Jon Allen and Duke Heninger, experienced finance professionals from Amplēo, discuss the challenges of managing data in small to medium-sized companies, the advantages of paying off investments, exploring alternative career paths in FP&A, and using chat GPT for finance and Excel. They emphasize the importance of education and communication to gather necessary data quickly and continuously learning to open doors for career opportunities.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Budget Challenges with Poor Data
Many companies have no budget or poor data; departments request budgets but lack good data or prior experience.
People often sandbag budgets to avoid tripping, making budget setup very challenging.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Restaurant FP&A in COVID
Jon Allen managed FP&A in restaurants during COVID when customer traffic dropped drastically.
Creative budgeting and accepting uncontrollable external factors were key lessons from that crisis.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Duke's Entrepreneurial Finance Journey
Duke Heninger transitioned from government accounting to fractional CFO, growing a manufacturing company and tripling its sales before selling it.
His entrepreneurial spirit led him from public practice to hands-on finance and strategy roles.
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Jon Allen and Duke Heninger, of Utah-based Amplēo, have brought their finance game to fast-growing companies which are between $5m and $50m in revenue. They are “fractional CFOs” – that is experienced finance professionals advising these companies on a part-time basis. For instance, one business they work with, Korean barbeque restaurant Cupbop, appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and got $1million from Mark Cuban in 2022. Other companies they advised include Burt Brothers (a tire and services company). Collectively Amplēo helped more than 3000 companies.
But they always find the same story when they look at financials at such companies.
“It’s always the data”, says Duke Heninger, Financial Partner at Amplēo. “It’s getting things put in a way so that people can understand what they’ve even spent. Most of my clients are on a very simplified accounting system. They aren’t classifying anything in separate departments. So it’s breaking it out, trying to understand who owns what, where should it go, and ultimately everybody just sandbags just so that they don’t trip a budget”.
In this episode of FP&A we meet Jon Allen Managing Partner, Finance, and Duke Heninger, finance partner at Amplēo.
They provide a masterclass on the value of FP&A at fast-growing companies, revealing:
Our worst budget experiences
Our journey through finance to CFO
What we wish we had known earlier in our career
Restaurants in COVID Times – how we used FP&A to help businesses
The powerful value of FP&A in restaurants
Why FP&A is a superb career choice
Founding companies as finance leaders
Teaching FP&A at University
Why great FP&A must lead to actions and decisions
How FP&A can become good business partners
Reporting vs forecasting
The importance of choosing a great finance leader to work for early in your career
Amplēo provides business professionals, such as CFOs, CMOs and CHROs, to companies on a fractional basis in order to help them achieve their full potential. https://ampleo.com/
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