Fazal E Haq — Insights https://fazalehaq.com FP&A, finance systems, Excel/VBA, automation, and professional judgment. en-ca Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:57:14 GMT Automating the Month-End Pack: What Actually Worked https://fazalehaq.com/blog/automating-month-end-pack https://fazalehaq.com/blog/automating-month-end-pack Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:17:00 GMT Every FP&A team knows the month-end drill: pull the data, reconcile it, rebuild the pack, chase the variance explanations. At one point our cycle consumed four working days every month — not analyzing, just assembling. Every FP&A team knows the month-end drill: pull the data, reconcile it, rebuild the pack, chase the variance explanations. At one point our cycle consumed four working days every month — not analyzing, just assembling.

The instinct is to start with the dashboard. I did the opposite. I started with the extraction layer — SQL queries against SAP that returned the same clean structure every time. Only when the data arrived consistently did I add a Python layer to validate it: totals that must tie, account mappings that must exist, variances beyond a threshold that get flagged before a human ever sees them.

The Power BI pack came last, and by then it was almost easy — a dashboard is only ever as reliable as what feeds it. The cycle went from four days to same-day, and about twenty hours a month of manual consolidation disappeared.

Two lessons if you are attempting the same: first, automate the reconciliation before the presentation — a beautiful dashboard built on unreconciled data makes things worse, faster. Second, keep a manual fallback path for the first three cycles. Trust in automation is earned by parallel runs, not by promises.

]]> Five VBA Validation Patterns Every FP&A Team Should Steal https://fazalehaq.com/blog/vba-validation-patterns https://fazalehaq.com/blog/vba-validation-patterns Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:17:00 GMT When I built a toolkit to consolidate twelve department budget templates, the time-saving part was easy. The valuable part was the validation — the checks that stop a broken submission before it contaminates the master model. Here are five patterns worth stealing. When I built a toolkit to consolidate twelve department budget templates, the time-saving part was easy. The valuable part was the validation — the checks that stop a broken submission before it contaminates the master model. Here are five patterns worth stealing.

1. Completeness before anything else

Scan required input cells first and reject the file with a named list of what is missing. "Missing: headcount, Q3" is a two-minute fix; a silent blank is a two-hour hunt.

2. Range guards on every assumption

If a department enters a 40% merit increase, that is not data — that is a conversation. Flag out-of-range inputs and route them for review instead of failing silently.

3. Broken-link scans

Budget templates accumulate external references like barnacles. Check for links to other workbooks and old file paths before consolidation, not after the numbers look wrong.

4. Version stamps on every submission

Write the template version into a hidden cell and refuse anything older than the current cycle. Half of consolidation errors are simply last quarter's file.

5. An exception log, not a message box

Every flagged issue goes to a log sheet the reviewer can work through. Message boxes get clicked away; a log gets resolved.

None of this is sophisticated code. It is unglamorous defensive plumbing — and it is exactly what makes the difference between a macro people trust and one they work around.

]]> What an MBA Actually Added to a Working Analyst's Toolkit https://fazalehaq.com/blog/mba-working-analyst https://fazalehaq.com/blog/mba-working-analyst Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:17:00 GMT I went into the MBA at Sprott already working as a financial analyst, and I was skeptical about how much theory would survive contact with a real close cycle. The honest answer: more than I expected, but rarely in the way the brochure suggests. I went into the MBA at Sprott already working as a financial analyst, and I was skeptical about how much theory would survive contact with a real close cycle. The honest answer: more than I expected, but rarely in the way the brochure suggests.

The concentration in Financial Management was the direct hit. Valuation, M&A, corporate finance — these courses did not teach me my job, but they gave structure to problems I had been solving by instinct. Building a full acquisition proposal, financing plan and all, changes how you read a deal announcement forever.

The unexpected wins were the adjacent courses. Financial statement analysis made me faster at reading what a business is actually doing beneath the ratios I already produced. Strategy courses gave me the vocabulary to frame analysis for executives — the same numbers, presented as a decision.

What it did not do: replace the craft. Nobody assigns you a messy SAP extract in a classroom. The degree works best as a multiplier on real experience — which is exactly why I did it while working, and exactly how I would recommend doing it.

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