Annette DeYoung, Principal Solutions Consultant at Datarails, is an accountant-turned FP&A manufacturing leader. She has deep experience in leading finance teams at manufacturing companies including Berner Food and Beverage, Rockford Products, Fairbanks Morse Engine, and JL Clark. It was at JL Clark, as Director of FP&A, that Annette implemented FP&A Solution, Datarails to mop up inefficiencies and end drain all-late night sessions at the finance department— she liked the product so much she ended up joining the company and has since spoken to more than 1000 FP&A professionals seeking to love FP&A again by removing tedious repetitive processes.
In this episode
- Why I fell in love with manufacturing and finance over my career
- How creativity drew me from accounting to FP&A
- Why a hard-coded accountant attitude was difficult to reconcile with more creative FP&A
- How to create finance business partnerships on the manufacturing floor
- Why I brought Datarails into my finance team at JL Clarke
- The future of Excel in FP&A
- Is finance (finally) making a move with AI?
- The power of getting out of your comfort zone in finance
Connect with Annette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahdeyoung/
Full transcript
Glenn Hopper:
Welcome to FP&A Today, I’m your host, Glenn Hopper. Today’s guest is Annette De Young, a veteran finance leader with more than 20 years of experience spanning accounting, manufacturing, and FP&A. She’s held leadership roles across a range of operationally complex industries, from burner food and beverage to JL Clark, where she drove financial transformation, implemented forecasting systems, and bridged finance with operations. Annette is now a principal solutions consultant at Data Rails, where she works with hundreds of FP&A teams to modernize their processes, build better reporting frameworks, and embrace Excel-based automation. Having implemented data rails herself as a client before joining the company, she brings a unique perspective from both sides of the table. Annette holds an MBA from Rockford University and is passionate about helping finance teams work smarter, not harder. Annette, welcome to the show.
Annette deYoung:
Well, thank you, Glenn. Appreciate you having me today.
Glenn Hopper:
First off, I have to say thank you so much for coming in. I’m so, uh, appreciative of having a, an A veteran FP&A pro, uh, who’s been on the show before because you literally came in and or agreed to do the show and, and come in just on one day’s notice. So thank you so much for coming on.
Annette deYoung:
Yeah, absolutely. Always, always a pleasure.
Glenn Hopper:
So I love your background and coming from or from accounting into fp and a and then ultimately into the Solutions architect at Data Rails. We’ll get to that later. But, um, looking at your career progression, particularly within manufacturing, I’m wondering what first drew you to FP&A and how did that transition kind of shape your, your approach to finance?
Annette deYoung:
So, manufacturing was almost entirely my career. Um, I graduated college with my accounting degree and was a cost accountant straight out of college. Worked for, uh, new Rubbermaid in their accounting department as a cost accountant. Um, and that was sort of like my quote unquote my first, my first job out of college. And I really fell in love with manufacturing, and especially in the Midwest. It’s huge. Um, and so working within manufacturing, I, I, I held, you know, plenty of positions in accounting, um, you know, was a controller, did all of that. Uh, but I can tell you like being in accounting, it’s very transactional driven. There’s not a lot of room for creativity, which is really what drew me to fp and a was the ability to, yes, use my knowledge of finance and accounting, use everything that I’ve, you know, sort of developed over the years, um, in accounting and really be able to take that knowledge and form it into like budgets and forecasts and, and really more strategy driven and not so transactional. Right. So it’s more looking ahead instead of always looking at, you know, the history behind you.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, I’ve gotta say I’m a little jealous of people who do come from the fi the accounting background with A CPA, especially early in my career, several people said, if you ever want to be a CFO, you’ve gotta go get your CPA. And I’m, I kind of knew that on some level, but like you, the finance, the creative part of finance was always so much more interesting to me. And yeah, it, you know, it seems to have worked out all right. But, uh, I know having that accounting background can, can help in fp and a. So you’ve spent a big part of your career in manufacturing, Rubbermaid, burner Foods, Rockford Products, JL Clark. How did working in such operationally intensive environments influence your approach to planning and analysis?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah, um, <laugh>, and of course I can only speak to manufacturing ’cause that’s what I did. But I can tell you that my approach was more of a, I need to be directionally correct and not so specific in the plan. Um, again, coming from accounting, so as you said, you know, it, it helps to sort of have that deep knowledge, but I think it’s also in some ways a hindrance because when you’re in accounting, like literally everything has to tie, right? You’re always looking for those pennies. And so when you go from like accounting, which is very structured, um, into finance, which is a little less structured, um, you know, sometimes it can really bog you down and you are looking for specifics and you’re trying to be very exact and in high volume manufacturing, like what I’m used to, um, that will drive you crazy.
