Continuous Planning vs. Annual Budgets | Randy Brown’s Game-Changing FP&A Insights
In this episode of Financial Modelers Corner, Paul Barnhurst dives into the intricacies of financial modeling, focusing on cash flow forecasting and continuous planning with FP&A expert Randy Brown. Randy shares his unique journey from music school to becoming a financial consultant and emphasizes the importance of practical financial strategies, especially in volatile markets.
Randy Brown is a seasoned financial consultant with a rich background in FP&A, corporate finance, and financial modeling. After initially pursuing a career in music, Randy transitioned into finance, where he has built a successful career, particularly in cash flow management and continuous planning. His approach blends technical financial skills with real-world business acumen, making him a sought-after consultant in the industry.
Key takeaways from this week's episode include:
The critical importance of cash flow forecasting for business stability.
Practical steps to build a 13-week cash flow forecast.
Why continuous planning is more effective than traditional annual budgeting.
Common pitfalls in financial modeling, including the dangers of circular references and external workbook links.
Randy’s insights on managing finances for small to medium-sized businesses, especially in distressed situations.
Here are a few quotes from Randy Brown:
"The minute you create a budget, it’s meaningless. The business environment changes too fast for a static plan." - Randy Brown
"For cash flow forecasting, it’s all about identifying your sources and uses of cash and laying them out on a calendar." - Randy Brown
"The flexibility of working from home and being my own boss was the number one driver for becoming an independent consultant." - Randy Brown
"Learn relational data structures; understanding how data relates will improve every analytical task you do." - Randy Brown
In this insightful episode, Randy Brown shared his wealth of knowledge on financial modeling, continuous planning, and the critical importance of cash flow forecasting. His emphasis on the importance of relationships, the simplicity of effective cash forecasting, and the pitfalls of traditional budgeting methods offers a fresh perspective for financial professionals striving to improve their modeling practices.
Follow Randy:
Website - https://www.instagram.com/randy_brown/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyjbrown/
Follow Paul:
Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefpaguy8376
Follow Financial Modeler's Corner
LinkedIn Page- https://www.linkedin.com/company/financial-modeler-s-corner/?viewAsMember=true
Newsletter - Subscribe on LinkedIn-https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7079020077076905984
Sign up for the Advanced Financial Modeler Accreditation Today and receive 15% off by using the special show code ‘Podcast’.
Visit www.fminstitute.com/podcast and use the code “Podcast” to save 15% when you register.
In today’s episode:
[01:28] - Introduction to the episode and guest Randy Brown
[07:27] - Insights into Randy’s background and career journey
[13:17] - Continuous planning vs. annual budgeting
[20:36] - The benefits of fractional consulting
[23:37] - The Importance of cash flow forecasting
[28:01] - Building a 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast
[34:53] - Key considerations for cash flow management
[42:48] - Rapid fire financial modeling questions
[48:28] - Final advice and closing thoughts
Full Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What's that worst financial model you've ever built? Worked on scene.
[00:00:04] Guest: Randy Brown: I had this worksheet and it was it was a consolidating financial worksheet. We had this one file, the consolidating financial file. There were 40 tabs in this worksheet, and not a single one of them had a useful name. They were literally named one, two, three, four all the way to 40.
[00:00:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What do you enjoy so much about that? Is it the flexibility from working from home or is there other things you really enjoy?
[00:00:27] Guest: Randy Brown: I have little children at home. I wouldn't trade the opportunity to be with them for anything, but the long weekends are fantastic. I don't remember the time I had a two day weekend. That sounds silly to me to think that a weekend is only two days. People who are looking for finance help in real estate are overly emotional about their projects. They're never willing to, even from the beginning. And you'd be shocked at how simple building a really good cash forecast is because it really is simple, especially when you're looking near term. It doesn't matter if you're off by 5%, it doesn't move the needle, so identify your material if they're easily predictable, like, you know, again, your employees are all salaried, just lay it out on a calendar.
[00:01:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to Financial Modelers Corner, where we discuss the art and science of financial modeling with your host, Paul Barnhurst. Financial Modelers Corner is sponsored by Financial Modeling Institute. Welcome to Financial Modelers Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst. This is a podcast where we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling with distinguished financial modelers from around the globe. The Financial Modelers Corner podcast is brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling, and that is why I completed the Advanced Financial modeler. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show this week, Randy Brown. Randy, welcome to the show.
[00:02:04] Guest: Randy Brown: Hey, Paul, thanks for having me.
[00:02:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, you're welcome. And thanks for having a simple name. I didn't have to worry about whether I'd mess up pronouncing it or not for a change. I've had a few where I'm like, ooh, I might butcher that one.
[00:02:15] Guest: Randy Brown: You've clearly never been a barista at Starbucks. When I try and tell them my name is Randy Raymond. Randy Ranger Randy. Like, it's like ten attempts to get that through the little details.
[00:02:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, so we start every episode with this question. We all know you have that horror story. What's that worst financial model you've ever built, worked on? Seen whatever you.
[00:02:41] Guest: Randy Brown: Pick. Yeah. So this one's a funny one because I know, you know, obviously as a financial modeler, I know exactly the one I'm going to talk about. And I have to be very careful talking about it because I don't want to I, you know, I don't want to dox anybody. I don't want anybody to feel bad. And so when we talk lessons, if we want to talk lessons learned about the model, I can I can help that person kind of be elevated and not be thrown under the bus a little bit. But man, I had this worksheet and it was it was a consolidating financial worksheet that I was brought in to this company. And this is back when I was still doing full time FP&A for one company, as opposed to consulting that I do now. But we had this one file, the consolidating financial file. And just to give you a couple of like, oh my gosh, what am I looking at? There were four. There were 40 tabs in this worksheet and not a single one of them had a useful name. They were literally named one, two, three, four all the way to 40. And it was a password protected worksheet.
