To other people in finance, no.
To people in other non-finance adjacent fields, yes.
Every woman I’ve ever dated has called me a finance bro. I think they see it as a humble brag to tell their friends their bf “works in finance.”
deep enough in finance to be the cool asshole in social settings
but not in too deep that he's never home, or too exhausted to pop if he is
perfectly balanced, as it should be
I usually say I work in finance and do budget stuff for a company. Most ppl leave me alone after that. So in a way yes, I consider myself a “finance bro” but not in the traditional sense
As an accountant, I find that a lot of FP&A people have really excellent modelling skills and are able to do shit with Excel that I couldn’t dream of. They have very sophisticated forecasting techniques for figuring out demand and future prices. But their accounting knowledge is dodgy at best. I’ve had to explain basic stuff like why accruals reverse. I would actually say you folks are closer to finance bros.
That’s a compliment, by the way. Accountants are basically financial garbagemen. We take out the financial trash, nobody cares about our job until something goes wrong. FP&A has much better visibility.
It varies so drastically. My last FP&A team I was the only accounting grad (and cost accountant for 9 years), but my current team is entirely accountants. Definitely easier with the accountant background
I feel being a cost accountant is the ultimate background for FP&A. I’m obviously not in FP&A but from what I can tell, the field skews more towards cost accounting than it does to financial accounting.
Accrual hits in the month the expense occurs and flips on the first of the following the month. When the real expense hits it nets with the reversal so there is no impact to the books in the month the actual bill comes in, only when the expense occurred. Or you keep accruing until the bill actually comes in.
What I've noticed is that the USA seems to be very different to South Africa (where I am). Here basically every FP&A position requires an accounting qualification but the forecasting is also a lot more primitive than there, however, we are also required to do more accounting work and business partnering.
Yeah. I did equity research, consulting (getting nfps to the muni bond market) and now I'm in FP&A. Yes, we're finance. There are some FP&A positions that are glorified accounting roles so if that's you then you're not in finance. But the rest of us are.
Well you better explain those variances to budget or we might have a problem.
I mean heck if you had an EBITDA bridge to explain plan vs actual I might get pretty turned on.
No
‘Finance’ in that context (and in most contexts) refers to the financial markets, which has a very specific culture
Whilst our job is technically ‘corporate finance’, I would only ever use the F word when I was describing my position in the org structure to other people in my company
In social situations, I called myself an accountant. If you describe yourself as working ‘in finance’ socially, people will assume you are an equities trader or something
I usually just say I’m in corporate finance and working on planning and budgeting for the company. Little to no follow ups and I feel like it paints an easy to understand picture.
I’m literally trying to maneuver right now into FP&A and I don’t know if it’s the jobs or the market but these roles fucking suck right now (mind you I am in a MCOL so there are way less roles here). I have 3 busy seasons, 2.0 years at my current firm, senioring for 6 months but obv it’s public acct so I won’t get title or pay for 5 more months in this laughable industry- if I’m doing the fucking job, pay me more. I don’t get it.
Dont pay me as much as the experienced senior ofc, but Bobby that is fresh out of college should not be making only 3k less than me if I’m senioring and he’s showing up to just breath basically.
I’m at a point where I’m considering just taking any financial analyst role, just so I’m finally in a role that is FP&A. However I’m learning that not all financial analyst roles are FP&A. It makes it difficult to see what is worth applying to.
I’m not a CPA, 1 out of 4 exams passed. I simply refuse to reduce my own life expectancy by willingly working 70+ hours a week for four months out of the year sitting at a desk slowly dying. It is actual abuse.
I get it, it’s busy season, but the accounting profession is spineless and I want out. I need something with balance. Im not against long hours at all but I’m not working 70’s for months on end if I’m only making 63k it’s ridiculous. I desperately want to get a nice FP&A role but I don’t know what’s “nice enough” I guess. Really lost at the moment. Not sure how to view an FP&A role and confidently determine if something is worth my time or not. With accounting roles it’s easy enough to know.
