Three FP&A Mistakes I See in $50–$200M Companies

As companies grow from early-stage to mid-market, something subtle—but dangerous—often happens: complexity begins to outpace clarity.

At $50–$200M in revenue, organizations are no longer scrappy startups, but they’re not yet institutional giants either. They’re in a transitional phase where decisions become more expensive; mistakes carry longer consequences, and intuition alone is no longer enough.

This is where Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) either becomes a strategic accelerator—or a quiet bottleneck.

Over the years, I’ve seen the same three mistakes appear again and again at this stage of growth. They’re rarely caused by lack of talent or effort. They’re structural.

 

Mistake #1: Treating FP&A Like Advanced Accounting

One of the most common mistakes is assuming that good accounting automatically leads to good forecasting.

It doesn’t.

Accounting is designed to tell you what happened. FP&A is designed to help you decide what to do next.

Yet in many organizations, FP&A inherits the mindset, cadence, and tooling of accounting.

Teams focus on:

• Closing faster

• Reconciling variances

• Perfecting historical accuracy

  
  

Those things matter—but they do not create forward momentum.

When FP&A sits too close to accounting, leaders end up with beautifully formatted explanations of the past instead of insight into the future. Meetings turn into forensic exercises rather than strategic discussions.

True FP&A asks different questions:

• What are the few variables that actually drive our performance?

• How sensitive is our business to changes in pricing, volume, or cost?

• What decisions can we make today to change our trajectory six months from now?

  
  

Until FP&A is repositioned as a decision-support function rather than a reporting one, leadership will continue to feel like they are steering by looking in the rearview mirror.

 

Mistake #2: Overengineering Before Clarifying the Purpose

Another common trap is overengineering.

As companies grow, there is a temptation to build complex models early—often driven by the desire to “do it right.” This results in massive spreadsheets, intricate logic, and assumptions layered on assumptions.

But complexity without clarity does not create insight. It creates fragility.

In many cases, the model becomes so complicated that:

• Only one person understands it

• Changes take days instead of minutes

• Leaders stop trusting the outputs

  
  

High-performing finance teams do the opposite. They start with clarity before complexity.

They ask:

• What decisions do we need to make in the next 3–6 months?

• What metrics actually influence those decisions?

• What level of precision is “good enough” to move forward?

  
  

Once those answers are clear, the model can grow in sophistication intentionally rather than reactively.

Mistake #3: Treating Forecasts as Static Deliverables

Many organizations still view forecasts as events: a budget cycle, a quarterly update, and a board package.

But in dynamic environments, static forecasts quickly become irrelevant.

• Headcount changes

• Revenue timing shifts

• Customer behavior evolves

• Costs fluctuate

When forecasts are not continuously updated, leadership ends up making decisions based on outdated assumptions.

High-performing organizations treat forecasts as living systems, not static documents. They update assumptions regularly, understand the sensitivity of their models, and use forecasts to pressure-test decisions before committing to them.

When this shift happens, FP&A becomes a strategic advantage rather than a reporting obligation.

The Takeaway

At the $50–$200M stage, FP&A is no longer about reporting accuracy. It is about decision clarity.

The companies that scale successfully are the ones that use FP&A to align teams, surface trade-offs, and move forward with confidence.