[00:03:38] Guest: Randy Brown: And the password was literally four letters, and it was a password that had been set by three controllers previous to the controller who was currently maintaining the file. And they've just never bothered to change the password. And every time I'm like, you know, you could update the password so that everybody in the company doesn't know it. No, no. That's fine. Nobody knows this password. Everybody knew the password. And then the piece de resistance on that thing is the the level of linking on the spreadsheets. And I actually I actually wrote a script to do kind of what I, what I'm going to call the link tree on it that that went through and said, okay, I've got linked files that are linking to linked files. How bad is this? It went 50 wide. So the sheet itself was linked to 50 different worksheets and it went as far as seven deep. Or in other words, if you were to go to the third linked file, that linked file was linked to a file and that was linked to a file, and that was linked to a file seven times, so you had 50.
[00:04:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Files, sometimes as many as seven deep, to get back to the original file with the data. So you're dealing with a couple hundred links within this whole cluster.
[00:04:47] Guest: Randy Brown: And then and then combined with that there were circular links within it. So you know I've got I've got link one for, for lack of a better term, that goes down to the third linked file and it's linked over here to the third linked file. And then it's pulling information back from that. It was an absolute mess. In fact, one of my first tasks at that job was to replace this file with something simpler. And I almost got fired for my attempt to do it, because it was so just out there and I was delivering no results, and people were mad at me because I was poking holes in a model that's, you know, 20 years old. And like I said, you know, it was just it was a beast. And I made a lot of enemies in my first month at the company, just trying to help simplify the thing. And I kept saying, the controller, look, I'm not after your job. You can't pay me enough to do your job. I don't want this job. I'm trying to make your job easier so that you're a little bit happier coming to work. No. It was. It was a train wreck.
[00:05:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I wasn't having any of it. You know, I've heard of circular references, but Circular. External links. That's a new one.
[00:05:53] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, it was new for me too. I'd never seen anything quite like it, and I still haven't to this day, but oof, that file still gives me nightmares. I have a copy of it on my computer here. I probably shouldn't, because I haven't worked for that company in many, many, many years. But I like to look at it every once in a while just to help me sleep at night, knowing that I have never built anything quite that terrible.
[00:06:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So what was the key takeaway or learning experience from that? I'm sure there were many, but 1 or 2 key takeaways from that whole experience.
[00:06:23] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, the two are. The two that come to my mind are one. Never sacrifice a relationship for success at work. , that guy hated me until the day I left that company, because that very first month where my job was to try and make his job easier, he. To this day, he would never consider me a friend, even though I probably would consider him one. And so never sacrifice your relationships because it's not worth it. Work is work and life is life. And work is never worth giving up life. And then the second is if it works, don't mess with it, no matter how ugly it is. You know, that file was the worst thing I've ever dealt with. But if you followed steps one through 150, it always worked. Never broke, never broke down. Never caused any issues. If you followed the steps, it worked. So if it's not broke, not even don't fix it. If it's not broke, don't touch it. Just let it work.
[00:07:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I'll have to think about that one. I might disagree a little bit, but I can get why. Why you say that? That that sounds like a mess, though. I'm glad that wasn't me. So to walk us through your background, tell us how you ended up, where you're at and what you're doing today.
[00:07:32] Guest: Randy Brown: You know. Yeah. And I like to start with the Doctor Evil. You know, the details of my life are quite inconsequential, but but in all seriousness. So I if you can't tell from the backdrop, I'm a musician And I started. I wanted to be a musician professionally my entire life, starting from when I was probably 8 or 9 years old. And then I got halfway through music school as a as a saxophone performance major, and I was looking at the economic landscape. This was like 2006, 2007, 2008. The economy wasn't looking great, and I was looking at my prospects thinking, yikes, am I going to be able to make it as an entertainer in that economy? And my dad actually called me up and he was like, hey, I know you've been thinking about this. Well, why don't you try accounting? And so I took the I took kind of like the basic accounting course, and I did really well in it. And the professors invited me to this like wining and dining meeting where they're like, you know, you did so well in this class, you should consider accounting and these are the reasons why. And then I talked to my dad about it and he said, well, you tell you what, if you if you become an accountant, you can come work for me, you can take over my practice and you never need to worry about anything.
[00:08:41] Guest: Randy Brown: And so I thought, oh, shoot, my life is made, let's do that. So I, you know, I went through accounting, got my grad, got my degree in accounting. I just did undergraduate. I didn't do any kind of a crazy Mac at that at that point, because what was the point? I don't need to be competitive. I'm going to go up to Idaho. I'm going to be a public accountant, work for my dad, retire in, you know, 40 years, sell my practice to my son, and, you know, create the dynasty there. , then after working for about three months in public accounting, I realized, what have I done? I loved it academically, and I'm. I any accountants that can hear me? Please don't think that I'm knocking the profession. I love accountants, we need accountants. They do great work. It just was absolutely not for me. But I said, you know what? I committed to this. I'm going for it. So I stayed in public for a couple of years. I got my CPA license, , again, tried it out for a few years, realized, no, this isn't ever going to get any better. I'm going to hate going to work every day for the rest of my life. So I quit my job. It was a hard thing because I was working for my dad, so there was kind of that like familial social issues with quitting your job to go back to school.
[00:09:47] Guest: Randy Brown: I didn't want my parents to take it personally. It wasn't that I didn't love my parents, it was that this was not what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. So I ended up getting I moved back to Utah. I went to the University of Utah for grad work, ended up getting a master's in information systems, thinking, oh, maybe I want to be a database administrator. Maybe I want to, you know, play in the world of big data analytics. And then, as I was interviewing for jobs, they're coming out of grad school. It didn't love that, either. Ultimately found a job in a finance department for for a local company here in Utah. And being their FP&A guy, they really needed somebody who could do the finance and accounting side from a reporting and forecasting perspective, but also understood the data structures and could help with help the database administrator manage the database and the new warehousing. And they had all these new technological initiatives they were trying to do, and they wanted us to all work together. And so it was kind of a perfect fit for me. And that's where I kind of discovered this thing called FP&A. And honestly, to that point, I didn't know what FP&A was.
