FPAC Part I case studies
FPAC Part I · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Certified Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis Professional (FPAC) is a credential established and administered by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), which describes itself as the certifying body in treasury and finance and states that it set up the CTP and FPAC credentials to set the standard of excellence in the profession globally. The FPAC is aimed at corporate FP&A practitioners - the AFP frames credential holders as financial experts and trusted advisors to the business, and describes earning and maintaining the credential as confirmation of commitment to the profession and a signal that the holder is ready to drive FP&A and the organization forward. The FPAC Part I case studies are 5 cases and about 2,094 words.
1The Margin That Vanished Between Two Reports
A mid-market manufacturer reports Q3 gross margin of 31.4% to its board, down from 34.1% in Q2, and the CFO is asked to explain a 2.7-point deterioration. Revenue was flat at 48.2M both quarters.
438 words, about 2 min2The Dashboard That Agreed With Nobody
A retail finance team built a daily sales dashboard pulling from three sources: the POS system (transaction-level, near real-time), the ERP (posted invoices, T+1 batch), and a data warehouse fed by both. The CFO notices the dashboard shows 2.14M for Tuesday, the ERP close shows 2.08M, and the POS extract sums to $2.19M.
394 words, about 2 min3The Acquisition That Looked Accretive on Paper
A company with 40M diluted shares and 160M net income ( 4.00 EPS) is considering acquiring a target for 500M in cash plus 100M of assumed debt. The target has EBITDA of 70M, D&A of 25M, and interest expense of 8M, giving pre-tax income of 37M.
392 words, about 2 min4The Forecast That Never Gets Revised
A SaaS company's FP&A team produces a 13-week cash forecast. For six consecutive weeks, actual cash collections have come in 8–12% below forecast, always in the same direction.
408 words, about 2 min5The Data Pipeline That Broke the Month-End
A finance team automated its month-end close using an ETL pipeline that pulls from the billing system, maps accounts via a rules table, and loads a consolidation model. Last month the close took 3 days instead of the usual 1.
462 words, about 2 min