When embarking upon the budget process for your organisation this year, practical Microsoft Excel tools and strong financial modelling skills will be critical for managing the budget process. Historically, the budget process involves pulling out the financials and rolling them forward, but last year’s actuals can no longer be an automatic target.
Traditional management accounting has always had its challenges and the COVID pandemic has made its shortfalls even more apparent. We find ourselves with forecasts and budgets that were not realistic, and we have learnt that organisations must be agile to survive.
The cash flow is an intrinsic part of a project finance model, particularly when modelling the debt schedule. In this live meetup session we hear from Paris-based financial modelling author, lecturer and investment banker, Hedieh Kianyfard as she describes and demonstrates the cash flow waterfall.
If you have obtained your Level 1 AFM qualification from the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI) and are thinking about taking the next step, watch to find out more about Level 2. The next FMI Level 2 Financial Modelling certification exam is coming up on 24th April, and again in October 2020, and you may be wondering what to expect on the day, or how you can best get ready to give yourself the best possible chance of success.
If you are thinking about sitting for the next FMI Level 1 Financial Modelling certification exam, you may be wondering what to expect on the day, or how you can best get ready to give yourself the best possible chance of success. In this session we hear from FMI representative, Julian Cupillari and FMI Approved Training Provider, Danielle Stein Fairhurst to find out more about the exam. We will be sharing some tips and tricks to help you prepare and will also be joined by a panel of AFM modellers from around the world (Nicole Cambridge, Jamie Hughes, Adza Stella Vajime and Rafi Al Kabid) who were answering audience questions and sharing their strategies on how they passed and gained this rigorous qualification!
Professionals working in a finance team might build beautiful reports or financial models which we are enormously proud of, as we have usually put a huge amount of work into. These models are not helpful, however, if other people are not able to actually use or understand them and their messages and use them to make decisions. One of the things – and often the missing piece – for financial modellers is having the skills to present the output of the model in a way that is useful and easy for others to interpret.
Recently our friends at Full Stack Modeller conducted the biggest ever survey of the financial modelling profession, and the results were published in February 2021. What are financial modeller’s biggest frustrations? How much do modellers earn? What add-ins and tools beyond Excel do modellers use? Covering tools, standards, risk management and more, the 2021 survey paints a picture of the current state of play in financial modelling.
Many attempts have been made to objectively measure the quality, risk and simplicity of financial models. As analytics improve and model metadata can be collected more easily, are we entering a period where risk scores are entirely automated? Are we moving towards a future where risk scores are not only readily available but also automatically take into account the model’s commercial context, environment and users?
Most financial models contain a valuation section for investors, which usually includes the calculation of Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). But are these metrics sufficient for professional valuation practitioners when they value an investment? What do valuation practitioners look at when they use a financial model to assess the value of an asset?
Learning to build a fully dynamic three-way model is an important part of becoming a financial modeller, and a pre-requisite to being certified by the Financial Modeling Institute (FMI). A three-way model refers to the three financial statements of a company; the P&L (Income Statement), Cashflow and Balance Sheet. An FMI certified financial modeller should be able to build these statements, and link them dynamically so as to be able to perform scenario analysis;.. all in under four hours!