[00:10:46] Guest: Randy Brown: If somebody had said, oh, so you're an FP&A guy. And I said, what the heck is FP&A? I don't know what that is. And from there, I fell in love with the profession, and I have been doing financial planning and analysis modeling Excel work ever since. I've done a couple of stints as corporate controllers in various roles, but mostly I've done financial forecasting and analyzes. And yeah, about Covid happened. Covid happened. We all got sent home. Right. And I was working in I was actually working in the utility room in my unfinished basement on a little folding table. And so zoom meetings were hilarious because you could see all the ductwork above me. You could see the you could see the raw insulation where things had kind of been framed out. And it was hilarious. But in spite of how ugly it was, I really loved the idea of working from home. I liked that when I wanted lunch, I didn't have to go and find somebody who wanted to go to lunch with me. I could go up to the kitchen, make lunch, sit down with my wife, or sit down with the kids and have lunch and then come back downstairs and get to work. And then Covid ended. And it's a hard word to say because I know Covid is going to be here forever. But, you know, kind of that hype around everybody's going back, going back and working home ended.
[00:12:00] Guest: Randy Brown: And people were like, you know this? Yeah. And the return to work stigma started to happen. And the company I had been working for at the time was all in on return to work, and I was all out on return to work. And so I, I started, you know, reaching out to my network, make brushing up my resume, looking out and found this company amplio that I that I work with. I don't work for where I'm now an independent consultant doing financial consulting for a lot of different companies, and I've been doing that now for two and a half, three years, and I absolutely love it for every reason I can possibly imagine. Most of my clients come from that, from Amplio, that network that refers work to me. But I, you know, I do. I do my own work occasionally. You know, I do find a client here and there that I work for. And it's nice because you don't I don't have to pay, you know, I don't have to pay the referring firm for the work that I do. I get to keep it all. But also it's a lot of work to do marketing. So I really enjoy having a firm that refers work to me. But yeah, so I do that full time now.
[00:13:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great. Well, thank you for sharing a little bit on your background. And you know, like you said, I can't see myself being an accountant either. I love the work they do, but I much prefer FP&A in finance. So I'm with you. I understand, Randy, you're okay. Many accountants are listening. They'll get it. I want to ask you a question on your LinkedIn page. You you refer to yourself as a continuous planning expert. Why that terminology? Why did you decide to call yourself that?
[00:13:28] Guest: Randy Brown: Because annual budgets are the worst creation to ever come out of FP&A. And if we are the people that invented them, shame on us. I don't know. Incidentally, I don't know if we're the ones who invented them. I still think that some that that some very old institutional investor is the person that invented them. And we can throw them under the bus all day long. , but realistically, the minute you create a budget, it's meaningless. We especially. And the the faster technology grows and the, you know, the more we start leveraging machine learning. And now we're in this generative AI boom. Like, there is just no place for something that is stagnant for a year, let alone 4 or 5 years. And so I like to talk about a continuous plan as opposed to an annual budget. Now, now I have to throw the accountants under the bus. Sorry accountants, I love you all, but you love to create controls around analytics versus an annual budget. And good for you. That's great. You're going to find the occasional red flag where something is 20, 25, 30% off of a fixed budget, and it actually is a signal that we need to look at. But generally speaking, it's simply because the business has changed. And so I like to talk about a continuous plan because things change and they change fast and they're changing faster and faster and faster. And if we're not changing our plans relative to that changing landscape, we're going to be blockbuster or we're going to be BlackBerry, and our kids will ask, what's a BlackBerry other than what I just picked off of the bush to eat? What's what's a blockbuster other than a movie that I, you know, I watched on the TV in my in my home theater because I don't go to the theater anymore. You know, we have to adapt and we have to adapt fast or we're irrelevant. And so I love to talk about continuous planning because it's a process that needs to be happening constantly.
[00:15:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm going to guess you're a fan of just doing away with the whole annual budgeting process as it stands today.
[00:15:27] Guest: Randy Brown: So funnily enough, I'm not. Funnily enough, I'm not.
[00:15:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay, then what do you. What do you want to see?
[00:15:34] Guest: Randy Brown: Because I love the process of the annual budget. I like the communication that it forces to happen. It's simply the. It's simply the output that I hate that we have this we do this whole process and we have told everybody in every company we've ever worked for that. The reason we're doing this is so that we can create the annual budget so that we can tell the shareholders and the board of directors and management this is how we're doing versus budget. But the value of those conversations that we have with various department heads, business unit operators, leaders, marketers, HR people, it gives finance such a broad visibility into what's actually going on that it empowers their ability to plan in real time and create these continuous planning. So no, I'm actually really in favor of the communication that happens in annual budgeting. I just think that we should treat the end result as just another forecast that we've put together, as opposed to it being the end all, be all of our expectations for the next 12 to 36 months.
[00:16:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So you're really more of a fan of a continuous forecasting. We want that communication to always be open, but do away with the budgeting process as it is today with that static number that's there all year. Have those conversations. You know, do the do the work. The planning part of it doesn't go away. Just change the way you're doing it in the sense of the budget itself.
[00:17:00] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, exactly. It really it comes down to that output is meaningless, but the inputs are invaluable.
[00:17:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I hear you. There's some good books if you get a chance. In fact, I have one back here. A little tiny green one you probably can't see toward the very end called Beyond Budgeting.
[00:17:16] Guest: Randy Brown: Okay.
[00:17:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And it talks about what are some of the alternatives for budgeting? I've interviewed a couple different people. Their their view is throw out budgeting as we do it today. We still need to forecast, but you need to do away with the budget. You need to separate the incentives from the budget. And it's just a perverse process, one that if you go there. And so I think you'd really enjoy that book because it's not saying don't plan.
[00:17:38] Guest: Randy Brown: You have to plan constantly forecasting.
[00:17:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We all have to plan. And the budgeting process of today, I've done polls on LinkedIn. 70% of people say it's broken, but we'll keep going here. So we don't spend the whole hour on budgeting and getting into except.
[00:17:51] Guest: Randy Brown: Except now I have to poke because 30% of people think it shouldn't be like that, that the budget is meaningful.
[00:17:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It was probably.
[00:17:58] Guest: Randy Brown: Something like, or am I in that 30% where I just misunderstand the question and and so I say, no, we can't get rid of it entirely because you're always going to find 30% is way too high. Budgets are annual, budgets are meaningless.
[00:18:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I've seen enough polls where I've seen 30 or 40% on questions where I'm just like, who? What? So we won't even go there.
[00:18:20] Guest: Randy Brown: Love it, love it.
