Building Better FP&A Mousetraps: Lessons from the 2025 FP&A Trends Survey

I just finished skimming the 2025 FP&A Trends survey, and it got me thinking about how to build better FP&A mousetraps.

A few numbers jumped off the page

• 59% of organizations base most decisions on data, yet 46% of FP&A time is still spent just gathering it.

• Only 11% have strategy-ops-finance plans aligned, while 31% say a single data source is their top fix. Real business partnering sits at a modest 22%.

• Driver-based models are fully deployed in just 17% of firms, but when they are, 77% call their forecasts "good or great."

In homebuilding and construction, those gaps sting twice. Volatile material costs, milestone billing and multi-year timelines can send cash flow off the rails. Leaders counter with rolling, driver-based forecasts, milestone-aligned invoicing, and one live dashboard where Finance and Field spot overruns before they bite.

How? By leaning on purpose-built planning platforms (think Farseer, Anaplan, Workday Adaptive, OneStream) that stream actuals from ERP, automate approvals, and let finance own the logic without endless IT tickets. The payoff: faster closes, cleaner data, tighter margins.

Bottom line: Spreadsheets alone won't close the benchmark gap. Unify your data, automate the grunt work, and spend your hours steering projects, not fixing formulas.

Dive deeper: Benchmarks | Construction best practices | Automation platforms

Originally posted on LinkedIn on August 3, 2025. Join the discussion on LinkedIn.