Who is a Financial Modeling Consultant?
Financial modeling consultants are individuals or firms that are hired by the businesses for performing certain financial modeling tasks such as budgeting & forecasting, mergers & acquisition, raising capital, and other important financial tasks. These consultants are majorly hired by small businesses since they don’t have separate finance planning and analysis team that could otherwise develop the financial models and executes or analyze them for the business.
Responsibilities
It is expected to perform the following functions:
- Building different financial models based on historical data of a business and provide forecasts based on the analysis of historical data as well as industry metrics.
- Carry out a scenario analysis to determine the risk that a business might be exposed to, based on different factors.
- Ensuring implementation of processes to improve budget and preparation of the company’s forecasts.
- Identifying the risks faced by a business, both financial and non-financial, and curate a mitigation strategy for the same.
- To update the financial models as and when required at different time periods.
- Carry out company valuations, capital structure study, and comparable companies analysis.
Who Hires Financial Modeling Consultant?
Top companies and business houses hire financial modeling consultants to handle their budgets & forecasts, mergers & acquisitions, capital raising, and other financial transactions. In comparison, some companies might be having internal employees in their financial planning and analysis team who act as a consultant for them. Other companies might hire the financial modeling consultants from outside the nature of their professional since they might not be having a separate financial planning and analysis team.
Career Path
If you are planning to become a consultant, you must know what the career path for a person entering the financial planning & analysis (FP&A) domain is.
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- The first step is to become an FP&A analyst. For this, you need to have an undergraduate degree in the accounting field and working experience of one to three years in accounting or finance.
- To become a senior FP&A analyst, you need to get an MBA degree in your portfolio and experience of three to five years.
- As you work and progress, you can get promoted as FP&A manager once you have gained an experience of about five to ten years.
- Finally, you can become an FP&A director after you prove your worth and hold an experience of more than ten years.
Salary
The salaries drawn by financial modeling consultants depend on the level at which they are working. The average salaries drawn by working at different levels are discussed as follows:
- FP&A: $50,000 to $70,000
- FP&A Senior Analyst: $65,000 to $85,000
- FP&A Manager: $85,000 to $115,000
- Director FP&A: $100,000 to $250,000
Services
- Raising funds for different projects and deciding the source of fund, i.e. debt vs equity.
- Deciding the merger and acquisition deals
- Budgeting and forecasting
- Cost-benefit analysis for any new project or activity to be undertaken
- Valuation of stocks and other securities
Financial Modeling Consulting Firms
Financial modeling consulting firms are those organizations involved in providing services relating to financial modeling and necessary consultation. These firms build up Excel-based tools for their clients which helps in forecasting the future performance of the clients. In preparing such forecasts, the firms take into account the historical performance of the client, industry trends, and some assumptions. The firm prepares the forecasted balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement (commonly known as 3 statement model) for its client. Afterwards, a number of financial models are developed, such as the discounted cash flow model, leveraged-buyout model, mergers & acquisitions model, and so on. These financial models are beneficial for the clients in making key financial decisions.
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