Guide: Excel, AI, and FP&A: Knowing where each belongs

Finance teams have more tools available to them than ever, from familiar spreadsheets and increasingly capable AI tools to specialist FP&A solutions. The challenge is knowing how to use each effectively without creating more complexity, duplication or risk.

This practical guide explores the different roles Excel, AI and FP&A can play in modern financial planning and analysis. It considers where Excel remains useful, how AI can support analysis and communication, and why a specialist FP&A solution provides the structure, governance and connectivity needed to bring the wider planning process together.

Inside the guide, you’ll find:

• How spreadsheet-led planning can create challenges around version control, consolidation, assumptions and approvals
• Where Excel can continue to add value through flexible modelling, ad hoc calculations and local analysis
• Practical ways AI can support finance teams with interpreting information, investigating movements and communicating insight
• Why AI should support financial planning rather than replace human judgement and accountability
• What a connected FP&A process can look like, from budgeting and forecasting through to scenario modelling, consolidation and reporting
• Five signs that your current planning process may be creating unnecessary risk or pressure for your finance team
• Practical steps for bringing data, assumptions, approvals and different technologies together within a more controlled and repeatable process

The guide also looks at how organisations can improve their FP&A processes without having to abandon the tools their finance teams already rely on, helping create a more connected approach to planning, forecasting and decision-making.