Hire the Top 3% of Freelance Financial Forecasters
Toptal is a marketplace for top financial forecasting consultants. Top companies and startups hire financial forecasting consultants from Toptal for their mission critical projects.
With 15 years as an expert in corporate finance, Tim has successfully helped several firms grow their revenue by 300–500% while maintaining or increasing their profit margins. He has served as the director of finance for the largest tile contractor and CFO of the second largest drywall and painting contractor in the State of Hawaii. He enjoys freelancing as it provides an opportunity to share his skillset and help people grow their businesses and their dreams.
Eric is a financial services professional with 15+ years of experience as a sell-side, buy-side, and startup professional, advising on debt and equity deals from $10 million to over $1 billion. He has deployed more than $2 billion into funds at Apollo across various structures and sectors. During his experience at boutique firms and on his own, he has worked with both large and early-stage companies. Eric wants to work on challenging projects alongside his other small business owner endeavors.
Alex is a corporate development professional who has helped guide strategy and raise over $230 million for startups across various industries. He has deep expertise in financial and operational modeling, valuation, fundraising, and creating investor materials. Alex's ability to distill complex ideas into actionable advice has been key to success. Joining Toptal gives Alex control over his time while continuing to help companies strategize, innovate, and grow.
A Wharton MBA and former CFO, Jason has executed over $3 billion in transactions as a Goldman Sachs and boutique investment banker. He joined Toptal because of the variety of challenging finance and accounting projects. He has worked with Fortune 500, middle-market, early-stage, and non-profit organizations across a wide range of industries. Previously, Jason was a Marine Corps aviator operating the F/A-18 fighter aircraft and holding a Top Secret security clearance.
Craig has raised $100 million+ in debt and equity for companies seeking to grow, restructure, or exit. His unique combination of operational experience and financial expertise across industries gives him a 360-degree perspective to approach client situations and provide creative solutions for financial needs. After working as a finance executive or direct hire since 2004, he transitioned to freelancing in 2018 to leverage his vast range of interests and desire to expand his geographic reach.
Animesh has 15+ years of experience in asset classes, including startup investments, venture capital, private equity, real estate, equities, fixed income, structured products, and fund investments. He is an expert in PowerPoint (preparation of pitch decks, investment memorandums, transaction decks, strategic M&A due diligence reports) and Excel (detailed financial modeling, including startup models, M&A models, LBOs, Macros, VBA, data tables, valuations, accounting, and management dashboards).
Wen helped a French multimillion-euro food startup build its equity story and manage potential acquirers (Danone). She has project experience with private equity funds, venture capital, and industrial groups in France, Belgium, China, Africa, and the US. She is skilled in financial analysis and modeling, investor deck, and market research. Wen freelances to help advise startups and corporates on business strategy, investor relations, and fundraising projects.
A London Business School MBA graduate, Daniel directly executed $5 billion worth of M&A and capital-raising deals across the US, UK, and Latin America. He's worked in investment banking at Citi as an M&A and strategy manager for a $25 billion family-owned conglomerate and founded a fund investing in UK SMEs. He joined Toptal to connect with other entrepreneurs and share his knowledge around investing, financing, strategy, and M&A.
Thuy Nguyen has five years of experience as a research analyst at the leading equity research house in Vietnam. She has conducted industry analysis, created valuation models, and communicated investment opportunities to her clients in the consumer and banking sectors. She was a valedictorian of her batch with a GPA of 3.92/4 in an MBA program at the International University of Japan. She is thrilled to contribute her professional knowledge and skills to global clients via Toptal.
Vin is an executive with 22 years of experience across technology, energy, banking, and management consulting in the US and Asian markets. In his career, he assisted renowned clients to future proof business through strategy development, change management, business transformation, and project management. Vin is a highly efficient professional with the experience, drive, and skill set needed to successfully lead global teams in delivering his clients' milestones.
Aram is a crypto native, former strategy consultant, Web3 LinkedIn Top Voice and influencer (51,000+ followers), and INSEAD MBA alum with 10+ years of experience in strategy, BD, growth, marketing, and operations across startups, scale-ups, and large multinationals. He has a proven sense of ownership and a record of leading diverse teams across geographies and delivering results under pressure. Aram possesses excellent analytical, leadership, and communication skills.
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.
... allows corporations to quickly assemble teams that have the right skills for specific projects.
Despite accelerating demand for coders, Toptal prides itself on almost Ivy League-level vetting.
Our clients
Creating an app for the game
Leading a digital transformation
Building a cross-platform app to be used worldwide
Drilling into real-time data creates an industry game changer
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
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
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
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
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
How to Hire Financial Forecasters Through Toptal
1
Talk to One of Our Client Advisors
A Toptal client advisor will work with you to understand your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics.
2
Work With Hand-selected Talent
Within days, we'll introduce you to the right financial forecaster for your project. Average time to match is under 24 hours.
3
The Right Fit, Guaranteed
Work with your new financial forecaster for a trial period (pay only if satisfied), ensuring they're the right fit before starting the engagement.
Find Experts With Related Skills
Access a vast pool of skilled management consultants in our talent network and hire the top 3% within just 48 hours.
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 expert 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 forecaster?
The cost associated with hiring a financial forecaster depends on various factors, including preferred talent location, complexity and size of the project you’re hiring for, seniority, engagement commitment (hourly, part-time, or full-time), and more. In the US, for example, Glassdoor’s reported average total annual pay for financial forecasters is $91,057 as of June 2024. With Toptal, you can speak with an expert talent matcher who will help you understand the cost of talent with the right skills and seniority level for your needs. To get started, schedule a call with us — it’s free, and there’s no obligation to hire with Toptal.
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.
Can you hire financial forecasters on an hourly basis or for project-based tasks?
You can hire financial forecasters on an hourly, part-time, or full-time basis. Toptal can also manage the entire project from end-to-end with our Managed Delivery offering. Whether you hire an expert for a full- or part-time position, you’ll have the control and flexibility to scale your team up or down as your needs evolve. Our financial forecasters can fully integrate into your existing team for a seamless working experience.
How do I hire financial forecasters?
To hire the right financial forecaster, it’s important to evaluate a candidate’s experience, technical skills, and communication skills. You’ll also want to consider the fit with your particular industry, company, and project. Toptal’s rigorous screening process ensures that every member of our network has excellent experience and skills, and our team will match you with the perfect financial forecasters for your project.
What is the no-risk trial period for Toptal financial forecasters?
We make sure that each engagement between you and your financial forecaster begins with a trial period of up to two weeks. This means that you have time to confirm the engagement will be successful. If you’re completely satisfied with the results, we’ll bill you for the time and continue the engagement for as long as you’d like. If you’re not completely satisfied, you won’t be billed. From there, we can either part ways, or we can provide you with another expert who may be a better fit and with whom we will begin a second, no-risk trial.
How are Toptal financial forecasters different?
At Toptal, we thoroughly screen our financial forecasters to ensure we only match you with the highest caliber of talent. Of the more than 200,000 people who apply to join the Toptal network each year, fewer than 3% make the cut.
In addition to screening for industry-leading expertise, we also assess candidates’ language and interpersonal skills to ensure that you have a smooth working relationship.
When you hire financial forecasters with Toptal, you’ll always work with world-class, custom-matched financial forecasters ready to help you achieve your goals.
How quickly can you hire with Toptal?
Typically, you can hire financial forecasters with Toptal in about 48 hours. For larger teams of talent or Managed Delivery, timelines may vary. Our talent matchers are highly skilled 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 forecaster, 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