[00:18:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, so today I know you do fractional support for many different companies. What do you enjoy so much about that? Is it the flexibility from working from home? Or is there other things you really enjoy about being an independent consultant?
[00:18:36] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, I mean, I would be dishonest with myself and everybody if I didn't say that the flexibility of working from home and being my own boss wasn't the number one driver. Absolutely it was. I have little children at home. I wouldn't trade the opportunity to be with them for anything. You know, we're in the summer right now and I ramp down my practice significantly in the summer. I tell, I tell my agencies, hey, look, I'm not really looking for work right now because kids are on summer vacation. I'd just as soon go to the park with them, or go to the pool with them, or play out in the backyard with them, or play video games in the basement when it's too hot. So to say that that's not the number one driver would be insincere. I love that about my life. It does make taking longer trips harder. It's really easy when you're a full time employee to take all of your two weeks or whatever you have up front and go, you know, go for two weeks and and see the world and makes that really tricky because, you know, then if I'm not working for two weeks when I've got clients that aren't having needs met, and so that's a little bit tricky. And you got to manage those relationships and, and then two, I'm not getting paid if I'm not working. There's no such thing as paid time off as a as a fractional consultant. , but the long weekends are fantastic. I don't remember the time I had a two day weekend. That sounds silly to me to think that a weekend is only two days, three and four day weekends, and then I'll work 80 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's fine. And but then realistically though, the other thing that keeps me engaged. No. Go ahead. Oh, wait.
[00:20:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I do have a question. You're a finance guy. You said you're going to work 80 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday?
[00:20:07] Guest: Randy Brown: No. Don't know. I'm a finance guy. I'm not a math guy. Don't ask me to pull out a calculator and tell you that that's only 72 hours and it's not physically possible, I couldn't resist.
[00:20:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I was like, wait a second, something's not computing here. Keep going. I got the idea, though. I know you're being metaphorical, not literal.
[00:20:23] Guest: Randy Brown: In reality, it was. It was in the back of my head too. I thought, how Paul's going to call me on that? Because that math doesn't math right.
[00:20:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: As you're getting ready to talk about cash flow, you know, you kind of have to be able to do.
[00:20:33] Guest: Randy Brown: I know. Right? Yeah, exactly. But the other thing that I do really like about about fractional consulting, going back to the initial question, is that I get to quit my job every three months and start a new one. You know, realistically, I've got 4 or 5 going at any one time, but every every three months somebody falls off and I get to pick up something. And so I get to quit my job and start a new job every three months. And I don't have any resume stigma associated with it. You know, you can if you're a full time employee and you're quitting and starting and quitting and starting, people are like, well, you're a flight risk. I don't want to pay you, but it's like it's a feature, not a bug. As a consultant. And so my unwillingness to really stay with a company for a really long time lends itself really well to this. If you're a person that loves loyalty, wants to find that company that you want to work for for the rest of your life. Consulting is not for you. If you get bored at a particular job after a year. Consulting is fantastic because the minute I get bored, I hire somebody to replace me at that company and I move right the heck on.
[00:21:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I could see you doing that. Alrighty. Do you have a favorite industry? Is there one you particularly like? If you could pick? Would there be an industry you'd mostly work in?
[00:21:46] Guest: Randy Brown: No, but I have a least favorite industry. Does that work?
[00:21:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure. What's your least favorite industry?
[00:21:51] Guest: Randy Brown: I don't work for real estate anymore. Commercial. Residential. Multi-unit. I don't touch it with a ten meter cattle prod. And the reason for that is that it, it's for whatever reason, people who are looking for finance help and real estate are overly emotional about their projects. They're they're never willing to, even from the beginning. Like they'll hire you because they've identified a property they want to buy and they want to know whether it makes sense. And you do the math and you tell them, no, it doesn't make sense. And then they say, well, can we look at it another way? And you look at it another way and you say, no, it doesn't make sense. And then you look at it and if they're smart, they fire you after the second iteration. And if and if they're not smart, they keep paying you to do six, seven, eight iterations of the model to show them that, yeah, it still doesn't make sense. And now you've wasted, you know, thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars to get to that point. And, you know, everybody wants to everybody wants to be rich dad, poor dad, everyone wants to build their real estate portfolio. And especially in today's market, it doesn't make sense. For a small time real estate investor, interest rates are too high, land values are too high, and you just can't make something cash flow like you could 1520 years ago. And the finance modeler is the fall guy every time. And I got tired of being the fall guy. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to do this one anymore. So maybe, you know, if interest rates come down, if if property values come down, if there's a little bit more balance in that particular industry. Yeah. Okay. Maybe, but unless you've got deep pockets right now, there's no money to be made in real estate, and I'm tired of getting yelled at for it.
[00:23:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love it. The great answer there, and I think it's a perfect segue because one things we want to talk about for most of the rest of this episode is cash flow. Yeah. I want to jump into cash flow forecasting. And you mentioned how with the real estate, I just couldn't make the cash flow didn't make sense. And they just kept wanting to look at a different way. It's like, no, the cash isn't there. You're spending too much for the return you need. Go spend the money elsewhere to get a better return. But they didn't want to hear that. So why? Why is it so important that we're always modeling and doing cash flow forecasting?
[00:24:01] Guest: Randy Brown: I have to lean on my my favorite CFO mentor I ever had. He was my CFO oh, 4 or 5 years ago. His name's Joe Beatty, and he he's worked in nutrition most of his career. I think he's finally retired at this point. But his number one principle was always cash is king. And when anybody ever, ever poked him on it, the first thing he'd say when you say, well, why is cash so important? He'd say it every time. And I completely agree with it, because you don't pay your bills or your investors or your employees with coupons, nor do you pay them with inventory. If you want your people to come to work, you need cash. If you want to buy more products, you need cash. If you want your vendors to keep going, you need cash. If you want to quit your job and buy something in your retirement, you need cash. And that's why cash modeling and cash forecasting is so important because ultimately, everything is cash. The top line on the balance sheet is an owner's equity. It's not retained earnings. It's not your credit cards. The top line on the balance sheet is cash, because that's the one that's the most important.
[00:25:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's one that feeds the next model. Right. You're your income statement is an accounting way of looking at things.
