Your First 90 Days in an FP&A Role: A Tactical Guide to Building Credibility and Impact
So, you've landed an FP&A role. Congratulations! You've just joined the Jedi Order of strategic finance. But before you grab your lightsaber (Excel, obviously), let’s talk about how to make your first 90 days count.
Whether you're transitioning from accounting, starting your first finance job, or moving into a new company as a seasoned pro, the first three months will define how influential you'll be later on.
In FP&A, those 90 days are your one shot at establishing yourself as someone who understands business and makes things better. Get it right, and you’ll be seen as a go-to person who drives decisions. Commit early missteps (like chasing perfect models before you understand context), and you’ll be seen as back-office analyst forever.
FP&A is often misunderstood, even by people in finance. It’s not just about reports or variance analysis. It’s about influencing decisions before they’re made.
In your first 90 days, you’re building your reputation, whether you realize it or not. So, to do it successfully you’ll need a plan that doesn’t suck.
Treat your onboarding like a live case study or a mini FP&A transformation project where the deliverable is you, positioned as a strategic partner.
Here’s the high-level structure of a 30-60-90 day plan that will help you.
Days 1-30: Get obsessed with the business (not just the numbers).
Learn, Listen, Map: Absorb the business, meet stakeholders, understand the current state.
1. Understand the business model in a better way than finance usually does
Get clear on how the company makes money. Learn:
Key revenue drivers: What truly drives top-line growth? Volume, price, product mix, customer retention?
Cost structure: Understand fixed vs variable costs, margin profiles, and cost centers. What are the major cost buckets?
Customer segmentation: Who are the main customer types? How do they differ in behavior, pricing, and lifecycle?
Unit economics: What’s the contribution margin per unit, product, or customer? What’s the breakeven point?
What are the top 3 levers the CEO watches monthly?
💡 Tip: Ask a salesperson to explain the pricing model, and a product manager how they define “value”. These two answers will tell you a lot.
2. Stakeholder mapping: Know who can make or break you
In FP&A, your internal network is your oxygen. Identify your internal customers:
Budget owners: Department heads who own cost centers - they need help planning and tracking their budgets.
Sales, Marketing, Operations: Functions that drive revenue or incur substantial costs - they’re your strategic partners.
The CFO and controllers: Senior leaders who need reliable forecasts, scenario modeling, and data-driven insights.
Book intro meetings. Ask:
What keeps you up at night? (This surfaces pain points).
What do you wish finance did better? (This uncovers ncovers unmet needs and opportunities for improvement).
How do you use the current reports and forecasts? (This tells you what’s working or not).
Take notes. These pain points are future opportunities.
3. Learn the tools and the limitations
This isn’t just about knowing how to pull reports. You need to understand what’s possible and where the limitations lie.
Common tools:
ERP - your source of truth for transactions, GL data, and actuals.
Planning platforms - where forecasts, budgets, and models live.
BI tools - used for dashboards, reporting automation, and slicing data.
4. Review existing reports and budgets
You’ll want to know:
Are reports automated or manual? Manual processes create risk and eat time. Automation opportunities are low-hanging fruit.
What KPIs are tracked? Focus on leading indicators, not just lagging ones. Know the difference between vanity metrics and real performance drivers.
How accurate are the forecasts? Understand past forecast accuracy and the root causes of variance.
5. Understand the culture
Every finance team has its vibe. Some are fast-paced and strategic; others are more reactive. Some are collaborative and iterative, others are hierarchical and formal.
Observe how decisions are made and how finance is perceived. Observing culture helps you adapt your style and communicate effectively.
Examples:
Decision-making style: Are strategies data-driven or intuition-led? Who makes the final call: a single executive or a steering committee? Does finance have a seat at the table in strategic discussions, or are they looped in late?
Collaboration patterns: Does finance work closely with other teams or operate in a silo? Are budget reviews tense or collaborative?
Communication tone: Are meetings structured or freeform? Are Slack/Teams messages casual or buttoned-up?
💡 Tip: Watch how emails are written. If everyone starts with "Hi team" vs. "Per our earlier discussion," you'll get a sense of formality and tone.
Days 31-60: Prove you can drive insight, not just track variance
Analyze, Add Value, Communicate: Start analyzing data, building quick wins, and supporting decision-making.
1. Deep-dive into data with a story in mind
Now that you know where to look, start digging. Analyze historical performance, forecast accuracy, and budget variances.
