Hire the Top 3% of Freelance Financial Forecasting Experts
Toptal is a marketplace for top financial forecasting consultants. Top companies and startups hire financial forecasting consultants from Toptal for their mission critical projects.
United StatesFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since November 22, 2019
Gary is a serial entrepreneur with CEO and CFO experience. Before co-founding an aerospace startup in 2017, Gary was the director of finance at a $120 million revenue SaaS company, where he was responsible for the financial management of multiple departments and supported three mergers. Gary leverages his unique blend of finance and entrepreneurial experience across early and growth-stage businesses to add value to Toptal clients.
United StatesFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since October 30, 2019
Marvin is an accomplished life science, finance, and consulting executive with 20+ years of experience who has successfully participated in transactions totaling $15+ billion. He has extensive strategy consulting and program management experience in helping companies execute against key initiatives. Marvin enjoys advising clients from startup through Fortune 500 and helping them to achieve superior results and sustainable value creation.
LithuaniaFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since October 7, 2019
Paulius has closed 20+ seed/early-stage investments in AI, technology, SaaS, energy, and other sectors. He also has experience working on debt transactions and the biggest regional M&A deals in the Baltics while employed at a leading consulting firm (Deloitte) and DNB bank. Paulius is a CFA charter holder who enjoys freelancing to help clients on valuation, financial modeling, and fundraising projects.
United StatesFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since September 30, 2019
George has worked on M&A, IPO, and fixed income transactions with a cumulative deal value of $20+ billion at renowned Wall Street banks including Salomon Brothers and Morgan Stanley. A Fulbright scholar, George is active in the fintech startup sector and was on the management committee of Houston’s largest independent bank. At Toptal, he enjoys refining business models and optimizing financing structures to maximize flexibility and profitability.
United StatesFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since April 18, 2019
Jerry's completed over $10 billion in M&A transactions from early-stage companies to multinationals in Europe and the US, notably the exit of the healthcare innovator CareLinx to Generali. His experience also covers equity analyst, hedge funds, public accounting practice, and CFO roles and helping companies to develop KPIs, dashboards and financial strategy. Jerry joined Toptal to bring his analytic and modeling skills to a variety of companies.
AustriaFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since August 31, 2017
Olivia has over a decade of advisory experience, specializing in valuation, financial and business planning, M&A, capital raising, and due diligence. She has advised business owners globally on financial planning and strategy optimization during the fundraising and exit process. Olivia also works with investors for portfolio valuation work, the development of fund models, and due diligence. She is a Certified Valuation Analyst and is specialized in early-stage valuations.
United KingdomFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since December 28, 2021
Paul is a commercial and marketing finance professional with a decade of international experience and influence when partnering with C-suite executives, which he has done at Diageo, one of Great Britain's largest consumer goods companies. Paul gained his CA designation while working in M&A at Deloitte, and his areas of expertise include pricing and business strategy, FP&A, and finance business partnering. Paul freelances to help clients find innovative solutions to financial questions.
PeruFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since September 1, 2021
Duncan has a passion for startups. He has experience in business and revenue models, asset allocation, budgeting, forecasting, valuations, and pitch decks and fundraising on many projects during his time in Silicon Valley. His MBA from The Wharton School and mechanical engineering degree perfectly complement finance, technology and operational execution. For him, consulting is a rewarding challenge; he helps clients make good financial decisions and grow their companies successfully.
SingaporeFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since July 7, 2021
Neel is a finance leader and change agent with 10+ years of experience and a track record of impact in Fortune 50 companies. He has driven transformations to the tune of $250 million, EBITDA uplift of $100 million+, and sustainable change by managing mandates in multinationals, SMEs, and startups. Neel is adept at navigating across countries, regions, and cultures, and he brings an entrepreneurial and creative mindset, drive, and passion to design and execute win-win solutions for his clients.
United StatesFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since August 19, 2020
Jordan has spent his entire career operating at the crossroads of business and innovation. An entrepreneur himself, he understands the financial complexities early-stage ventures endure while raising capital and bringing new products to market. He spent years working at top Wall Street firms after graduating from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania. A lifelong learner, he freelances as it exposes him to new people, technologies, and companies.
