Main Opportunities for FP&A and RevOps Partnership

FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) and RevOps are two different functions within a company, but they are related and have some (increasing) overlapping responsibilities. It's not uncommon to see organizations where Revenue Operations sits under the CFO, working together on things like sales forecast, planning and revenue management. However, while RevOps typically has a broader focus on revenue growth, overseeing the data, process and technology for the revenue generating departments of a business, like Sales, Marketing and Customer Success, FP&A on the other hand is primarily focused on financial analysis and planning.?

Overall, both functions are critical to a company's success and work together to support the company's overall financial and strategic goals and therefore there is some overlap between these functions.?

• Sales Forecasting and Budgeting

While the financial budget and goals are primarily planned by Finance, Revenue Operations makes sure to set up the process and systems so that the overall strategy is aligned with the business goal. RevOps also works with FP&A on the sales forecast and pipeline analysis to keep track of the goals and find opportunities for improvement.

• Sales Planning

Over the years, Sales Planning has become a function on itself, usually reporting to Sales or Revenue Operations. However, it's not uncommon to see some overlap between FP&A and RevOps on planning. Headcount number, ramp up time, individual quotas and commissions/bonuses are some of the examples where both departments can work together.

• Revenue Management

That's where both functions can deliver the most value to the company. The collaboration between FP&A and RevOps is critical to get accurate and consistent revenue management tracking. Transactions like new business sales, churn, upsells and renewals can - and many times should - be tracked differently from both departments and so having both teams aligned is critical to the business. While finance usually tracks revenue by the transaction date, making sure that the actual financial transaction happened, RevOps tracks revenue by the close date, making sure the contract is signed. These are complementary data points and having a clear and accurate way of tracking the customer LTV is probably one of the most important missions for both departments.