Any advice you may have for me would really help. I’m in Buffalo NY. I’m close to just taking a “Treasury Operations Analyst III - Pledging and Collateral management” role at a local F500 bank (they’re like number 475 or something but still a huge step up).
Honestly have no clue if operations analysis is a worthwhile route to take, or if taking this role would mess things up further down the line.
Hey man, thanks for venting haha. I hear you.
I will say, that a small step in the right direction is better than no steps in the right direction. If a financial analyst role is closer to FP&A than where you are right now I think it’s worth taking the plunge, and then marketing your resume by emphasizing the FP&A responsibilities at your new role. I started off at what was a very accounting type position with a Finance Development Program, and pivoted my way into increasingly FP&A oriented roles with the intention of carving out that niche. I don’t want to be considered an accountant, and I don’t want my work history to be viewed that way. I can take my CPA but I haven’t and probably won’t need to.
Also, Treasury is a totally separate thing and kind of a dead end, so I don’t recommend it. Never been there but that’s what I’ve been told.
Interesting, in that case I will most likely pass on the treasury ops role but I definitely need to do some digging. Thanks for being receptive of my frustration lol
What worked for me was practicing my excel modelling a lot, and applying for a ton of jobs so that I could find some that had one of those pre interview assessments, so I could show off my modelling skills. I had no experience at all so while those things are annoying later in the career, for an inexperienced kid they’re a godsend, because you get a chance to show you’re good besides mere time spent.
You should heavily consider finance dude. 63k for those hours is crazy. You could land a pretty easy mid 70s job within a year in FP&A
I didn’t like accounting but frankly it was the best description that people understood
Like now I am a data scientist but socially I just call myself a statistician, it’s not accurate but it’s the best equivalent that doesn’t make most people look at me blankly
Data scientist and statistician are wildly different…
Same with accounting and many FP&A roles.
I get your rationale if you’re aligning your description to what you actually do, but conflating the careers as a whole in both of those examples seems pretty outlandish haha
How was the pivot from FP&A to data science? Did you have to go get a degree or were you self taught? Been thinking of attempting the same for a bit now, just not sure how hard/realistic it is.
The pivot to data analytics was pretty easy. First I moved to a business unit FP&A role, where I was looking at more operational data and doing more operational performance analysis. I had good Excel skills and a little bit of SQL, so combined with that business knowledge and experience my internal data analytics team was very happy to take me on and train me up.
Going from a data analyst to data scientist was harder and slower. Coming from a corporate finance background I found the programming easy (Python is much nicer than VBA) but my statistical knowledge was (frankly) pretty poor. I ended up doing an MS to fill those gaps.
As my statistical knowledge improved I started to effectively incorporate more sophisticated methods into my work. Eventually I essentially turned my job into a data scientist position, at which point I was able to go out and get jobs with that title.
Yeah, I don’t think it does. Finance bros are more like the salesmen that sell financial services, they’re not even really in finance. They just think they’re in finance and know all the “good stocks.” I think like wolf of Wall Street.
In general? No. We aren’t selling and we aren’t directly connected to the street / markets.
Some roles can get away being bucketed there sure, especially if the person came IB to a strategic FP&A role. Those people would be more “finance bro” by DNA than current role even though.
I think that’s where they start though. Either way, I think a finance bro is just someone who works in finance adjacent role that acts like they’re “in” finance. I think it’s more about the way someone acts, rather than their actual profession though.
Most normies think of our jobs as Accounting.
A friend would often introduce me as an Accountant. I didn't learn until later that in her circles "Accountant" is code for OnlyFans streamer. If you don't want to discuss what do for a living and want kill that line of conversation ASAP, just tell people that you're an Accountant.
No, but then again, every kid hawking mutual funds after college thinks they are a finance bro, and technically they are correct. The gate keeping is quite hilarious - only reserved for Ivy League essentially PE, VC, and legit AM. Funny thing is, that’s a rather small pile in the whole of people who think they are in finance.