GeorgiaFreelance Financial Forecasting Expert Since March 9, 2020
Head of strategic finance at Savii, a Singapore fintech company, Edisher covers FP&A and supports optimizing decision-making and shaping the company's long-term business strategy. He's executed numerous debt, equity, and M&A projects totaling $500 million and valued businesses worth $2.5 billion while working at Nordic PE firm (Nord-Corp), leading Georgian IB (TBC Capital), and KPMG. Experienced with firms of all sizes, Edisher enjoys using his financial insight to help enhance business value.
Financial forecasting consultants provide informed, data-driven assessments of what the financial future may hold for a company—information that’s important for businesses of every size and degree of complexity. This guide to hiring a financial forecasting consultant features interview questions and answers, as well as best practices to help you identify the top candidates for your company.
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Testimonials
Martin so far is a complete Rockstar.
His first bit of work produced a tool for us to model and forecast our financials and is far and away worth every penny we paid and more.
Just thought I’d share that with you.
Pete Pellizzari, CEO
Budder, Inc.
Erik has been an extremely valuable member of our team who has tremendous breath of experience with start ups in our lifecycle phase. What makes his contribution unique and highly effective is not only his excellent financial modeling skills and knowledge, but also the emotional intelligence with which he manages each relationship at Vault, understands our team dynamics, and helps us tackle start up challenges effectively. It is rare to find a part-time consultant who makes you feel like he/she is genuinely invested in the success of your company.
Romy Parzick, COO
Student Loan Benefits, Inc. dba Vault
Toptal has been an incredible key partner for Sidekick. As an early-stage start-up, we’ve leveraged both design and financial talent. The experience has been incredible, with those professionals bringing creativity, expertise, and advice to ensure Sidekick succeeds. My Toptal financial expert helped steer Sidekick’s business model, which resulted in an initial ROI of 650x! My experience with Toptal has given me great confidence in the future.
Doug MacKay, Founder / CEO
SideKick
Chris was great to work with and was always available on my schedule. His communication skills and personality were a 10/10. His outputs on the project were top notch and allowed us to develop more efficient forecasting and initiative prioritization frameworks. I would definitely use Chris again.
Chris Pozek, CEO
Veterans Rideshare
What really sets Toptal apart is the caliber of finance talent available in their network. I had a very specific and pressing need, and Toptal quickly matched me with the perfect person for the job. The expert produced a thoughtful and robust financial analysis that has ultimately allowed us to forecast and prioritize initiatives much more efficiently.
Chris Pozek, CEO
Veterans Rideshare
Scott had a lot of finance experience which he used to ask the right questions and help us do things more quickly than we would have done without him. The commission model is crucial to us being able to scale, he integrated seamlessly with our finance team and efficiently got us the outputs we needed.
Naushad Parpia, Founder and CEO
GSD
I was very impressed with the quality of finance talent in Toptal’s network. Our expert's experience was immediately evident through his insightful questions and the speed at which we could move. Toptal stayed on top of the process from making the match through to the successful completion of the project. I've already recommended Toptal Finance to my network.
Naushad Parpia, Founder and CEO
GSD
How to Hire Financial Forecasting Experts through Toptal
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2
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Within days, we'll introduce you to the right Financial Forecasting expert for your project. Average time to match is under 24 hours.
3
The Right Fit, Guaranteed
Work with your new Financial Forecasting expert for a trial period (pay only if satisfied), ensuring they're the right fit before starting the engagement.
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Do I need to hire a financial forecasting consultant?
An actionable financial forecast is important for a variety of business use cases, including mergers and acquisitions, raising capital, financial planning and analysis, capital budgeting, and strategic business initiatives. Ultimately, it’s your decision as to when your company may need an expert to analyze and forecast future financial performance. Most businesses bring in expert financial forecasters when nobody in the business has expertise in developing reliable financial projections for existing businesses, new business ventures, or other strategic initiatives. In many situations, working through the process of determining the scope of a financial forecast use case with an expert generates additional questions and insights that will add value for your business.
How do I choose between two qualified financial forecasting experts?
