4 August | by Benjamin Stoter, Marcus Small and Lance Rubin

Introduction to the co-authors

Benjamin Stoter is a Chartered Accountant and is a self-taught financial modeller.

He completed his articles at KPMG whereafter he joined a national Real Estate company and worked in various roles such as Asset manager, Operational and Financial controller; Group Financial Manager and ultimately Group Head of Treasury, FP&A and Systems.

Very few 😬 finance professionals have what it takes to build a good financial model, but if you use a few short steps you can find 👀 those diamonds👷 in the rough.

It's like changing someones title to Finance Business Partner and expect them 😁 to suddenly add value and build good models.

It doesn't work 👎that way, never will!

Without the right training and hiring you will just be running on the same tredmill 😵 with the same people with the same skills gap😱.

Being an advanced excel user📈(not that anyone can succintly explain exactly what that means) helps, but its certainly not the only criteria.☝

Forecasting does not guarantee you will be great at financial modelling. 😱

Just because you can drive a car doesn't mean you can be a Formula 1 race car driver. 🚗

Playing T20 cricket doesn't guarantee you will be a great test cricketer. 😁

The same goes for forecasting and financial modelling. 📊 📈 📉

#FinancialModelling #Finance #FutureofFinance

I often get direct messages on LinkedIn from people asking me for either a job, career advice or helping them understand financial modelling and how do they apply for jobs in Australia, thinking Australia is immune to accountants losing jobs or unable to get them.

I wrote this blog to help the many that are lost in this fast evolving work force.

3 years ago I stepped out of the corporate world and became, what I didn't realise at the time, a virtual CFO for Banjo (Fintech lender).

I don't really like the word VCFO but it's what we have for now so let's just roll with it. Probably a blog on its own.

This post is some more tips and tricks I learnt along the way and especially clearly proving the Power of One = Power of None.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Over the past year I've met many finance professionals as part of our FOFM world tour and future of finance workshops.

Despite all the hype of digital finance transformation and the rise of analytics and advanced AI and ML there is one thing that still concerns me deeply about our ability to adopt change, innovation and better Excel skills.

I'm not even referring to adopting new tools and technologies (many of which will radically change our work today and are here now) but changing how we use our existing tools.

Ever heard of the term Monte Carlo Simulation. Its more than just an awesome casino its a much better way to make forecasting decisions.

Want to know more? 

Read this blog and you will change your mind about decision making.

This Blog post is intended to provide future finance professionals with some insight in terms of developing a VCFO business.

Having evolved my CFO role into a VCFO there were many things I learnt and also would have changed had I known better.

Hopefully my mistakes don't need to be repeated by others.

This blog post explores the first major wave of spreadsheet innovation and compares it to Airbnb.

There are a lot of benefits from the sharing economy but when it comes to spreadsheets sharing content is not only foreign but also risky. 

But now it is both possible and lower risk resulting in new opportunities.

Your forecast is only as good as your financial model. Do you agree?

Finance Masters use financial modelling to their advantage by creating forecasts updated in real-time, using internationally recognized modelling standards and might even compete in Model Off. Here's a jointly written post by myself and Anders Liu-Lindberg on what it takes to become a Finance Master in financial modelling. So, do you model off with the masters?

NEED HELP searching for the best advisory tool in the market.

After meeting over 50 finance professionals and accountants last week, it remains absolutely clear to me that, the majority of people have no idea which rabbit hole of technology to go down to assess the best advisory tools.

So, I decided to write this post and create a poll.

I would like the customers to talk. Knowledge shared is extremely powerful and time saving for us all!

This post provides the readers some insight as to the differences between Data Analytics/Big Data and Financial Modeling.

After reading this post, finance and business professionals should have a clearer understanding of what these skills, processes and systems can enable.

Most important is to understand the problem first then find the solution, not just follow trends.

This post explores the benefits and opportunities that arise when it comes to disrupting a finance role. 

The post goes into specifics of the why and the how of job disruption. The benefits are significant with 75% time savings in this example.  The replacement of which was the flexibility to do more interesting and valuable work for both myself and my employer.

The Modeloff (World Financial Modeling Champsionship) Global Training Camps are an excellent place to explore and learn new technologies and skills. 

This blog explores the first ever Australian Modeloff GTC in August 2016 and some of the latest platforms and innovations.

This post explores other potential applications of the skills in financial modeling. The rise in social benefit bonds require a financial model to better estimate the returns to investors and the cost to governments and potential benefits to society.

Now its possible to save more than just money with a financial model.

The reality of what "the machines are coming" really means in the context of disruption in the roles of Finance teams in large organisations. 

This is a cautionary tail of what happens when you try to be innovative in a large organisation and don't support staff to embrace change.

Requirements for accountants and finance professionals to develop financial modelling skills is a key to career success. Read more to find out why.

Demands for financial modelling have increased significantly over time. Find out why.