"We do FP&A" means very little without a real calendar behind it. This post is that calendar — what actually happens each month, in what order, what tends to go wrong at each step, and exactly which report lands on whose desk. If Financial Planning & Analysis is new territory for your business, this is the operational version of our broader guide to what FP&A is.
The Monthly Calendar
Step by Step
Day 1–3 — The close
Bank and card accounts reconciled, AR and AP schedules updated, accruals booked, and the P&L and balance sheet closed. FP&A cannot start meaningfully before this is genuinely done — analysis built on an unreconciled close just produces a confident, wrong answer.
Day 3–5 — Variance analysis and the first draft
Actual versus budget and actual versus prior period, with every material variance traced to a real cause, not just flagged as a number. The rolling forecast gets updated with the new actuals. The KPI dashboard refreshes.
Day 5 — Package delivered
The complete monthly package goes out: P&L variance commentary, updated forecast, cash position, and the KPI dashboard. Books closed by day 3, package delivered by day 5 is a realistic, disciplined standard — not an aspirational one.
Day 5–7 — Stakeholder review
Walkthrough calls with department heads on their specific variances, and with leadership on the consolidated picture. This is where numbers turn into decisions — a report nobody discusses is just an email.
Ongoing, every week — Cash flow forecast
Independent of the monthly close cycle, the 13-week rolling cash flow forecast updates weekly against actual receipts and payments. Waiting for month-end to refresh cash visibility means running on data that can be three weeks stale by the time a real problem shows up.
Quarterly — Board reporting and reforecast
A more formal board or investor pack, and a fuller reforecast against the annual budget — checking whether the year's original assumptions still hold, and adjusting the remaining quarters if they do not.
Things to Remember
- Reconcile before you analyse, every time. A variance explanation built on an account that turns out to be unreconciled has to be redone from scratch — confirm the close is genuinely final before the first chart gets built.
- Flag one-time items explicitly. A large one-off expense or a timing difference dressed up as a trend misleads whoever reads the report next. Call it out by name, don't let it blend into the run rate.
- Document assumptions in the model, not just in your head. Six months later, nobody remembers why a specific growth rate or cost ratio was chosen — a short note in the model saves a much longer conversation later.
- Version control the model. A forecast model with no clear version history becomes impossible to audit when a number looks different from what was presented last month, and someone reasonably asks why.
- Tie every report back to the accounting system. If the FP&A package and the general ledger do not agree, the FP&A package is wrong by definition — the accounting system is the source of truth, not the model.
- Send the review invite before the numbers are ready, not after. Waiting until the package is done to schedule the walkthrough call is how "day 5 delivery" quietly becomes "day 12 conversation."
Reports to Submit, and to Whom
| Report | Goes To | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Department-level variance detail | Budget-owning department or team heads | Monthly |
| Consolidated P&L, cash position, KPI dashboard | CEO and CFO or Virtual CFO | Monthly |
| 13-week rolling cash flow forecast | CEO, CFO, and anyone managing liquidity directly | Weekly |
| Board or investor pack | Board of directors, investors | Monthly or quarterly |
| Lender or covenant compliance report | Bank or lending institution, where applicable | As required by the facility |
| Full annual budget and reforecast | Leadership and board, for approval | Annually, reforecast quarterly |
Want this exact cadence running for your business, without building the process yourself?
We deliver the monthly FP&A package on this schedule — books closed by day 3, package delivered by day 5, weekly cash flow forecasting throughout.
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Where to Go From Here
If you have not yet read the fundamentals, see our guide to what Financial Planning & Analysis actually is, including the roles and outsourced-versus-in-house comparison. For the specific question of where FP&A sits relative to a CFO, see our companion post on CFO versus FP&A responsibilities.
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We run this exact process for growing businesses across India, USA and UAE — reconciled books, a delivered package by day 5, and weekly cash flow visibility throughout.
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