It is incredibly difficult to do. And so I had to learn to simply just be directionally correct, right? And, and, and I’ve learned to, you’re never going to be accurate, a hundred percent accurate. You can be close, right? And so that’s where, again, that background of accounting, those first couple of years in finance just drove me crazy because I was so used to being exact. And so it, to me it was, you know, why can’t I get this forecast, you know, to be, you know, what I need it to be. And so I just had to learn to, sometimes you have to let that go <laugh> and just close enough is good enough.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And I think it’s interesting in your career, I mean, and it kind of goes along with what, uh, with what data Rails does, and I think what all finance departments are trying to do today. But I think, you know, going back to the old school sort of cost center idea of finance and accounting where we’re just reporting numbers and you know, that that’s the value we’re the, uh, the scorekeepers, um, that’s the value of our organization. But over the years, we’ve expanded to become more of a business partner and be more forward looking and, um, being able to, um, use the data, not just the financial data, but the data across the company. And I, I think, uh, going back to JL Clark, you led an initiative to improve visibility into production and financial metrics. And I’m wondering, what did you learn about bridging operations and finance during that, uh, during that transformation?
Annette deYoung:
Uh, training, training, training. A, a, again, I think just being in finance and accounting, you tend to sort of forget that you speak a very specific language that not everyone understands. And, and so we did have init an initiative where it was called, um, finance for non-finance folks, where I would literally sit down, especially new hires, those sorts of folks would come in and I’m like, okay, this is like a crash course in finance so that you understand the numbers, I get that you understand the people and the processes, but now you need to understand how that translates to the bottom line. And so we had these training sessions and we called them, right? Finance for non-financial folks. Um, and so it was really just sort of, you know, bridging that gap between what they do every day and how that overall like affects the company as a whole.
That was the huge, sort of like initial hurdle is because nobody’s ever actually had to sit down with anyone in production or, or, or operations and have that conversation. And so you could send spreadsheet after spreadsheet, um, to that group, and they would probably not open it, or if they did, they wouldn’t understand it. And when you’re in a group, uh, full of your peers, you’re not gonna raise your hand and say, I don’t understand this, and this is not unique, you know, to JL Clark by any means. I think this is, you know, as I look back, it’s very prevalent throughout my career where you’re not gonna be the first one to raise your hand and say, I don’t understand this. Right? And, and so just having a safe space, having that training, this is this where you can ask any questions, you don’t understand something, this is the perfect place to ask those questions. So the next time you get that report or that dashboard, you are gonna understand it and know what questions to ask.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And so longtime listeners to the show will know the story. I, I tell it all the time, but it just, it, it’s, it’s right in line with what you were saying. My first CFO role, um, we were in a, a private equity backed car wash company, and, um, we knew we were building the company to sell from the beginning. So financial performance, obviously, um, very, very important. And we, the, the financial mindset, we wanted to push it all the way across the company through the whole culture. So we had a monthly bonus system with the, the managers of each car wash that was based on their performance to budget. So these are very technical people, you know, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, um, and they were, you know, tradespeople not, uh, accounting nerds, <laugh>. Um, so we, um, when we’d open a new store or hire a new manager, we would run them through, uh, finance and accounting training and, you know, a lot of reluctance maybe out of the gates.
But when we showed them the performance and kind of the metrics that we’re looking at and the levers that they can pull and what they can control and how that could impact their budget, this monthly bonus was, you know, their, their performance to budget. So they would watch not just top line, but managing costs all the way down, and they would, you know, get some kind of profit sharing percentage by, um, however many dollars they beat the budget. So it was interesting at first they would kind of glaze over from it, but after a couple of months, and when they saw the impact of managing to their budget, and they, you know, saw the impact of the, the top line and the cost all the way down to the bottom line, and then to their bottom line, they suddenly became very interested. And I always joke that, you know, after three to six months of working with these managers, I’d come in and it was like, uh, talking to an analyst from Goldman Sachs or something. So, uh, really, really a cool thing to see.
