Financial planning compact

The Planning Landscape — Clarity Instead of Chaos

• What types of financial planning are there, and what are they for?
  Business plan, 3-year plan, budget, rolling forecast, cash planning, ...: What sets them apart, who needs what, and when? And how are they all connected?
• From Strategy to the Numbers:
  Who provides what, when, and in what level of detail?
• Level of Planning and Data Collection:
  How Much Planning Is Enough? When Does It Become Bureaucracy?

Setting Up the Planning Process

• Driver-Based Planning:
  Which drivers really matter and how they serve as the basis for revenue, costs, and investments.
• Revenue Planning:
  From Strategy to Numbers: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? How Both Perspectives Come Together to Form a Robust Plan.
• Cost Planning:
  Plan fixed and variable costs in a structured way. Understand one-time and recurring costs and report them separately.
• Investment Planning:
  What investment decisions mean in the plan. Impact on the income statement and cash flow.
• Rolling Forecasts and Continuous Planning:
  Planning as an ongoing, lean process with a feedback loop that continuously aligns plans with reality and keeps decisions up to date.

 Understanding and Actively Managing Liquidity

• Cash Flow Planning and Liquidity Forecasting:
  Methods, Level of Detail, and Common Pitfalls.
• Working Capital as a Management Tool:
  Receivables, payables, inventory. Where the money really is—and how to involve operational teams in setting goals.
• Establish an early warning system:
  Identify funding needs early on, set critical thresholds and alerts to respond promptly to potential bottlenecks.

From Planning to Management to Communication

• The Right Metrics:
  Which KPIs are relevant for management and how they are used as a management tool.
• Plan-Actual Variances:
  Understand the causes, draw conclusions, and communicate the results clearly and in a manner tailored to the audience.
• Scenario Planning:
  Base Case, Upside, Downside. Think systematically instead of reacting to surprises.
• Stakeholder Communication:
  Why banks, investors, and management need different types of planning, and how to properly present planning results to each target audience.