The problem isn’t your data. It’s your model’s belief system. Every forecast carries an invisible worldview — how the company thinks growth “should” behave.But as markets shift faster than spreadsheets update, those belief systems quietly harden into constraints. The result?Your forecast doesn’t just predict the future.It limits it. At The Schlott Company, we’ve rebuilt hundreds […]
We once reviewed a model from a CFO who claimed his forecast was accurate to the penny. It wasn’t.It only looked that way. The workbook was polished — balanced, reconciled, color-coded, every cell accounted for. Yet inside that perfection lived a quiet flaw that erodes credibility across finance teams: false precision. The Illusion of Accuracy […]
The Provocation “Annual planning is dead.” That’s not the kind of line you expect to hear from a finance leader. It’s the sort of heresy that makes a boardroom go silent and a CFO shift in their chair. Yet Sarah Schlott, Founder & CEO of The Schlott Company, has built her reputation on saying the […]
Why FP&A Must Treat Geopolitics as a Financial Driver North Korea set new conditions for resuming talks with the United States, with Kim Jong Un citing his “fond memories” of meetings with Donald Trump but insisting Washington drop demands for denuclearisation. The headline may sound like pure politics. But to financial planning and analysis (FP&A) […]
7 Ways AI in FP&A Creates New Risks You Can’t Ignore AI is flooding into FP&A. Forecasts update in seconds, dashboards glow with insights, and executives cheer at “smarter” planning. But here’s the truth: AI doesn’t remove risk. It creates new ones. And if you’re not careful, your forecast bot will lie more confidently than […]
Why FP&A Needs Decision Ownership, Not Consensus Theater Most FP&A teams mistake “inclusive” forecasting for accuracy.They gather inputs from every function, run endless meetings, and stitch together a model built on 20 competing opinions. It feels democratic. It looks collaborative. Leadership calls it “alignment.” But it’s not forecasting. It’s consensus theater. And it misses, quarter […]
Why FP&A Needs Capacity for Human Energy in Forecasts Most FP&A models assume people are machines. Productivity per headcount is fixed, output per hire never wavers, and teams deliver indefinitely at full tilt. But businesses don’t run on perfect constants. They run on people. And when FP&A ignores human energy, forecasts might balance on […]
Most FP&A teams act like competitors don’t exist.Forecasts are built entirely on internal assumptions: revenue, churn, headcount, expenses. But markets don’t move in a vacuum. Your forecast doesn’t just depend on you — it depends on them. The Blind Spot Here’s what happens when FP&A ignores competitors: You model pricing as stable while a rival […]
Finance teams obsess over numbers: revenue, margins, headcount.But the one driver that rarely makes it into the forecast — and quietly determines all the rest — is trust. When trust erodes inside a company, the financial impact is immediate and brutal: Sales cycles stretch because prospects don’t believe promises. Renewal rates collapse when customers doubt […]
Everyone loves a scenario model. Base case, upside, downside.But here’s the dirty secret: most FP&A teams don’t assign probabilities — or worse, they assign them blindly. Here are five ways teams botch probability in FP&A scenario planning: 1. Defaulting to 70/20/10 Splits The lazy template. Base case 70%, upside 20%, downside 10%. If your “probabilities” […]