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. And, but they have to understand it. And, and that’s where, again, I think that’s a big challenge, um, for finance folks especially, is getting, you know, bridging sort of like, again, that, that knowledge gap that says, okay, right, these are the things that you do every day, this is how it affects. Then you’re right. If they’re not incentivized to sort of own that process, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Um, but again, when you’ve got bonus structures, those sorts of things in place, that helps tremendously as well. So not only will they understand it, they’ll actually make changes in order to obviously Right. Be better about it. But yeah, I always say, you know, think of it as your own personal checkbook. You would not run in the red every single month, right? You’re not gonna spend more than you make. And so that’s the way we need to sort of think about the job that you are doing every day. This is your budget, this is your take home pay, right? Is what I would say. This is your take home pay, but these are your bills. And so you have to, you have to balance that, you know, but sometimes if you just bring in those real world examples, it clicks right? For some of these folks. So,
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, and getting that visibility and training, I mean, it’s amazing to see how much more effective they can, you know, they can actually be after that. This is probably a good time to transition to talking about data rails. So you were a data rails customer before joining the team, and I’m, I’m wondering, going back to when you were in that mode, what made you seek out a solution like data rails, uh, in the first place and, and what, you know, kind of what pain points were you solving?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah, great question. And, and I think it’s the same pain points as pretty much everyone I talked to today. You know, and the reason why data, you know, companies like Data Rails exists, it’s the manual work that, that you do in finance and accounting. Um, it doesn’t matter where you’ve worked over your career. Excel number one is probably the only tool in your toolbox that you take from job to job, because you’re gonna have different payroll, you know, different ERPs, you’re gonna have all of these different systems that you can access, you know, data different ways, but I can guarantee on all of those, the most used button is ex export to Excel, right? Because of the flexibility. But with that flexibility also comes a lot of manual sort of processes. So whether it’s even just closing the books, getting your reports in order, or even ad hoc analysis, somebody, you know, on the plant floor says, you know, I don’t know what’s going on.
Well, I have to take that data and do something with it, right? And so that was no different with JL Clarke and the budget, the budget process was killing me. It was, we would start, um, actually I would, I would end our actuals at the end of July in order to be done by November. Very painful, very manual, but I had 48 different departments that I had to consolidate manually. We make one change here, you have to go through that process all over again. And so forecasting, I mean, I was halfway through the month before I could get a forecast done, and by that time it was too late. And so it was just the ability to have quick turnaround and quick insights was the reason we started looking for something else. Um, because just like you said, right, you’re, you’re not sleeping, you know, you do lose sleep because overnight, you know, I can’t tell you how many times I wake up in the middle of the night with all of a sudden this aha moment.
I’m like, that’s how I can get to this answer. Um, but it, it’s just, it’s wash, rinse, repeat, right? Every single month you’re doing sort of the same thing, and it gets tiring. And finance and accounting, they’re the last to adapt tech. I have found that out many, many times. We are the last, because honestly, the president or the ceo, they’re still getting what they need. They have no idea how many hours you’ve put in and, and how hard it is to do it. And sometimes they don’t care. They just know that they’re getting what they need. So why do we need to invest in finance and accounting? You’re doing the job, but then you have burnout and high turnover sometimes. And, and actually I’ve worked for a couple of companies where finance had the highest turnover for that specific reason. It was just so manual. And so that’s where we started looking. We didn’t wanna have that turnover, right? We wanted a happy team. And so we knew that we had to transform not just our department, but our processes to make it better for all parties involved.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, I, it’s interesting you mention that because, uh, you know, in my day job, I’m, I’m also selling technology, um, into the office of the CFO and, you know, bespoke, bespoke AI solutions. And as it should be, accounting and finance folks, we are risk averse. We’re not gonna be on the bleeding edge of some technology out there, but at the same time, just, um, doing things this way because it’s, it’s how we’ve always done them. You know, it’s, uh, you have to at some point take that leap and, and if you do it right, you know, it, it doesn’t have to be a leap. It’s just making this transition into, uh, you know, we’ve been talking about digital transformation for, what, 30 years now. Um, so, but finally making that digital transformation and moving into, um, new software and automation tools, fp and a today is brought to you by Data Rails. The world’s number one fp and a solution Data Rails is the artificial intelligence powered financial planning and analysis platform built for Excel users. That’s right, you can stay in Excel, but instead of facing hell for every budget month end close or forecast, you can enjoy a paradise of data consolidation, advanced visualization reporting and AI capabilities, plus game changing insights, giving you instant answers and your story created in seconds. Find out why more than a thousand finance teams use data Rails to uncover their company’s real story. Don’t replace Excel, embrace Excel, learn more@datarails.com.