[00:25:16] Guest: Randy Brown: Absolutely.
[00:25:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The rest of it, even though there is obviously a lot of accounting, is really about understanding your cash and what you're doing with your cash.
[00:25:25] Guest: Randy Brown: Yep. How how you turn other things into more cash than you put into them. Yeah, exactly. Inventory. These assets.
[00:25:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Generate more cash than I invest in.
[00:25:36] Guest: Randy Brown: A widget for a buck. Sold it for two. And at the end of the day, now I've got a dollar that I didn't have.
[00:25:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So it's amazing how simple it is when you boil it all down. Business is about generating cash. You get yourself in trouble when you forget that.
[00:25:51] Guest: Randy Brown: And you'd be shocked at how simple building a really good cash forecast is. Because it really is simple, especially when you're looking near term.
[00:26:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So let's talk about that. Let's talk a 13 week cash flow. What data do you need. It's simple to build. What data do you need to do a 13 week cash flow. You're laughing now. No.
[00:26:09] Guest: Randy Brown: Well I just you know, if we're going simple, it really is as much as, okay, where is my cash going and where is it coming from? And what does that look like on a calendar like that? That is basically what a cash forecast is. Sure.
[00:26:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But let's talk a little more detail. How do you get the data? Where does the data typically come from and the companies you're working, working for or just in general?
[00:26:35] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, yeah. On a if we're talking that near term cash forecast. And again this is actually going to depend on the sales cycle and the cash cycle of the company. So there's always going to be nuance. But if we're going to reduce this to kind of a stereotype.
[00:26:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: FP&A guy here. And as you know, I am very passionate about financial modeling and the Financial Modeling Institute's mission. I have been a huge fan of the FMI for years, and I was super excited when they decided to sponsor the Financial Modelers Corner. I recently completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and love the entire experience. It was top notch from start to finish. I am a better modeler today for having completed the certification. I strongly believe every modeler needs to demonstrate they are a qualified financial modeler, and one of the best ways to do that is through the FMI program. Earning the accreditation will demonstrate to your current and future employers that you are serious about financial modeling. What are you waiting for? Visit www.fmiinstitute.com/podcast and use Code podcast to save 15% when you enroll in an accreditation today
[00:27:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's mostly a 13 week cash flow, which is generally a short term cash flow, right? One quarter roughly.
[00:28:01] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah. I mean, the data should be able to come out of your accounting system. If your accounting system is even reasonably put together, it should be there if your accounting system isn't quite put together there, then you might need a credit card statement as well. But realistically, everything comes from your accounting system. You've either got cash receipts that are flowing into your accounting system. If you're a cash sales business, like a like a direct consumer or an e-commerce, or you've got your receivables that are in your accounting system, if you're more B2B or more manufacturing industry distribution that's coming in, that's where your cash is coming from. Your cash is either going out because you're paying everything with a credit card, in which case, yeah, maybe you need a credit card statement so you know how much I'm spending. And you know the timing of when that credit card payment happens or it's in your accounts payable and you have that out of your accounting system. So really a good cash forecast depends on having a reasonable accounting system. I'm not going to say a good one because I've never seen one.
[00:28:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I have to pay back that plastic. I thought that was just fake money.
[00:29:01] Guest: Randy Brown: You know, it's those darn creditors. And, you know, I don't know, in my line of work, I work with a lot of distressed, distressed companies. And there's a reason they charge. You know, credit card interest. Because there's a lot of those bills that actually do go unpaid, unfortunately.
[00:29:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, I, I worked for a credit card company. I get it there. They are a high risk portfolio compared to many other loans. And therefore they're going to charge more. You can have a whole separate debate about that. But that's the simple economics of it. There's a risk reward profile and it's more risky. Simple as that.
[00:29:36] Guest: Randy Brown: Totally is.
[00:29:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So where do you start when you're building a cash flow? So you're building a 13 week cash flow. How do you how do you get started?
[00:29:46] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah. So the way I always get started is I really do kind of a deep dive on identifying my sources and uses of cash. You know, in a perfect world, that's all accounts receivable and accounts payable, right. Like that would be your perfect world for building a cash forecast is I downloaded my R, I download my app. All of my AR is collectible. All of my AP, you know, has specific AP terms set to it. Great. In reality, that never works. And so you have to identify all the other sources and uses things like payroll is the easiest one that always comes to mind. Pay payroll and then even credit card payments are the two easiest ones that aren't as simple as oh, give me my AR aging and my AP aging. No, we've got to, you know, we got to look at those. And so really understanding what are my sources and uses. And then I like to identify how much variation is there in those sources and uses. So if we're if we're talking , uses, you know, the easiest one there is. Well, are my employees hourly or are they salaried. And if they're hourly, do they usually work about the same number of hours or, you know, is my payroll $100,000 a pay period like clockwork, or does it, you know, does it jump?
[00:30:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Is it fluctuate 30, 40, 50%?
[00:31:01] Guest: Randy Brown: Is. And is there any seasonality that I need to consider? You know, do I pay my employees more in the holiday hours? Because we're a retailer and everyone's working overtime in November and December? Or am I more, you know, am I is everybody on salary? And, you know, payroll is like clockwork. So I go through and I'll identify every single one of those sources and uses or every single card I identify the ones that matter, you know, the material ones. Materiality is everything in every forecast. And that whether it's a cash flow, whether it's a sales forecast, a long range plan, if it doesn't matter, stop thinking about it. And if somebody calls you on the fact that, well, you know, you said that our phone bill is only $1,200 a month. It's actually 1247. Tell him to go take a hike and go find another job. You don't want to work for those people anyway.
[00:31:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. It's basically look, just tell them it's immaterial. Let's not focus on that.