Start validating what you've learned so far with hard data. Analyze performance trends, forecast vs. actual accuracy, and recurring variance patterns. Drill into:
Department-level spending vs. budget,
Revenue trends by segment, product, or customer type,
Headcount costs, hiring plans, and capacity utilization.
Use pivot tables, visualizations, and rolling averages to reveal stories hidden in the numbers.
2. Identify quick wins that matter
Deliver visible impact quickly. Pick 1–2 things that are low-effort but high-value:
Automate a manual Excel report with Power Query or BI dashboards
Spot a cost inefficiency
Create a simple KPI report for the monthly business review
💡 Tip: Focus on pain points mentioned during stakeholder interviews. Visibility and speed will boost your credibility.
3. Refine forecasts
Join the next forecast cycle and contribute insights or improvements:
Adjust assumptions based on current trends
Propose new drivers or scenarios (e.g., sales pipeline conversion, vendor price increases)
Validate historical inaccuracies and fix the model logic if needed
Ask yourself: Are we being realistic, conservative, or overly optimistic? How can we model uncertainty better?
Push on questions others ignore: ex. What’s the real risk in this assumption? And who owns it?
4. Communicate insights like a strategist
Don't just create reports; turn data into decisions:
Build compelling visual dashboards with commentary
Use storytelling techniques to explain variances, risks, and opportunities
Tailor your communication: use more detail for finance peers, more summary and narrative for executives.
Tailor your delivery:
Executives want risks, options, and decisions.
Ops leads want clarity, not complexity.
Finance peers want precision, but not perfection.
5. Be the finance partner people actually call
Finance business partnering is earned. Become their go-to person and be the one who:
Translates “you’re over budget” into “here’s how to stay on track and still hit your goals.”
Shows how their decisions impact outcomes, not just line items.
Brings a toolkit and not just commentary.
💡 Tip: Create cheat sheets or simple tools for them, e.g., a headcount calculator or marketing ROI tracker.
Days 61-90: Drive change, share insights, and start leading
Influence, Improve, Lead: Lead improvements, influence conversations with actionable insights, and begin shaping how the business plans and executes.
1. Lead a project with a small scope, but high impact
Pick an initiative where you can demonstrate ownership and impact:
Build a scenario model for international expansion or a major product launch
Redesign a broken forecast template
Lead a working session with stakeholders to align on key assumptions
Treat it like a consulting engagement: define scope, gather input, build a solution, and present findings.
2. Introduce best practices
Now that you’ve built trust, start pushing for improvements:
Standardize key reporting templates across departments
Set up a shared folder or dashboard with updated KPIs and forecasts
Implement version control for budgets
Document forecasting assumptions in one central place
One shared “source of truth” dashboard
Start small: get buy-in by showing how your changes save time or improve decisions.
3. Present to leadership
If you haven’t already, now’s the time to present a meaningful insight or recommendation to your CFO or a cross-functional team.
Don’t just report what happened. Say what should happen next.
You’ve built up context and insight; now step up and share your perspective:
Present to the CFO, COO, or executive team
Deliver a “state of the forecast” or a mini financial review with recommendations
Bring a proactive idea: not just a report, but a solution
💡 Tip: Lead with insight, not information. Instead of “Revenue is down 3%,” say “Customer churn in the mid-market segment caused the decline. We recommend targeting renewal incentives.”
4. Document your learnings
Build your personal FP&A playbook:
Keep a list of reporting tools and how they’re used,
Note monthly close deadlines, planning cycles, and key finance rituals,
Track what’s working, what’s broken, and what needs to be fixed.
This will save you countless hours during budget season and help others onboard faster in the future.
5. Set long-term goals
Sit down with your manager or mentor and discuss:
What areas excite you? Where do you want to specialize: is it business partnering, modeling, systems, or strategy?
What do you want to own? Which processes or reports could you take full ownership of in the next 3-6 months?
What’s the path to owning your own planning cycle or leading a team?
Use this discussion to define your “brand” in the organization and set clear goals for the next phase.
Your first 90 days in FP&A aren’t about being perfect. They’re about being curious, collaborative, and courageous.
You won’t know everything on day one. But if you approach the role like a consultant - asking smart questions, solving problems, and building trust - you’ll quickly move from "the new finance person" to "trusted business partner."
And if you want a practical way to follow this plan, grab the downloadable 90-day FP&A checklist I’ve created to help you put these steps into action.