Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is the team inside a company that builds budgets, forecasts revenue/expenses, does variance analysis (actual vs. plan), and tells leadership what the numbers mean. Think of it as the bridge between accounting (what happened) and strategy (what should happen next).
All resources below are free (no paywall, no credit card required). Ordered from foundational to advanced.
Before you can forecast, you need to read and understand financial statements fluently.
- youtube Accounting Stuff — Accounting Basics Playlist James covers debits/credits, the accounting equation, and all three financial statements in beginner-friendly 10-15 min videos. ~750K subscribers, completely free.
- youtube The Finance Storyteller (Philip de Vroe) Ex-Philips corporate finance director. Deep dives on P&L, balance sheet analysis, cash flow, and how FP&A teams actually use these statements. All free.
- course Khan Academy — Finance & Capital Markets Free structured course covering interest, present value, stocks, bonds, and financial statements. Self-paced with practice exercises.
- course MIT OpenCourseWare — Intro to Financial & Managerial Accounting Full MIT course with lecture notes, assignments, and exams. Free, no login required.
Excel is the daily tool for FP&A. You need to be fast and fluent with formulas, models, and data manipulation.
- youtube Leila Gharani — Excel for Finance 2M+ subscribers. Practical Excel tutorials focused on business/finance use cases. Covers dynamic arrays, XLOOKUP, pivot tables, Power Query. All free on YouTube.
- youtube Excel Campus (Jon Acampora) Focuses on making Excel work faster — keyboard shortcuts, VBA basics, pivot table techniques. Free YouTube content.
- course Microsoft — Free Excel Training Official Microsoft Excel training videos. Covers beginner through advanced features. Completely free, no account needed.
- practice Chandoo.org — Excel Formula Guide Comprehensive free formula reference with examples. The blog also has free financial modeling walkthroughs.
- youtube TeachExcel 1000+ free Excel tutorial videos organized by topic. Good for looking up specific functions when building models.
The core FP&A skill. Learn how companies build annual budgets and rolling forecasts.
- youtube Carl Seidman — FP&A videos FP&A consultant with videos on budgeting processes, forecasting techniques, variance analysis, and what the actual job looks like day-to-day. Free on YouTube.
- youtube Josh Aharonoff Startup CFO sharing practical FP&A templates, financial models, and forecasting approaches in Google Sheets/Excel. Free templates on his channel.
- youtube Kenji Explains FP&A career content — what the role actually involves, interview prep, day-in-the-life, and technical skill breakdowns. All free.
- course MIT OpenCourseWare — Financial Accounting Deeper dive into financial accounting that feeds into budgeting/forecasting work. Free lectures, problem sets, and exams.
- youtube The Financial Controller Practical corporate finance tutorials covering budgeting, month-end close, management reporting. UK-based but universally applicable.
Building 3-statement models, DCF models, and scenario planning tools from scratch.
- youtube The Finance Storyteller — Modeling Series Philip walks through building financial models step by step, with the "why" behind every assumption. Free.
- youtube Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern) The "Dean of Valuation" at NYU posts his entire MBA-level valuation course on YouTube for free — including all Excel models to download.
- course Damodaran Online — NYU Stern Full course materials, datasets, and Excel spreadsheets for corporate finance and valuation. Everything is free to download.
- github GitHub — Financial Modeling repos Open-source financial model templates in Python and Excel. Good for seeing how others structure models programmatically.
The skill that separates a "number cruncher" from a strategic FP&A partner: explaining the WHY behind variances.
- youtube Carl Seidman — Variance Analysis Deep Dives Videos on building variance bridges, waterfall charts, and presenting to leadership. Free on YouTube.
- youtube Storytelling with Data (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic) How to present financial data clearly — chart selection, decluttering, crafting a narrative. Free YouTube channel with exercises.
- course MIT OCW — Managerial Accounting sections The managerial accounting portion covers cost behavior, variance analysis, and decision-making frameworks used in FP&A.
Getting hired, interview prep, and modern FP&A tools beyond Excel.
- youtube Kenji Explains — FP&A Interview Series Common FP&A interview questions, case studies, and how to talk about your experience. Free.
- youtube Carl Seidman — FP&A Career Path Videos on analyst → senior analyst → manager → director progression, salary ranges, and what each level actually does.
- community r/FPandA (Reddit) Active community of FP&A professionals sharing career advice, templates, and real talk about the job. Free to browse.
- tool Google Sheets (free alternative to Excel) If you don't have Excel, Google Sheets covers 90% of FP&A modeling needs. Many Josh Aharonoff templates are in Sheets.
- certification AFP — Certified Corporate FP&A Professional (FPAC) The main FP&A certification body. Study materials and exam are paid, but the syllabus/outline on their site is free and serves as a learning checklist of what you need to know.
Weeks 1–2: Financial statements fundamentals (Khan Academy + Accounting Stuff)
Weeks 3–4: Excel fluency (Leila Gharani + Microsoft training, practice daily)
Weeks 5–6: Budgeting & forecasting concepts (Carl Seidman + Josh Aharonoff)
Weeks 7–8: Build a 3-statement model from scratch (Damodaran + Finance Storyteller)
Weeks 9–10: Variance analysis & presentation (Storytelling with Data + practice on real company 10-K filings from SEC EDGAR)
Weeks 11–12: Mock interviews + build a portfolio model (Kenji Explains + r/FPandA for feedback)
- data SEC EDGAR — Public Company 10-K Filings Search any public company's financial statements (10-K annual reports). Practice reading, forecasting from, and building models off actual data. Free, no login.
- data Damodaran Data Sets Industry averages for margins, growth rates, cost of capital — essential inputs for forecasting models. Updated annually, free.