[00:31:50] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, let's let's not worry about that. Let's worry about this one. That if it's off by 1%, it matters. You know, if your sales are off by 5%, that's significant. If your rent is off by 5%, and you've got this little hole in the wall workspace. It doesn't matter if you're off by 5%, it doesn't move the needle. So identify your material sources and uses of cash and see if they're easily predictable. Like, you know, again, your employees are all salaried. Just lay it out on a calendar. A lot of the times, you know, if I if I'm like a semiweekly payroll or a bimonthly, I'll just create in my calendar what weeks or payroll weeks or what days or payroll days and load those into the calendar so that I don't have to think about payroll anymore. And oh, well, we're going to hire this new employee. Yeah. But in the next 13 weeks, is that going to materially impact your cash? No, it's not going to. So I don't need to worry about it. I'll adjust it over time as I, you know, as we're tweaking the model and then anything that is going to be variable in nature, like an accounts payable account, is you're going to want to load that entire set and you're going to want to summarize it either. I usually do by week. Some people like to look at it by day or month. I like the week look because it makes it makes an easy like Wednesday afternoon meeting about, okay, what bills are we going to pay on Thursday? And so I like to load an entire accounts payable, and I like to load an entire accounts receivable and look at them by when collection is expected and paying is expected. And that's how I would get started.
[00:33:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes sense, I mean and from there. So you got all that. You've done that. What are some of the things you should keep in mind as you're building out the the forecast? Obviously you mentioned the hourly versus salary example, the biweekly versus monthly, where sometimes you have three pay periods in a month or you don't, depending on, you know, how they're paid, things like that. But what are some of those other big things that people should really pay attention to?
[00:33:49] Guest: Randy Brown: You know, and it really does depend, again, on your cash cycle, if you've got a really healthy cash cycle. And what I mean by that is I would define the the healthy cash cycle. As you are an e-commerce company and you do t shirts and your t shirts are all done at some other print shop, right? So you don't carry any inventory. And you, you know, so somebody orders a t shirt off of your website, they pay you 30 bucks for the t shirt. And then this other company makes ships and distributes the t shirt, sends it to the customer, and then they send you a bill. You put that bill on like a 90 day interest free credit card. I'm not saying these exist. I'm creating a perfect world. And then you pay for that three months later. So you've collected the cash. Now you don't have to pay for it for 90 days. Beautiful. Perfect. You don't really need to look at your 13 week cash forecast realistically, if that's your world and you're that perfect in every area. But if you're not, you need to start looking at so. So everybody else, the the people who actually live on planet Earth need to be looking at this. And one of the easiest things you can ask yourself is look at your vendor list on your AP and just ask which ones of these are going to get mad if I pay them two days late versus which ones won't even notice.
[00:35:06] Guest: Randy Brown: The general rule of thumb is there's this. Like mom and pop shops scream to get their bills paid. And large companies, if you're small, you're a rounding error on their balance sheet. And yeah, they're going to send you automated emails, but you can almost always jerk them around by 3 or 4 days without unless there's like if there's some sort of contractual late fee. Obviously you need to be aware of those, but really understand your vendors and know who you can pay a little bit late, who you could benefit from paying a little bit early. And same with your collections. When you're looking at your receivables, if you've got a big receivable and you know it's coming up in 30 days, but you're looking at your week to week cash and you say, man, it'd sure be great if these guys paid us a week early. Having that in front of you gives you the chance to pick up the phone and say, hey, I'll give you a 2% discount if you pay me right now.
[00:35:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah.
[00:35:59] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's a great point of understanding where where you have wiggle room.
[00:36:05] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, it really is. You need to understand that. And you really just you need to know who your customers are and who your vendors are to be able to have those conversations.
[00:36:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's really it's understanding the the detail of what's material, who's involved in it, what the contractual terms are, and being able to manage from there. And I'm going to guess this is mostly, you know, small businesses. The bigger and bigger you get, the harder and harder it is to manage it at that level.
[00:36:28] Guest: Randy Brown: Obviously, I think that I think that's true of everything in business, though, whether it's cash forecasting or or sales. You know, I have a buddy who he does software sales, and when he works for a small company, he can kind of do whatever he wants and works for a big company. No, he's got to follow the process to a T. And so yeah, I think that's true of every.
[00:36:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think you're right. So any anything else you want to add around cash flow Forecasting for audience things they should maybe think of. Be aware of. Any advice?
[00:36:58] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah.
[00:36:59] Guest: Randy Brown: The other thing I would talk about is how often you look at it. You know, how frequently you're actually looking at your cash forecast. And I think that that's really kind of the third leg of a good cash forecast. We've talked about kind of amounts and, and and timing and dates and things. And really it's the frequency next that you want to look at. And that really does come down to, you know, how healthy of a cash cycle do you have and how much cash do you have. So if you've got if you know, if you're if you're a company that spends $100,000 a month and you've got $1 million in the bank, you don't need to be looking at your cash forecast every week. You could probably get away with looking at it once a month because you've got ten, 12 months of cash runway and you've got a really healthy cash cycle. You're collecting, you're paying, and you've got this big chunk here that you can cover your bills with. But then, you know, suppose that the opposite is true. And you've got $100,000 of cash disbursements you got to make every week. You got ten bucks in the bank, and you're only going to collect $105,000 of cash each week. You've got to be really clever. In fact, with with that kind of a company, you're probably looking at your cash forecast a couple of times a week. And it really just again comes down to when's the cash coming in, when's it going out, and what do I have as my buffer underneath that, that cash runway.
[00:38:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You haven't worked with some distressed companies by chance have you.
[00:38:18] Guest: Randy Brown: Where never once a day in my life. Every single one of my companies, they sell on cash, they pay on 90 day credit, and they're sitting on 18 months of cash runway.
[00:38:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, well, I know who lies a lot all right now. So I like how you kind of the three stools you talked about there. You know, the materiality, the timing and more around the timing of when people pay you, when you pay them and then how the frequency. Yeah. Is that thing of how often you should look at it. Think about all three. Because 13 weeks and looking at it Weekly may make sense in some places, looking at once a month. Lots of different things depending on size and scale. There are so many different things that go into that that there's not a perfect frequency, timing, materiality for a company. It's going to be unique to each company. There's obviously some guide guidelines and guidelines. Yeah.
[00:39:09] Guest: Randy Brown: Like for for instance I would say I would say if you're not looking at a cash forecast at least monthly, that would be irresponsible of you.
[00:39:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, sure.
[00:39:17] Guest: Randy Brown: I mean, it may, it may, you may be in a perfect position where you only need to look at it once a month. But if you think you're in a position where you don't need to look at it at least once a month, you're just lying to yourself.
