Predictive Planning for FP&A: AI and Seeing Around Corners

AI “will continue to shape industries and direct innovation,” according to Gartner, and it’s hard to disagree. At Firmbase, we’ve been able to see first-hand the huge impact our AI-first platform can have for teams aiming to supercharge their FP&A work.

AI is so significant within the FP&A context partly because its strengths play precisely into enabling more accurate and actionable financial planning for FP&A, which is a core aspect of the department’s role within a business. 

In this article, we’ll explore what makes AI so effective at what you could call “seeing around corners.”

Much More Data

The crux of the transformative effect of AI is that teams can base understanding and predictions in far more data than was previously possible. That’s true for every industry, not just finance. Whether you’re talking about fields as disparate as marketing, fraud prevention, scientific research or FP&A, the story is the same: AI gives you a much bigger picture, with much more detail. 

Back in the day, FP&A teams relied primarily on Excel spreadsheets, and however flexible and satisfying those were to work with, there was a natural limit to not just their capacity but the capacity of the humans leveraging them. Machines don’t have that same inbuilt limitation. 

With AI, you can work with data from across the entire company, including the drilled-down details that are sometimes essential for seeing vulnerabilities or explanations for discrepancies. You can also incorporate data from external sources, whether that’s your suppliers, third party researches, market trends, consumer behaviors etc. 

You can then ask questions in regular language to AI agents such as the one in Firmbase’s platform, and get answers to the pressing questions for your business in clear, data-driven terms.

What that means for Predictive Planning for FP&A

This level of additional data, combined with AI’s ability to condense and analyze to provide actionable insights, means that FP&A planning can be far more accurate than ever before. This has important business impact, including:

• Confidence. Even when the overall trend or conclusion is clear with less data, with AI you have far greater confidence because you can see it playing out with greater depth and breadth. 
• Opportunities. AI is great at identifying patterns. Human intelligence is needed to work out what to do with them. The more AI can take the foundational data gathering and analysis aspect off your plate, the more an FP&A team can focus on using the results to the business’ best advantage. 
• Curveballs. If there’s something coming that might throw a spanner in the works, you’re far more likely to spot it in time when you’re working with more data across more fields. Your team can be ready with an analysis of possible effects on your business and a suggested plan for mitigation before the problem really hits. 
• Prevention. Some issues can be prevented. For instance, when you’re working with more data you can predict with accuracy when your machinery or materials will wear out or become unreliable. You can optimize maintenance or replacements accordingly.  

All of these together represent a competitive advantage for your business, if you leverage them effectively and use AI to ensure you’re providing relevant, data-driven recommendations when they’re needed or even before. 

Running in Real Time

Once upon a time, there were regular check-in or data gathering sessions. They were sometimes monthly, often quarterly, occasionally annual. That meant that even though FP&A teams are naturally future-focused, they were always operating handicapped, because the data they were working from within their own business was always behindhand. 

AI has changed all of that. Now, planning and predictions are both dynamic, reflective of the reality right now, and therefore compellingly also the reality right round the corner. 

What that means for Predictive Planning

A platform that’s designed to incorporate AI natively in all the functionality most critical to finance teams can ensure oversight and recommendations that are more relevant and more actionable than ever before. 

When you have the detailed real-time picture of the business’ financial health constantly at the tips of your fingers, you can pinpoint key drivers in a way that simply wasn’t possible before, flag any issues in any department before they become problematic, and talk through scenario planning with leadership to ensure the business is prepared for what you’re predicting. 

Goodbye to Data Silos

The larger an organization grows, the more certain it is to have data silos built in, but even small companies can unintentionally allow silos to take root unnoticed. With silos come disjointed understanding of how things are going, misaligned communications and expectations, and if left unchecked, real dysfunction. 

AI can change that for an organization. The less you rely on manual processes to collect, compare and analyze data, the more easily you can centralize information and ensure a single source of truth that everyone can rely on and use. 

