[00:55:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I yeah, I know you mean the people you watch how much they accomplished in life and you're like, what have I done with. Yeah I'm a failure. Hence why comparison is the thief of joy.
[00:55:13] Guest: Adam Rakich: Exactly right.
[00:55:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Easy to do, but you never win. All right, so as we wrap up here, you know, if someone wants to learn more about you or potentially get in touch with you, you know, services, things you do. What's the best way for them to reach out or learn more about you?
[00:55:28] Guest: Adam Rakich: So I mean, all the normal ways, right? I'm always on LinkedIn. You're very welcome to send me a connection request. or you can. I blog for North Texas quite frequently. I try to make sure that the blog is actual opinions and tips on planning, rather than just a feature of software that we work with. So no matter what you do, hopefully there's a value there. You can follow North Texas, or if I'm pointing at it I know my hand will go.
[00:55:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, you're I think you're pointing right.
[00:55:56] Guest: Adam Rakich: So you can do it on LinkedIn or of course on our website. And there's a contact us form on the North Texas website. I'd love to hear from anybody.
[00:56:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well, perfect. Thank you so much for joining me. And next time we want to talk James Bond philosophy, I'll make sure to have you on Adam.
[00:56:13] Guest: Adam Rakich: I'm sure it'll come up time and again.
[00:56:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. So thanks again.
[00:56:21] Guest: Adam Rakich: Thanks so much for having me.
[00:56:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst:Thanks for listening to FP&A tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me the show host for further details.