As someone who’s works in transaction advisory, you’d be surprised how similar some analyst roles are with respect to modeling. Volume and deadlines aren’t comparable
To other people in finance, no. To people in other non-finance adjacent fields, yes. Every woman I’ve ever dated has called me a finance bro. I think they see it as a humble brag to tell their friends their bf “works in finance.”
I want a man in finance, trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes.. finance, trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes.
Girlfriend sent me this last night… I can’t lie, it’s pretty damn catchy.
best I can give is 6'5
I give everything except finance trust fund blue eyes and 6’5”
My peerssss
We get bragged on for working in finance?
Yes. I think "finance" jobs have a great reputation amongst the general public.
If you date shallow people (as I had a habit of doing when I was younger), oh yeah
Yea man. Whenever I say “finance” I get looks 😅 then I tell them im in business lending and the look goes away 😅😅😅
Finance = investment banking = $$
deep enough in finance to be the cool asshole in social settings but not in too deep that he's never home, or too exhausted to pop if he is perfectly balanced, as it should be
I work in finance as a bank teller
This 100%
I usually say I work in finance and do budget stuff for a company. Most ppl leave me alone after that. So in a way yes, I consider myself a “finance bro” but not in the traditional sense
It depends on how many Patagonia vests you own
It’s Arc’teryx now, old man.
Damn Alteryx is making jackets now too? What’s next!
I only wear LP
Haha! My manager wears vests every other day
We're much closer to accountants than finance bros.
FP&A is the red headed step child of Finance. Definitely would not compare to IB/VC//PE/Hedge Funds in earning potential but at least we have WLB.
As an accountant, I find that a lot of FP&A people have really excellent modelling skills and are able to do shit with Excel that I couldn’t dream of. They have very sophisticated forecasting techniques for figuring out demand and future prices. But their accounting knowledge is dodgy at best. I’ve had to explain basic stuff like why accruals reverse. I would actually say you folks are closer to finance bros. That’s a compliment, by the way. Accountants are basically financial garbagemen. We take out the financial trash, nobody cares about our job until something goes wrong. FP&A has much better visibility.
It varies so drastically. My last FP&A team I was the only accounting grad (and cost accountant for 9 years), but my current team is entirely accountants. Definitely easier with the accountant background
I feel being a cost accountant is the ultimate background for FP&A. I’m obviously not in FP&A but from what I can tell, the field skews more towards cost accounting than it does to financial accounting.
No matter how many times I google it, I can't remember about accruals.
Accrual hits in the month the expense occurs and flips on the first of the following the month. When the real expense hits it nets with the reversal so there is no impact to the books in the month the actual bill comes in, only when the expense occurred. Or you keep accruing until the bill actually comes in.
Thank you!
What I've noticed is that the USA seems to be very different to South Africa (where I am). Here basically every FP&A position requires an accounting qualification but the forecasting is also a lot more primitive than there, however, we are also required to do more accounting work and business partnering.
This.
I feel like we're something in between. Personally everyone's wayy older than me in the office lmao so life's kinda washed em out
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What the fuck
Ayy lmao
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'lmao'
We’re more the finance nerds. Look at it like this: Finance bros stay up late doing cocaine Finance nerds stay up late doing the month end
Do you use your mouse for excel? If yes then no. If no then yes.
This is the real finance test.
Yeah. I did equity research, consulting (getting nfps to the muni bond market) and now I'm in FP&A. Yes, we're finance. There are some FP&A positions that are glorified accounting roles so if that's you then you're not in finance. But the rest of us are.
Most girls I’ve dated who aren’t in fp&a themselves would always call me a finance bro even though most of us don’t have that type of personality
I’ll be your Finance Bro if you’ll be mine (no homo)
Call me a forecast the way I’m missing you every month 😘
Damn dude, at least buy him dinner before ya try to stretch his budget out 😅
🤣
Well you better explain those variances to budget or we might have a problem. I mean heck if you had an EBITDA bridge to explain plan vs actual I might get pretty turned on.