You know, last year I heard a lot of people were, they wanted to talk about ai, um, and talk about technology, but they were a little standoffish and playing kind of a wait and see, uh, take taking a wait and see attitude to all this. But now in 25, I am starting to see people ready to make a move a little more. And I, I’m, I’m curious, um, what, what are you saying?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. And, and I think that’s true. I think AI is definitely one of those. Now, even on the calls that I have, it, it’s still that mindset of trust but verify, right? And so, and you have to have that anyways because you are the strategic partner for the financial health of a company. And so it’s trust but verify. But when you have CFOs who are looking and, and they’re doing their research, which is good, right? They’re doing their research and they’re seeing, oh my gosh, this can help. Right now, is it gonna be a hundred percent accurate? Probably not. But directionally correct. And I think that’s super important to know, is that we can get from where we are today to where we need to be tomorrow. And if I can get there faster than my competitor, that gives us the advantage. That gives us sort of like the edge, and then we know where to invest, we know where to focus our resources.
Um, but yes, I think AI is one of those, and yes, it’s a buzzword, but it’s also a very, very good tool, again, to have in your toolbox. Um, you, you can be the smartest person in the room, but if you can’t communicate with everyone else, that, that tends to then be a problem. And so, yes, I think, think that AI is definitely sort of like that push to get folks to start looking at some of these solutions to help not just their, their departments, of course, the, you know, the, the office of the CFO, but really operationally and, and, uh, organization-wide.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And, and I, I wanted, I wanna talk about implementation too, because I always say, um, that’s the second easiest way to get fired, um, as a CFO is to say, I want to implement an ERP. Um, the first way is, of course, fraud. And then behind that is implementing ERP. And I know, I know data rails isn’t as, uh, as complicated as an ERP, but you know, I think a lot of CFOs just, they think, I am a a finance and accounting person. I’m not a tech person. I don’t want to get into all this. I just wanna do my job that I, that I was trained for. But more and more we’re having to, um, to learn, um, uh, you know, the, the tech side. It’s just, it’s becoming part of our job. I know you did a data rails implementation that as a user. Um, and I’m wondering how did your implementation experience as a user, you know, shape your perspective when you went across the bridge and, and, and came over to join the solution side at data rails?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah, great question. And, and implementation with data Rails. And, and I can only speak to that, um, I haven’t really implemented, quote unquote a whole lot of other, um, softwares, but I’ve been involved, right? And so I know the pain that comes with that, especially like payroll software, those sorts of things. And you’re working with, you know, your implementation team, and it could take months, months, you know, and sometimes depending on like a big ERP change that could take over a year in order to implement, right? And so, um, coming into data rails, the one thing that was, I, I think really great about it was that the implementation time, number one, it’s not a full-time job for me. When you’re implementing huge sort of, uh, you know, platforms, a lot of times you need a champion who that’s pretty much their job is to make sure that it’s set up and, and they’re the liaison between their implementation team and your team.
And, and it can become a full-time job. With data rails. It’s not. And so that is some of the, you know, some of the concerns that I get on calls, it’s like, we don’t have the bandwidth that that is like all the time. We just don’t have the bandwidth to, to implement a new solution. And, and I always say, well, I mean, you can wait until you have the bandwidth, but when is that go? But are you ever gonna have the bandwidth? Right? And so there’s a, a little bit of a trade off. So number one, with data rails, it doesn’t take that long. I mean, our implementation team does most of the heavy lifting. Yes, it’s collaborative. We wanna make sure, um, that it is set up the way that you need it to be. However, um, it is not a full-time job, right?
