Corporate Business Alliance

CBA-FPA · Study material

Contents

The complete contents of the CBA Certified FP&A Professional study material: every chapter and lesson, the reading time of each, and where the assessed workbooks fall. One lesson is open to read in full.

Lessons

83

Reading time

5 hours

Workbooks

16

Words

65,123

These figures are counted from the material itself. The reading time assumes a steady pace and no re-reading, and does not include the time spent building the workbooks.

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Planning assumptions and where they should live, from FP&A Foundations and the Planning Cycle, as a candidate reads it, slides included.

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Contents

6 chapters, 83 lessons. Lessons marked workbook carry a spreadsheet you build and submit, marked against the published tolerance. The award requires 4 of the 16 completed to that tolerance.

Introduction

1 lesson · 2 min

  1. CBA-FPA Study Guide2 min

01FP&A Foundations and the Planning Cycle

15 lessons · 54 min

  1. What this chapter covers2 min
  2. The case organisation2 min
  3. What FP&A is for2 min
  4. Financial accounting, control and FP&A: three different jobs2 min
  5. The four planning artefacts and how they relate3 min
  6. Driver-based planning, and what a driver actually is4 min
  7. Owning a calendar that fits the decisions it feedsworkbook6 min
  8. Top-down and bottom-up: the reconciliation nobody writes5 min
  9. The finance operating model5 min
  10. Data foundations: chart of accounts, cost centres and hierarchiesworkbook5 min
  11. Planning assumptions and where they should liveFree4 min
  12. Reading the plan back: flexing and decomposing6 min
  13. What good looks like2 min
  14. Common pitfalls3 min
  15. Chapter summary3 min

02Budgeting and Annual Planning

19 lessons · 61 min

  1. What this chapter covers2 min
  2. The three jobs of a budget, and why they conflict2 min
  3. Starting from a baseline you can defend4 min
  4. Top-down and bottom-up: what each is actually for3 min
  5. Incremental budgeting: what it is for and when it is laziness2 min
  6. Zero-based budgeting: what it is really for2 min
  7. Activity-based budgeting: costing what actually drives the work3 min
  8. Building the revenue budget: three streams, three methodsworkbook8 min
  9. Reconciling top-down to bottom-up in one round instead of threeworkbook4 min
  10. Cost behaviour: fixed, variable and stepped3 min
  11. Headcount and the fully loaded cost of a personworkbook3 min
  12. Discretionary spend, and the discipline that keeps it honest2 min
  13. Capital budgets and how they interact with the operating plan4 min
  14. Cash and working capital in the budget3 min
  15. Negotiating the budget: sandbagging, padding, and how incentives corrupt a number5 min
  16. Target setting that does not corrupt the number2 min
  17. Approval, lock-down and what may be reopened3 min
  18. Common pitfalls3 min
  19. Chapter summary3 min

03Forecasting and Driver-Based Modelling

13 lessons · 83 min

  1. What this chapter covers2 min
  2. A forecast is a different instrument from a budget, and cannot be built the same way6 min
  3. Rolling forecasts: horizon, granularity and cadence, and why most are abandoned7 min
  4. Driver-based modelling: finding the few drivers that actually move the result7 min
  5. Building the driver tree for Pentland: an installed base that pays an annuityworkbook12 min
  6. Forecasting distributor demand when ordering does not match consumptionworkbook11 min
  7. Seasonality and phasing6 min
  8. Forecast accuracy: measuring it, separating bias from error, and holding people to itworkbook7 min
  9. Scenarios and sensitivities: two different questionsworkbook8 min
  10. Cash forecasting: the direct and indirect approaches7 min
  11. Judgement overlays5 min
  12. Common pitfalls3 min
  13. Chapter summary2 min

04Variance Analysis and Performance Insight

17 lessons · 53 min

  1. What this chapter covers2 min
  2. What a variance actually is, and what it is not2 min
  3. Choosing the comparison: budget, prior year, forecast, run rate3 min
  4. The flexed budget: separating what you sold from what you spentworkbook4 min
  5. Price, volume and mix: doing the decomposition properly5 min
  6. Mix at the level above: the three revenue streamsworkbook2 min
  7. The installed base engine: forecasting consumables from first principles4 min
  8. Foreign exchange: translation, transaction, and the differenceworkbook3 min
  9. Cost variances and responsibility: controllable against uncontrollable3 min
  10. Costing what a variance will become: the fully loaded headcount request3 min
  11. Materiality: how to stop analysing everything4 min
  12. Root cause: from the number to the operational decision4 min
  13. Writing commentary somebody will act on3 min
  14. Linking variance to forecast: what this period implies about the rest of the year3 min
  15. From variance to next year's target3 min
  16. Common pitfalls3 min
  17. Chapter summary2 min

05Management Reporting and Business Partnering

18 lessons · 63 min

  1. What this chapter covers2 min
  2. What a management pack is actually for4 min
  3. The decision inventory2 min
  4. Board, executive and operational: three packs, three jobs3 min
  5. Timeliness against completeness: the reporting calendar as a constraintworkbook4 min
  6. Choosing measures: drivers, leading and lagging4 min
  7. Leading indicators that actually lead2 min
  8. Measures that can be gamedworkbook3 min
  9. Analysis behind the page: decomposition that reconciles9 min
  10. Presenting financial information visually4 min
  11. Commentary that carries an argument3 min
  12. Business partnering: what it is and what it is not2 min
  13. Being present before the decision2 min
  14. Influence without authority2 min
  15. Handling disagreement with a budget holderworkbook7 min
  16. Ethics and the pressure to present a number favourably4 min
  17. Common pitfalls3 min
  18. Chapter summary3 min

What the material is

The study material is written to the discipline’s domains and learning objectives, chapter by chapter, with worked examples and unscored checks in the lessons and assessed workbooks where the level requires applied work. It does not contain a bank of practice questions matching the examination; the specimen paper shows the style and standard of the examination, with a written rationale for every option.

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