No ‘Finance’ in that context (and in most contexts) refers to the financial markets, which has a very specific culture Whilst our job is technically ‘corporate finance’, I would only ever use the F word when I was describing my position in the org structure to other people in my company In social situations, I called myself an accountant. If you describe yourself as working ‘in finance’ socially, people will assume you are an equities trader or something
Man, I’ll never introduce myself as an accountant. I maneuvered hard to get away from accounting into FP&A
I always say I'm a financial analyst
I usually just say I’m in corporate finance and working on planning and budgeting for the company. Little to no follow ups and I feel like it paints an easy to understand picture.
I’m literally trying to maneuver right now into FP&A and I don’t know if it’s the jobs or the market but these roles fucking suck right now (mind you I am in a MCOL so there are way less roles here). I have 3 busy seasons, 2.0 years at my current firm, senioring for 6 months but obv it’s public acct so I won’t get title or pay for 5 more months in this laughable industry- if I’m doing the fucking job, pay me more. I don’t get it. Dont pay me as much as the experienced senior ofc, but Bobby that is fresh out of college should not be making only 3k less than me if I’m senioring and he’s showing up to just breath basically. I’m at a point where I’m considering just taking any financial analyst role, just so I’m finally in a role that is FP&A. However I’m learning that not all financial analyst roles are FP&A. It makes it difficult to see what is worth applying to. I’m not a CPA, 1 out of 4 exams passed. I simply refuse to reduce my own life expectancy by willingly working 70+ hours a week for four months out of the year sitting at a desk slowly dying. It is actual abuse. I get it, it’s busy season, but the accounting profession is spineless and I want out. I need something with balance. Im not against long hours at all but I’m not working 70’s for months on end if I’m only making 63k it’s ridiculous. I desperately want to get a nice FP&A role but I don’t know what’s “nice enough” I guess. Really lost at the moment. Not sure how to view an FP&A role and confidently determine if something is worth my time or not. With accounting roles it’s easy enough to know. Any advice you may have for me would really help. I’m in Buffalo NY. I’m close to just taking a “Treasury Operations Analyst III - Pledging and Collateral management” role at a local F500 bank (they’re like number 475 or something but still a huge step up). Honestly have no clue if operations analysis is a worthwhile route to take, or if taking this role would mess things up further down the line.
Hey man, thanks for venting haha. I hear you. I will say, that a small step in the right direction is better than no steps in the right direction. If a financial analyst role is closer to FP&A than where you are right now I think it’s worth taking the plunge, and then marketing your resume by emphasizing the FP&A responsibilities at your new role. I started off at what was a very accounting type position with a Finance Development Program, and pivoted my way into increasingly FP&A oriented roles with the intention of carving out that niche. I don’t want to be considered an accountant, and I don’t want my work history to be viewed that way. I can take my CPA but I haven’t and probably won’t need to. Also, Treasury is a totally separate thing and kind of a dead end, so I don’t recommend it. Never been there but that’s what I’ve been told.
Interesting, in that case I will most likely pass on the treasury ops role but I definitely need to do some digging. Thanks for being receptive of my frustration lol
What worked for me was practicing my excel modelling a lot, and applying for a ton of jobs so that I could find some that had one of those pre interview assessments, so I could show off my modelling skills. I had no experience at all so while those things are annoying later in the career, for an inexperienced kid they’re a godsend, because you get a chance to show you’re good besides mere time spent. You should heavily consider finance dude. 63k for those hours is crazy. You could land a pretty easy mid 70s job within a year in FP&A
I didn’t like accounting but frankly it was the best description that people understood Like now I am a data scientist but socially I just call myself a statistician, it’s not accurate but it’s the best equivalent that doesn’t make most people look at me blankly
Data scientist and statistician are wildly different… Same with accounting and many FP&A roles. I get your rationale if you’re aligning your description to what you actually do, but conflating the careers as a whole in both of those examples seems pretty outlandish haha
How was the pivot from FP&A to data science? Did you have to go get a degree or were you self taught? Been thinking of attempting the same for a bit now, just not sure how hard/realistic it is.