A qualified financial forecasting consultant has an extensive forecasting background and rigorous analytical skills, and can effectively run a forecasting project for your company. If two candidates have otherwise identical profiles, expertise in your sector and use case and the ability to communicate analyses and insights to executives and shareholders may be differentiators. You might also want to look at their personality fit with your company and other stakeholders. Success in financial forecasting requires a great deal of collaboration and trust between the management team and the consultant, so it’s important that the people involved develop a good rapport from the beginning.
Do I only need an income statement forecast or should I also get a balance sheet and cash flow forecast?
This answer depends on your use case. For a new business or initiative with no assets, no debt, and no cash accounting policy, a simple P&L (or income) statement may suffice. However, for most businesses, it’s beneficial to forecast all three financial statements to get a more comprehensive picture of sources and uses of cash, as well as the assets and liabilities of your enterprise. Most investors will want to see more than a simple income statement—they will want to see assets, liabilities, sources and uses of cash, and an analysis of returns. This is especially true for businesses that have physical assets or tax sensitivities.
How much does it cost to hire a financial forecasting consultant?
This will vary based on the scope of the project. For instance, if you only need to analyze one division of your business or just want a simple capital budgeting exercise, the cost in time and money may not be very high, since it might only take between 15 and 20 hours for a consultant to deliver the insights you need. However, if you need a robust financial forecast for all financial statements to present to investors, the project can take longer—a professional frequently spends 40 hours or more to build out a fully operating forecast. It’s important to understand the scale and scope of the project and your specific requirements when evaluating consultants.
Once the candidate is hired, what should I provide to ensure the success of the project?
Best practices for managing expectations and ensuring successful outcomes include:
• Defining and communicating the use case, the project scope, and the intended use(s) for the forecast.
• Sharing information about any major company initiatives that could influence the forecast results.
• Laying out the deliverables and deadlines upfront.
• Ensuring that the consultant you hired has all the resources they need.
• Building trust and rapport with the financial forecaster.
• Asking the expert for detailed, actionable advice to get the most value out of the engagement.
What is the difference between financial modeling and financial forecasting?
Financial forecasting and financial modeling are related but involve distinct work products and skill sets. A financial model is any modeling product that analyzes and demonstrates the financial status of a company or unit, and it can represent historical, current, or future performance, whereas a financial forecast is a specific type of financial model that endeavors to predict the future performance and metrics of a business or unit Both financial forecasts and other kinds of financial models can be highly valuable for providing businesses with analysis, understanding, and guidance in different use cases.
How quick is the hiring process with Toptal?
Typically, you can hire a financial forecasting consultant with Toptal in about 48 hours. Our talent matchers are experts in the same fields they’re matching in—they’re not recruiters or HR reps. They’ll work with you to understand your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics, and match you with ideal candidates from our vetted global talent network.
Once you select your financial forecasting consultant, you’ll have a no-risk trial period to ensure they’re the perfect fit. Our matching process has a 98% trial-to-hire rate, so you can rest assured that you’re getting the best fit every time.
Eric is a financial services professional with more than 14 years of experience as a sell-side, buy-side, and startup expert, advising on debt and equity deals from $10 million to more than $1 billion. While at Apollo Global Management, he deployed more than $2 billion into funds across various structures and sectors.
Business Owners Need Financial Forecasting to Provide Data-based Estimates of Their Companies’ Financial Futures
The term “financial model” encompasses many kinds of numerical analytical representations of the past, present, and/or future performance of a company (or a unit of a company). Financial forecasters specialize in the future, using historical data to develop educated estimates of a company’s performance going forward. According to recent findings from Gartner Research, financial modeling skills are experiencing the highest growth in demand across all Finance and Accounting Function skills based on Q3 2022 data. While the data isn’t broken out further, it’s a good bet that a significant amount of the demand is for financial forecasting, which is one of the most sought-after specialties, since it predicts all or part of a company’s financial future. Business owners need financial forecasts to build economically viable businesses, raise capital, provide insights, and identify and track key performance indicators (KPIs).
Building and maintaining quality financial forecasts is not a job for novices or even for many seasoned accountants. Financial forecasting can be complex and requires buy-in from multiple stakeholders with myriad needs. In many cases, financial forecasters draw on data, analyses, and feedback from multiple business units; they need to know how to navigate the nuances of each organization. These complexities—and what’s at stake in these analyses—make deciding how to obtain a forecast an important decision. Software tools such as Microsoft Excel and financial modeling software are useful, but financial forecasts are only as robust and sophisticated as the data, assumptions, and scenarios fed into them.