[00:39:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I agree, I mean, just like you know, my business. I go through my bank account, look at everything once a week.
[00:39:31] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah.
[00:39:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I want to make sure that the the cash is there and that people are paying me.
[00:39:39] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah.
[00:39:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You need to look at it periodically. Otherwise you're just going to be surprised. That's the bottom line. Something's going to surprise you. And then you're going to kick yourself and say, okay, now we need to check it every day because you do that knee jerk reaction. It's like balance. It just don't don't let it sit there forever because it will bite you. It's a question of when, not if.
[00:39:58] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, exactly. Yep. All right.
[00:40:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So we've talked cash flow forecasting. Now we're going to move on. Couple kind of standard fun questions we have. Then we're going to move into our rapid fire section. One of my favorites
[00:40:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. The first question I want to ask you what's your favorite Excel shortcut.
[00:40:12] Guest: Randy Brown: You know I used to brag to my wife or not, I didn't I didn't used to brag. One time I bragged to my wife that, you know, I type 50 words a minute, and she looked at me and just, like, laughed because I thought that was like, good. I am so slow when it actually gets down to the modeling and the typing, that I don't use a lot of shortcuts and I could benefit from it, but my mind just won't let me go there. So I'm going to tell you my favorite shortcut is alt F11, because that's how I get to my dev console. And I am a VBA junkie.
[00:40:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There you go. That that works. See, I'm not a big VBA guy. Everybody's different. So we'll go with alt f11 I get it.
[00:40:47] Guest: Randy Brown: Love it.
[00:40:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So what is the one thing you have learned during your career that's helped you the most? Maybe the number one lesson you've learned?
[00:40:55] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah, I you sent me that question in advance. I'm going to take a look at my notes because I want to make sure I say this right, because I thought a lot about this one. , as, , I used to think I was young in my career, but I've been doing this, like, 20 years now. I'm starting to. I'm starting to feel old, and now I'm getting to be that old wise guy that can impart my wisdom. And so what I'm going to say actually comes from my karate instructor. All of us are 95% the same. We're all trying to do the same things. Every single person wakes up, they get dressed, they go to work. I mean, not everybody, but you understand what I'm saying? You know, they get dressed, they go to work, they go to work, and they're at work to make money to pay the bills so that they can try and have a happy life when they're not at work. And there's another 5 to 10% that separates us, whether that's religious, whether that's political, whether that's economic, whether that's anything you've got going on. So if we're only 5% different, maybe we all ought to interact with each other with that thinking and try and, you know, either either understand or seek to understand or ignore that other 5% and understand that we're all the same. We all put our pants on one leg after the other, except for Bruce Dickinson, who makes gold records once he gets his pants on. , if you know the reference, you know the reference. If you don't know, you don't know me either. But but realistic. But realistically, just understand that. And when somebody is is in your face, when somebody disagrees with you, understand that they're not attacking you to attack you, they're attacking you, or they're attacking your thinking because they're coming from that from a different 5%. But the other 95 is exactly the same. So take that into consideration when you're dealing with people, because at the end of the day, we're all just people.
[00:42:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Great advice, especially in this day and age where sometimes we, tend to focus way too much on how we're different. Remember, people are similar. I like it, it's great advice. Now we're going to move to the rapid fire section. Here's the instructions. You get no more than 10s 15 at the most. To answer the idea is just to answer one or the other. Okay, no it depends. You can't give me the consultant answer for all of them. And then at the end you can elaborate on 1 or 2 that you're like, well, yeah, but there's a lot of nuance to that answer. You didn't let me give the nuance. So you're ready.
[00:43:13] Guest: Randy Brown: I think I can do this. Ready or not, you've been more than fair.
[00:43:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We'll see.
[00:43:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Circular or no circular references.
[00:43:20] Guest: Randy Brown: Ew, David, no.
[00:43:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Vba or no VBA.
[00:43:25] Guest: Randy Brown: All the time, but don't let it show in your distributions. We'll talk about that after.
[00:43:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Horizontal or vertical model?
[00:43:31] Guest: Randy Brown: I used to be very vertical. I am more horizontal the more models I build.
[00:43:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay.
[00:43:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Excel dynamic arrays yes or no.
[00:43:40] Guest: Randy Brown: I don't hate him, but I don't use them all that often.
[00:43:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay.
[00:43:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: External workbook links. Yes or no?
[00:43:46] Guest: Randy Brown: Yes, but same as VBA. Your distribution should ignore them and we'll get to that on the follow up.
[00:43:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Named ranges. Yes or no.
[00:43:54] Guest: Randy Brown: Same as dynamic arrays. I don't hate them, but I don't use them personally.
[00:43:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Do you follow formal standards for modeling like fast or smart or any of those?
[00:44:03] Guest: Randy Brown: You know, I use standard coding conventions for file names and for my VBA scripts, but I don't follow any particular standards for my modeling. I do love Stephen Few's work, but I'm not going to say that I follow standards.
[00:44:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right.
[00:44:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Will excel ever Die?
[00:44:19] Guest: Randy Brown: Not in my career lifetime. But I mean, maybe after that.
[00:44:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Will AI build the models for us in the future?
[00:44:27] Guest: Randy Brown: You know they already are for me, to a certain extent. So. Absolutely.
[00:44:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Should you use cell protection in your models?
[00:44:37] Guest: Randy Brown: It depends on your audience, but generally speaking, it's not a bad idea. I like, oh, incidentally, I like very hidden better than I like cheap protection.
[00:44:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The evil, very hidden.
[00:44:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We will.
[00:44:49] Guest: Randy Brown: Security. Security by obscurity is my absolute favorite.
[00:44:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's funny. Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision making tool?
[00:45:00] Guest: Randy Brown: I believe they should be the number one corporate decision making tool. But the CEO's sales friends are always going to trump you, no matter how good your model is.
[00:45:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That was very close to the person that said politics. All right. What is your lookup function of choice? Which do you prefer? Choose Vlookup index match or index match Xlookup or something else.
[00:45:21] Guest: Randy Brown: I actually prefer Sumifs, if only because it allows me to capture if there's a if for some reason my my data is transactional instead of a single lookup. But I would say Sumifs and then Vlookup if it's going to work and if it's not going to work, then I'll use index. Index match.
