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Hello Reader 👋

You know, I rarely promote events in this newsletter. But this time, it’s different.

Because if I go back a few years, there’s one change that completely transformed how my FP&A team worked.

The one of reclaiming our time.

We switched from Excel-heavy, manual reporting to Power BI.

And that single move unlocked everything I wanted for the team (and what the business had always expected from us).

If your team is stuck in spreadsheet loops, trust me: you’ll want to check the link at the end of this edition.

Oh, and apart from that, I made a new Youtube video to show you how to build your slides and it's awesome 😎

So take a coffee, sit down and read FP&A Stories just like 26k other readers.

This edition is brought to you by Zebra BI

If you want your FP&A team to spend less time building slides and more time influencing decisions, this is the webinar you can’t miss.

Beyond Excel: How Modern CFOs Leverage Power BI and AI for Better Insights

• Learn how to move your reporting beyond Excel without starting from scratch
• See how AI & automation help deliver insights faster
• Understand what to automate, standardise, or rebuild
• Get inspired by top-level BI dashboards that drive decisions

Date: May 28, 2025 – 6:00 PM CEST

Speakers: Andrej Lapajne (Founder & CEO) & Tilen Barbarič (Lead BI Consultant)

👉 Register for Free

This week in FP&A Stories

💻 Why Automating Was the Best FP&A Decision I Ever Made

When I joined that team as FP&A Manager, I had ideas.

I wanted to make Finance more proactive. To bring modelling into business cases. To help leaders build better forecasts. To challenge plans before they became commitments.

But every time I shared that ambition, I got the same answer from the team:
“We’d love to… but we don’t have time.”

And they weren’t lying.

They were buried under reports.
Copying. Pasting. Rechecking. Manually tweaking slides because numbers had changed during the day.

Add to that the never-ending emails and ad hoc requests, no way they stood a chance.

And because I was the “new guy with big plans,” it took time before anyone trusted I actually wanted to help.

Why I Pushed for Automation Anyway

Because we had no choice.

If we wanted to deliver insights or participate to business projects, we needed time. And if we wanted time, we had to eliminate the things that were stealing it.

So I looked at everything that could be automated:

• Monthly reports
• Performance dashboards
• Business unit packs
• Even the little "easy-that-require-no-time" requests

And we built them directly in Power BI.
No more manual refresh. No more guessing which file version was the right one. No more 4 a.m. fixes before the SteerCo.

What Made It Hard

I quickly realised: the problem wasn’t Excel but rather the habits, the fear, the learning curve, the lack of use cases.

Every time I suggested something new, I could feel the resistance.
People weren’t lazy. They were overwhelmed.

They didn’t know what “automated” really looked like.
They thought Power BI was only for IT.
And I didn’t have clear examples to show them what was possible.

Honestly, I was figuring it out as I went.
And looking back, I know we could’ve saved months (and dozens of painful alignment meetings) if we had just seen how other finance teams did it.

That’s why I’m pointing you to the Zebra BI webinar.
Because if you want to do this kind of shift in your team, you need real stories, not tool demos.

And this session will give you exactly that.

What Changed Afterwards

The results too time but they were real.

📌 For the business:

• Real-time access to performance
• One version of the truth
• Less dependency on Finance for every tiny number

📌 For Finance:

• Fewer errors
• More credibility
• Actual time to think, model, and partner

It meant more useful work.

And that’s what changed the relationship.

Suddenly, people were coming to us for advice.

One Thing My Team Still Struggled With

Even with all the automation, there was still a skill gap: choosing the right chart.

Bar or line? Pie or waterfall? Scatter or bullet?

I wish I had created that Cheat Sheet back then but since I now have it, I’m sharing it with you here.

🔹 Bar or column → to compare categories
🔹 Line → to show evolution over time
🔹 Pie → to highlight dominant parts
🔹 Waterfall → to explain a full P&L from revenue to margin
🔹 Bullet → to compare actual vs. target
🔹 Scatter → to show correlation between two variables

Each one has its own rules, ideal use cases, and storytelling strength.
(You'll find it all in the visual attached below.)

Use this as a reference next time you build a dashboard or prepare a results review.

Because the visual helps the message but only if it’s done right.

📺 Don't know how to design your slides? Check my New Youtube Video

This week, I was giving a training session at Deloitte and a bit like always, there was a big focus on the slides.

And it's true that it's generally what we start with (although I recommend having first your message, your narrative and then only work on your slides).

So I directed them to this new video, where I show you how to design your slides so your audience is not overwhelmed.

Just click on the video below and let me know what you think 😉

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That's a wrap for this week

See you next week!​