Unless your business is a large enterprise or has a CFO with advanced forecasting experience, you’ll probably want to hire a forecasting expert from outside your company. You can find good financial forecasting consultants from a variety of sources, including specialized financial services, consulting firms, and solo practices. Ideally, you want an expert you can trust to provide accurate forecasts and actionable insights that will be the basis for sound business decisions.
This hiring guide offers insights into how to hire the best financial forecasting consultant for your particular needs. You’ll also find appropriate interview questions to ask candidates and other information to help you navigate the hiring process successfully.
What attributes distinguish quality Financial Forecasting Consultants from others?
Experience is the primary factor to consider when you’re looking for a quality financial forecasting consultant. Ideally, your candidate will have at least five years of experience working in financial forecasting generally, plus specialized sector experience relevant to your use case. The best financial forecasting consultants are not only skilled and knowledgeable, but are also creative and adaptive practitioners—as every financial forecast has unique circumstances, stakeholders, and nuances.
In general, you’re looking for someone who has experience forecasting the performance of existing or new business endeavors and who can determine the best methods and data sources to use in building a high-quality, insightful, and actionable forecast for business owners. You also want to look for qualities that demonstrate their experience in the business sector or use case you’re considering, including having built a robust forecast that captures all the elements you are looking for.
Qualified financial forecasting consultants also have the experience and executive presence to work directly with management teams, internal financial analysts, and other stakeholders to deliver actionable forecasts that will drive successful business outcomes.
How can you identify the ideal Financial Forecasting Consultant for you?
In addition to having familiarity with use cases similar to yours, a top financial forecasting consultant must possess a variety of hard and soft skills to effectively build sophisticated financial forecasts for clients:
Overall technical knowledge of financial forecasting – Financial forecasting consultants must be able to build financial forecasts to analyze and predict future business performance and the outcomes of new initiatives—from small projects to large, strategic endeavors.
Accounting and corporate finance knowledge – Most financial forecasters have experience with financial accounting and corporate finance concepts. This background enables them to dig deeper into data and understand the nuances of company performance.
Accounting software skills – Financial forecasting consultants should be able to use various input and output accounting software platforms like Intuit QuickBooks and data management systems such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or SQL to create well-organized and intuitive forecasts. This could also include a working knowledge of enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, or other financial modeling software.
Datamanagement expertise – Expert financial forecasters should be able to perform in-depth data management and be comfortable handling large data sets and manipulating data.
Strong communication skills – Consultants must be able to work extensively and directly with senior management to articulate complex concepts and to understand and incorporate client feedback into forecast iterations and presentations.
Research ability – Detailed company- and industry-specific research is important for consultants, who will need it to develop the financial forecasting architecture and deliver a successful work product.
Project management skills – Producing an insightful financial forecast frequently requires instituting a well-managed process that satisfies the numerous stakeholders with their different motivations and incentives.
Creative and critical thinking, especially about communicating quantitative data – The consultant must be able to persuasively present their findings and recommendations to clients, provide solid data to support their findings, explain their methods and assumptions, and help clients navigate complex decisions.
How to Write a Financial Forecasting Consultant Job Description for Your Project
First, clearly describe your use case and business sector, what stage of any relevant strategic initiatives you’re in, or any other reasons you have for hiring a financial forecasting consultant at this time. This will help candidates self-select based on their expertise and give them a clearer sense of the nature of the project.
Next, start to think about the stakeholders and documents you think the financial forecasting consultant may need to work with for your project. You don’t need to have these lists and materials on hand and ready to go, but consider the steps needed to acquire them and at what point in the data collection process you’ll want the consultant to become involved. Providing information about the scope, intensity, and length of the work you need performed will help you and potential candidates understand what realistic project deadlines and budgets might look like. Bear in mind that a financial forecast is a living document and will likely need to be maintained and updated to remain useful on an ongoing basis, so you may want to build that expectation into your job description as well.
Finally, be clear about your expectations in terms of qualifications and experience, bearing in mind the guidance given earlier about use cases that require advanced expertise. Be specific about what you need.