[00:45:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right.
[00:45:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Fair enough. And I know you wanted to elaborate on 1 or 2 there, so go ahead.
[00:45:41] Guest: Randy Brown: Yeah. So my elaboration is going to be on VBA and linked worksheets and it's going to be the same elaboration. So when I talk about one I'm talking about the other. I love to use VBA and I love to use linked workbooks, but I absolutely detest sending those workbooks to another party with those links or that VBA code still intact. The reason for that is the minute that person opens up the worksheet, they get this nice prompt. Do you want to update the links? And they say, what the heck is this? And especially if they're not a finance person, they're going to blindly push. Yes, it's going to freeze up their computer for a month looking for the linked workbooks, and then it's going to throw an error, and then their entire worksheet is going to be covered in hashtag ref. And they're going to be so mad at you that you might lose your job over it. Yes, use them. But if you're a VBA user, you should have a sub in your VBA that creates a copy of every single sheet you want to distribute, saves it to a new file that doesn't have the VBA in it that you can then send to the groups. And if you really want to get sophisticated, obviously that same script is actually going to distribute the reports for you so that you just push. I'm ready to distribute and boom, it's gone. Same thing with linked workbooks. Save your file and then do save as. Save it as a new name whether you call it distribution or for management or no links or whatever. And then go in and break every stinking link you have in there and then send the file. Yes, you can write a VBA script that does that for you, but if you're not a VBA junkie, you can't. So you got to go in and you got to break the links. It takes you 10s and it's going to make you look like you know what you're doing.
[00:47:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah.
[00:47:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Always a good idea to break those links. Totally makes sense I get it
[00:47:20] Guest: Randy Brown: But save the file first so that you have the links on your machine.
[00:47:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who's ever done that? Where they finish something? They've hard coded it and realized.
[00:47:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Oh, crap, I hard coded the original.
[00:47:31] Guest: Randy Brown: And one other thing while we're on on linked workbooks. No. Never linked to a workbook you don't own. Marketing sends you a workbook that's their CRM or whatever. Do not link to that. They're going to change it every single day. They're going to insert rows. They're going to insert columns. They're going to add weird formulas that don't work with your stuff, and they're going to break your stuff and you're going to be sad. So don't link to other people's stuff.
[00:47:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I say just don't use workbook links at all. Use Power Query as much as you can and avoid it. But I get it. Fair enough. I've I've used them a few times, but I, I've kind of at that point where like just try to avoid them if at all possible.
[00:48:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's that's my
[00:48:08] Guest: Randy Brown: I'm just not I'm not proficient enough with power Query that to do that in a fast way. And I use links because it's quick and dirty. You know, you just click on it. It's done.
[00:48:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, I get it. I love me some Power Query, but I understand everybody's different.
[00:48:20] Guest: Randy Brown: I don't hate it. I'm just not as good as it as you are.
[00:48:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I won't totally hold it against you. I'm not good at VBA, so there we go. We each have our strengths. Okay, if you could offer one piece of advice to our audience to be a better financial modeler. What's that? One piece of advice?
[00:48:35] Guest: Randy Brown: Learn relational data structures. Take yourself a SQL course. Understand what relational databases are. I understand that we're in a world where we've moved into analytical data structures, and we've got all sorts of different schemas going, but learn yourself a solid transactional SQL system. Be really good at a Select query. It's going to give you all sorts of benefits. You're going to understand data structures. You're going to understand how multiple different types of attributes relate to one another. You're going to get a really quick crash course in set theory and Venn diagrams. You're going to be able to debug your report when it spits out a sales number that you just completely don't believe, you're going to be able to go in and see, well, why is that? Oh, it's doing a left join when it should be doing an outer join or it should be doing an inner join. I'm oh, you know what? I'm joining on something where I've got two primary keys or I've got two of this thing in this related table that's supposed to be a 1 to 1 key. If you understand relational data structures and how to get information out of them, it's going to help you in every other analytical journey you're doing, even if you never write a Select query in your entire career.
[00:49:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I completely agree with you. I did two years of report writing. I did a master of Science in Information Management as well as an MBA, and understanding relational data has been incredibly helpful. Many times in building stuff and in getting out the data and being able to look at it and go, okay, somebody did a join here wrong when they pulled this. These numbers are ridiculous, which means you're duplicating something. Let's go find out what we duplicated or whatever it might be. I think that's great advice. I'm a big fan of that learning as well because it helps. It has helped me incredibly in my career. So we're we're we're out of time here. So last question. If our audience wants to learn more about you, what's the best way for them to to learn about you or get in touch with you?
[00:50:26] Guest: Randy Brown: You know, oddly, this is a it's a little bit funny because the easiest way to get Ahold of me is to, is to follow me on Instagram and DM me there. It's my saxophone account, but the reason it's the easiest is one it's just Randy_Brown. So it's really easy to find me. And two, my Instagram DMs are the thing I probably check more often than anything else, other than maybe my phone texts, and I don't give out my phone number to anybody. But if you were to email me, I would try and get back to you. But I get so much stinking email these days that it's impossible. So I would say if you want to get Ahold of me, follow me on Instagram. Randy_Brown, you'll get a little saxophone in your life that won't hurt anybody. And then DM me from there. And and that's the fastest way for me to get back to you.
[00:51:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I love it.
[00:51:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So if you want Randy to build a real estate model for you, DM him at Randy_Brown at Instagram. I mean, wait.
[00:51:19] Guest: Randy Brown: No, let me let me.
[00:51:20] Guest: Randy Brown: Let me translate for you. That one for you, Paul, if you want me to berate you over the head for an hour, DM me on on my Instagram about wanting to build a real estate model.
[00:51:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Alrighty. On that note, we'll go ahead and close. Thank you for joining me, Randy. I really enjoyed the conversation. It was great to have you on the show. Appreciate you carving out some time.
[00:51:42] Guest: Randy Brown: Thanks for having me, Paul. This was super fun. Thanks.
[00:51:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Financial Modelers Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and it made me a better financial modeling. What are you waiting for? Visit FMI at www.fmiinstitute.com/podcast and use Code podcast to save 15% when you enroll in one of the accreditations today.