Survey: Lack of Reliable and Accessible Data Holds FP&A Back From Success with Technology

A sizable majority of survey respondents indicated moderate to significant challenges when it comes to the reliability and accessibility of data, according to the 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey.

ROCKVILLE, Md., Jan. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) professionals identify bad data — more often than people skills or tools — as the primary hindrance to their technology success. Sixty-one percent of respondents to the 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report: Technology and Data stated it was the lack of reliability of the data that posed a challenge, while 60% reported it was the lack of accessibility to data that held them back.

FP&A juggles multiple planning and reporting tools, which is both a cause and a result of the data challenges. More than half of survey respondents reported using at least eight categories and 10 types of reporting tools on a quarterly basis. The top reasons cited for this include the inability to merge and analyze data coming from multiple sources, systems and geographies; organizations' failure to upgrade legacy systems; a lack of system integration; and an insufficient number of decision-makers willing to use the tools.

Spreadsheets remain the dominant tool for FP&A professionals, with 96% of survey respondents using them for planning, 93% using them for reporting purposes on a daily or weekly basis, and all using them on at least a quarterly basis. These numbers hold true when considering company size, geography, type of ownership and level of seniority.

Over 80% of survey respondents reported they view technology and data skills as valuable as finance skills. The most common technology skills FP&A professionals hire for are "last-mile skills," which focus on business intelligence, spreadsheets and building dashboards. A significant majority of practitioners (79%) hire for specific technology skills and 96% hire for general technology skills.

Enterprise performance management (EPM) tools, intended to minimize the problem of data being neither reliable nor accessible, are broadly applied across FP&A. Most survey respondents (71%) use them for planning at least quarterly, and over half use them for planning daily or weekly.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in FP&A has not reached a level of commonality, with just 23% of survey respondents using it on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. That said, 40% of survey respondents are in the testing phase and plan to implement AI in the next year.

"Technology, when implemented and upgraded properly and paired with skilled FP&A professionals, can have a significant impact on the success of an organization," said Jim Kaitz, President & CEO of AFP. "To be able to provide actionable intelligence to the business, FP&A must have a robust technology and data infrastructure that can support fast decision-making and deep insights."

The 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey was conducted in the fall of 2024 and received responses from 362 FP&A and finance practitioners from organizations of varying sizes and from around the globe.

Full survey results are available on the 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report: Technology and Data page. Please direct all press inquiries to Melissa Rawak, Managing Director, at [email protected].

In addition to the survey, AFP has organized educational programming on the topic at the 2025 AFP FP&A Forum to help FP&A professionals navigate their technological challenges and upgrade its use in their daily work.

Examples of educational sessions on FP&A and technology at the AFP FP&A Forum include:

• Frictionless FP&A Reporting: You're Closer Than You Think: A pair of FP&A experts look at common sources of resistance to reporting automation and walk through a real-world case study of the implementation of automated reporting with a major healthcare distributor.
• Real-World Applications of AI in FP&A: Leading FP&A practitioners detail the transformative effects AI has had on their workflows, resulting in improvements in forecasting accuracy, reduced manual data manipulation and transformation, and automated reporting across business units.
• FP&A's Role in Enabling Growth, Productivity & Superior Performance at Portillo's: Experts share how Portillo's, a fast-casual restaurant chain, replaced its legacy FP&A systems, which were heavily dependent on outdated Excel-based EPM solutions, with a purpose-built EPM cloud solution specifically designed for retail best practices.

AFP's FP&A Forum, the annual event for FP&A professionals organized by AFP, takes place in Austin, March 17-19. Register for the FP&A Forum.

About AFP^®
Headquartered outside of Washington, D.C., and located regionally in Singapore, the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) is the professional society committed to advancing the success of treasury and finance members and their organizations. Established and administered by AFP, the Certified Treasury Professional and Certified Corporate FP&A Professional credentials set standards of excellence in treasury and finance. Each year, AFP hosts the largest networking conference worldwide for about 7,000 corporate financial professionals.

SOURCE Association for Financial Professionals