Doing this properly does require care to be taken on a structural level. Key terms and goals need to be agreed on across departments, and ownership and responsibility for metrics and objectives need to be constant elements of the organization’s framework and its approach to data. With this handled well from a structural perspective, data silos can cease to be a major stumbling block for predictive planning for FP&A teams and the business as a whole. 

What that means for Predictive Planning

Done right, the breakdown of silos and the emergence of a single source of data, unified business language and resulting actionable business intelligence can be a superpower for an FP&A team. 

This takes collaboration between departments to a whole new level. Budgets and budgeting processes can be clearer and cleaner, issues in budget versus actual discrepancies can be identified early on, and forecasts and the planning that’s based on them can become far more accurate. 

Even better, predictive planning can also be more impactful because a more joined up connection between business partners means that a shared understanding is built up and reinforced, making buy-in for recommendations much simpler to achieve. When everyone is on the same page, it’s a lot easier to get everyone aligned on next steps. 

Automated Data Centralization & Processes

It might sound like breaking down data silos is a necessary but extremely burdensome process, but with automation, that doesn’t have to be true. On the contrary, a lot of it comes down to setting up data flows effectively once – and having a system that flags when anything goes wrong. 

With a platform such as Firmbase, the integration can be smooth, streamlined and hassle-free. Moreover, today’s technology means that any professional can have agency and autonomy when it comes with adding to or working with the data. There’s no need for technical experts to help adjust processes; instead, no-code platforms enable dynamic, flexible approaches. 

It’s particularly important to note that for 2025 the focus should be on what Gartner calls “composite AI” which combines different AI methodologies, such as machine learning and natural language processing, to take AI in business to the next level. 

What that means for Predictive Planning

FP&A is by nature a strategic function, but until the advent of AI and automation, there was also a manual burden that was necessary in order to make the strategic analysis and resulting processes possible.

Now, FP&A teams can devote their efforts and attention to the real core of the role, so that they’re far more likely to spot opportunities and potential weaknesses, and have time and space to work out options for dealing with them. 

Automation also removes a lot of the possibility of error, meaning that everyone involved can be more confident in the results produced by an FP&A team that, rather than pouring hours into manual data calculations or spreadsheets, has time to use creative thinking to create new value and possibilities.  

The more a team leverages composite AI, the more the combined power of methodologies can get results. For example for FP&A you could have automation, machine learning (with its analysis and pattern recognition) and natural language processing (so that you can ask the AI questions in normal language, no code required) all playing a role in making a platform far more powerful.

Democratized Access to Computing Power

Using AI to be able to adjust on the fly depending on how trends evolve and the new factors that arise is a huge improvement in terms of accuracy and impact for an FP&A team. The democratized access to computing power doesn’t just affect FP&A teams directly, however. There’s also a knock-on effect. 

Firmbase’s AI-first platform empowers any business function to use natural language queries to find out more about the status of their key metrics, and work out what that means for them and what they should do about it. 

For instance, sales and revenue teams can drill down into transaction details, flows and pipeline, increase sales capacity and work with other departments to handle the product or logistical implications of that, and drive territory alignment. HR teams can see their workforce landscape clearly and plan accordingly. And these teams – and many others – can work together to promote the business’ main goals. 

What that means for Predictive Planning

The removal of the emphasis on technical abilities, and the democratization of leveraging computing power to make data impactful, helps FP&A teams themselves and also increases the importance of and potential impact of FP&A teams within their company. 

Recommendations can be more precisely targeted to a department or organization’s needs. Moreover, the ease of developing a common business language and shared understanding of the business’ situation, in relation to its priorities, means that FP&A’s role of predictive planning shows itself as both essential and data-driven. 

The Superpower of Predictive Planning in FP&A

Predictive planning can be a huge competitive advantage for a business. Companies that are aligned around an accurate, real-time vision of where they are – and how that relates to where they want to be – can take the steps they need to achieve their goals in a timely, precise and effective manner. 

With AI, FP&A teams have the opportunity to supercharge their predictive planning, increasing their accuracy, relevance, and impact through improved analysis, collaboration and recommendations.