What are the most important Financial Forecasting Consultant interview questions?
By the interview stage, you’ll have an understanding of your candidates’ education and background, so you can delve into their experience as it applies to your particular use case or sector. Questions to help you evaluate candidates include the following:
Can you describe your experience working on financial forecasts?
Ask when their latest forecast was implemented. Expect candidates to detail how they approached that use case so you can evaluate how sophisticated their approach seems. The more recent and robust their experience with your kind of use case, the better.
How would you approach financial forecasting for this specific use case?
Financial forecasting is one of the most important ways for companies to analyze future financial performance for planning and budgeting purposes. The candidate should be able to discuss the details related to your expected deliverables. If you’re using the financial forecast to raise debt or equity capital from banks or investors, the candidate should know what financial forecast models would be the most relevant for your potential investors—a startup burn rate forecast, for instance.
Can you describe your approach to managing data and deriving forecast drivers and assumptions?
It’s important to understand how each candidate would use existing financial reporting sources from the relevant business, especially if it’s in a niche market. For example, the candidate should be able to talk about how they would leverage your cash flow statement and provide additional analytical value by implementing financial forecast drivers, assumptions, sensitivity analyses, and economic indicators. While you may not be familiar with all the available financial forecasting techniques, the candidate should be able to explain the approaches they would use and why.
Will this financial forecast require additional information or data beyond what’s provided?
The answer to this question will help you assess how well the candidate understands your use case, and give you a sense of whether you have accurately budgeted enough time and money for the project.
What steps do you follow in your workflow?
While no two financial forecasts are the same, a typical process workflow includes the following steps:
Step 1: Define objectives and stakeholders.
Discuss the specific reason a financial forecast is needed; for instance, because the company is going to raise capital or needs to forecast overall financial performance, including business costs, revenue, and KPIs.
Decide what forecasting methods and data sources will best answer the company’s specific objectives and stakeholders.
Step 2: Gather company data.
Compile information about the business model, including business operations overviews and any other business or financial analyses that are relevant to the use case.
Gather the relevant financials. If the business is a going concern, aggregate existing business financials, including cash flow statements, and develop an initial financial forecast. If the use case is a new initiative, compile any financial analysis that’s been done to date.
Analyze and adjust the initial financial projections to define sensitivities and scenarios that incorporate the risks related to business management and decisions. For instance, internal financial projections and financial statements prepared for tax purposes and audited financials may provide insights into potential risks and future performance.
Step 3: Conduct additional research and analysis as needed.
Perform in-depth analysis of additional company data.
Compare industry-specific standard performance metrics to the forecast and adjust assumptions and other inputs as needed.
Step 4: Implement forecast drivers, assumptions, and sensitivities to make the forecast insightful and robust for specific use cases.
Run multiple scenarios that demonstrate how different assumptions will affect financial performance.
Ensure that the design, inputs, outputs, and summaries are easy for all stakeholders to understand.
Step 5: Present findings and iterate/collaborate with management as needed.
Prepare and deliver a comprehensive presentation of the financial forecast inputs and outputs that have been generated.
Run additional scenarios as relevant.
Step 6: Finalize the financial forecast and decide on next steps and/or maintenance of the forecast model.
Ensure that the deliverables have satisfactorily met all the needs of management and decide whether the forecast needs to be maintained and updated.
Make a plan for any future work related to the company’s financial management.
Why do companies hire Financial Forecasting Consultants?
A financial forecasting consultant is a financial professional with deep experience and expertise in designing and building robust and insightful financial forecasts to enable business leaders to predict the future performance of existing operations or new strategic initiatives, strengthen their financial management capabilities, and/or improve results. Business leaders use the financial forecasts generated by consultants for many reasons, including:
Gaining a better understanding of business plans, assumptions, and sensitivities.
Identifying and tracking the financial metrics and financial goals that will have the most impact.
Raising debt or equity capital from banks or investors.
Buying a business or starting a new one.
Tracking capital budgeting projects and profit margins.
For any of these use cases, hiring a qualified financial forecasting consultant will help you achieve a deeper understanding of your current and future financial performance so you can make sound business decisions to drive success.
Featured Toptal Financial Forecasting Publications