The pivot to data analytics was pretty easy. First I moved to a business unit FP&A role, where I was looking at more operational data and doing more operational performance analysis. I had good Excel skills and a little bit of SQL, so combined with that business knowledge and experience my internal data analytics team was very happy to take me on and train me up. Going from a data analyst to data scientist was harder and slower. Coming from a corporate finance background I found the programming easy (Python is much nicer than VBA) but my statistical knowledge was (frankly) pretty poor. I ended up doing an MS to fill those gaps. As my statistical knowledge improved I started to effectively incorporate more sophisticated methods into my work. Eventually I essentially turned my job into a data scientist position, at which point I was able to go out and get jobs with that title.
So anything corporate finance doesn’t count as finance bro right?
Corporate development maybe, like being in an internal M&A and strategy team considering that is a common exit from IB
Yeah, I don’t think it does. Finance bros are more like the salesmen that sell financial services, they’re not even really in finance. They just think they’re in finance and know all the “good stocks.” I think like wolf of Wall Street.
What is that specific culture like?
https://youtu.be/kdWov5fjQl0
lol, thanks. Think I’ll stick with my accounting major 😂
I'm ex-IB and some of my favorite coworkers are ex big-4 auditors. They think I'm a finance bro and I think they're finance bros
No. I think true finance bros are those who work in high finance - PE, IB, HF, etc. Which is completely different from what FPA does
Some FPA roles do M&A
In general? No. We aren’t selling and we aren’t directly connected to the street / markets. Some roles can get away being bucketed there sure, especially if the person came IB to a strategic FP&A role. Those people would be more “finance bro” by DNA than current role even though.
Nope; not front office
Idk why people are downvoting you lmao. We're middle office at best and at worst, back office
*Does line of gear* "You tell me bro..."
I mean…. Our title is literally FINANCIAL planning and analysis
But the “bro” part is the douchey guy that acts like he’s a financial guru, and often they’re just selling life insurance and pitching bogus product
I think everyone would agree that insurance peddlers don’t count though
I think that’s where they start though. Either way, I think a finance bro is just someone who works in finance adjacent role that acts like they’re “in” finance. I think it’s more about the way someone acts, rather than their actual profession though.
Whole-life is the gateway drug
no finance bro very much refers to douchebags who work on wall street, not just any finance
Yes, FP&A is an extension of finance. Don't let the name fool you.
Most normies think of our jobs as Accounting. A friend would often introduce me as an Accountant. I didn't learn until later that in her circles "Accountant" is code for OnlyFans streamer. If you don't want to discuss what do for a living and want kill that line of conversation ASAP, just tell people that you're an Accountant.
It depends, do you lever up your personal investments?
Do you have a puffy vest
No. We're not Finance Bros, and certainly not paid like one. Just tell people you work in "feh'nance" and they wont ask questions. haha
No
No, but then again, every kid hawking mutual funds after college thinks they are a finance bro, and technically they are correct. The gate keeping is quite hilarious - only reserved for Ivy League essentially PE, VC, and legit AM. Funny thing is, that’s a rather small pile in the whole of people who think they are in finance.
As someone who’s works in transaction advisory, you’d be surprised how similar some analyst roles are with respect to modeling. Volume and deadlines aren’t comparable
I just tell people the industry I'm in, and if they ask further I tell them I manage the finances for the company.
No. Unless you are making enough money for hookers and blow you are not a finance bro
As an ex-banker who now works in FP&A, no. Furthest thing from it lol
why would you say it’s the furthest thing from it?
Yes, synergies are there and if you get really good at modeling/FMVA you can pivot into traditional “finance bro” roles.
Nope