Knowledge Domain A: Concepts of Business and Finance

• Types of short and long-range plans/ budgets/forecasts (zero-based budgets, annual budgets, rolling forecasts, etc.) and their application
• Interpreting corporate annual reports, including understanding the interactions/interrelationships between common financial statements
• General finance principles and financial concepts, including common financial formulas (time value; opportunity costs; debt structures and covenants; earnings per share; cost of capital; etc.)
• Managerial accounting/reporting and cost accounting concepts (costs throughout the production process; fixed and variable costs; cost allocation; contribution margins; etc.)
• Financial accounting concepts, principles, and practices
• General business terminology, practices, and processes (compensation structures, performance management, stock options, etc.)
• Risk factors and risk management concepts (value at risk, hedging, insurance, interest rate risk, diversification, etc.)
• Concepts of cash management (working capital, financing options, etc.)
• Common financial investments/ decision types (go/no go; buy/lease; mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; etc.)
• Frameworks to ensure quality business and strategic decisions (SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats] analysis; Porter’s five forces; growth-share matrix; root cause analysis; five whys; etc.)
• Basic microeconomics concepts (marginal costs; pricing; price elasticity of supply and demand; etc.)
• Basic macroeconomic concepts used in financial planning (consumer price index, gross domestic product, exchange rates, interest rates, inflation rates, economic indicators, etc.)

Knowledge Domain B: Systems and Technology

• Using basic and advanced spreadsheet functions (financial functions; pivot tables; value lookups; macros; integration with other common software; etc.)
• The attributes/limitations of systems (business intelligence, enterprise resource planning, general ledger, etc.) for storing and providing access to financial data, including routine data and large data sets
• The ETL [extraction, transformation, and loading] process in data warehousing
• Basic data mining concepts and common algorithms (such as for data clustering)
• Information control concerns (internal governance, regulatory issues, accountability, information security standards, etc.)
• FP&A system testing process and tools (testing scripts, test plans, etc.)

Knowledge Domain C: Business Partnering

• Creating and maintaining tools for information gathering (templates, surveys, etc.), including identifying and mitigating potential sources of bias
• Determining information needs of, and gather information from, internal/external stakeholders and business partners (operations, sales, and marketing departments; senior management; etc.)
• Identifying, monitoring and reporting business metrics (including financial and nonfinancial key performance indicators)
• Corporate structure/hierarchy and functions, including the roles and interrelationships between components of the financial structure (FP&A, accounting, investor relations, etc.)
• Relevant stakeholders for partnering
• Project management (establishing scope, mapping project/workflow elements, generating integrated timelines, managing interdependencies, monitoring progress, etc.)
• Corporate guidance (organizational goals, strategies, etc.) and its impact on planning/ projections
• Knowing when a situation requires intervention (stakeholder involvement, escalation, etc.)

Knowledge Domain A: Analysis and Projections

• Create financial statement projections (income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet, etc.)
• Create a capital expenditure/investment analysis (discounted cash flow analysis, return on investment projections, net present value projections, etc.)
• Create sales volume/revenue projections
• Create expense and head count (staffing) projections
• Create specific customer/deal/product projections
• Perform a financial ratio analysis (debt/ equity, accounts receivable days, liquidity ratios, etc.)
• Perform competitive analysis (internal or external benchmarking; peer group analysis; ratios; etc.)
• Perform variance analysis and reporting (actual versus prior periods; actual versus plan; actual versus forecast; etc.)
• Conduct sensitivity analysis
• Conduct a financial risk analysis
• Create “what-if” scenarios

Knowledge Domain B: Models and Analytics

• Conceptualize and scope an analysis (identifying tools and processes needed, conceiving efficient/effective model design, etc.)
• Develop assumptions, draw conclusions, and assess the reasonableness of assumptions/conclusions
• Determine and gather the information needed to complete a task (including knowledge of sources of pertinent and accurate information, both internal and external to the organization)
• The interrelationships between business drivers and account for their effects on financial statements
• Develop and evaluate alternatives for business decisions
• Common statistical concepts and perform common statistical calculations (standard deviation, expected value, correlation, regression, mean, mode, etc.)