A few hours a week. I always say, you know what, you’re probably already working through your lunch hour, so why don’t you focus that on data rails? And within really a couple of months you can be up and running and be able to leave for lunch, because now you’re not gonna be head down in spreadsheets and trying to Right, right. Do all of this analysis. ’cause we’re gonna make that so much easier. A little bit of pain in the beginning, right? With anything else, but the reward on the end is so worth it. But if you wait until you quote unquote have time, you’ll never do it.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And now you’ve seen it, I mean, from, um, literally hundreds of, uh, um, fp a teams kind of on, on the data rails side of it. Um, so you’ve seen it all these teams across the industries, and I’m wondering what are the, the most common reasons that companies decide it’s, it’s okay, it’s time. We’re gonna dig in, do the work and, and make the transition. What, what makes them decide it’s time to go ahead and do, uh, the transition to an fp a platform?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. It’s mostly going to be sort of that satisfaction in your job, right? Turnover, those sorts of things. And sometimes we’ll have like champions change in a sales cycle, and you have to almost start again. And it’s really just because number one, they’re not happy in their job. It’s labor intensive. They’re working nights and weekends. They don’t get to spend time, you know, and do things. And then month end close, specifically <laugh> right? Month end close is like, you can’t plan a vacation. You can’t plan really anything around that. Well, wouldn’t it be nice to just come in one day, hit refresh and have your reports done, right? You’re ready to go. Um, you are not having to put in all of that overtime. And, and so I think it’s, it’s just being able to retain talent is gonna be a key. And, and, and we kind of hit on that sometimes. It’s like, what is your, what is your current turnover? Right? Wouldn’t it be nice to retain that talent, make sure that they’re happy, they’re gonna show up to do that job every single day because they want to, not because they have to. Right? And so that is a huge one, is just being able to retain the talent that you have, have that job satisfaction, and knowing that you’re making a difference instead of just making reports.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And I, I’m having a flashback now back to my fp a, uh, days. Um, you know, I’m thinking you, you have all the work you’re doing, you’ve got your monthly reports, your ad hoc reports that come in, and I think, you know, you and I are both the type that we love to dive in and build our models and, and do cool stuff there, but when you’re building the same models over and over and anything becomes repeatable, and, um, it, you know, kind of gets to the mundane, well, you stop adding value to the organization, uh, because you’re spending all your time just, you know, recreating a model. So whenever you can find automation there, it really lets you lean into the, what humans are good at that more strategic part of your mind. And the reason that we all went and, and got degrees in, in, in finance and accounting is not because we wanted to be, uh, just building models in Excel, but we wanted to be able to add value on the finance and accounting side. And that automation kind of makes it so that it’s easier to do that.
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. And you can’t underestimate job satisfaction. Honestly. You can’t. And it, and I can give you an example. I, I, I work, and I won’t say where, but I worked for a company and I was a cost accountant there and month end close. I, I mean, we were of a large finance department, you know, there was probably nine of us in fi in in accounting really. And, um, month end close. We did not look forward to it at all because instead of improving the processes to make it easier for us to work as a group, you would sit on, you know, whatever that first day of month end close was or the second day. And we, they would literally have these huge white papers printed out of everything that, all the tasks that needed to be done by everybody. And although you were done, you had to sit there until everybody else was done.
So sometimes that was 11, 12 o’clock at night. Like, we weren’t going home until midnight because we had, even though my job was done by five o’clock, we all had to sit as a quote unquote a team, although we couldn’t help, right? And, and, and so instead of making that process better, we all just sort of, we suffered together, right? So misery loves company, apparently. And so that’s not a good way to run a finance department, right? Because you’ve got burnout. That’s that burnout was talking about, and, and really just for sitting around for the sake of sitting around, right? Just to quote unquote share the pain wasn’t the right way to do it either. And so that actually had very high turnover, I think more than a hundred percent in the five years I was there.
Glenn Hopper:
Wow. Yeah. I, I believe it. And that just, that sounds brutal. Yeah. And I, I know you’re seeing more companies than I do probably, but it just, it seems archaic and it’s, um, it’s great that there’s tools out there now that, um, you know, make this a lot easier. What do you think are the biggest priorities today, and how are these evolving from that sort of brute force month end close team that we, that we used to do? What are the biggest priority, um, biggest priorities for fp a leaders today? And I guess, how are the, how are these evolving?
Annette deYoung:
Y Yeah, and, and I think for, for finance teams today, I think it’s really about getting outta your comfort zone. Um, you know, a lot of us, again, we’re sort of head down, like I was a math major to begin with before I even moved to accounting, right? And so you’re, you’re so like engrossed in the numbers sometimes you just need to take a step back, look at the whole picture. And, and that’s where I think finance folks today, that’s really where they need to, to, to, to sort of focus is the company as a whole. And don’t be afraid to use ai, right? Don’t be afraid to use some of these other tools that are out there. And I know that there’s this fear of failure, right? And so, yeah, I, you know, if, if I go outside of what I’m used to and I fail, right?
Am I gonna lose my job? Am I gonna write all of these sort of things that, uh, that, that go on in, in your head? Because again, you’ve seen it probably over your career that, oh my gosh, somebody failed and they’re no longer here. And so I, I think though, that you need to, to get rid of that fear of failure baby steps if you have to, but utilize the tools that are available. Don’t drive yourself crazy using archaic tools and, and, you know, back of the napkin, I mean, at least we’re, we’re not on Green Bar anymore, so, you know, I’ve got that going for us <laugh>, right? No more ledger books, but Right. But that’s where you start. And, and the finance is one of the finance and accounting is one of those departments that, I’m sorry, but we have not made a lot of technical technological advances over the years, right?
If you think about manufacturing specifically, you know, from, from everything being hand done to automation and, and machinery and, and AI and, and robotics, right? They’ve made huge, huge leaps in technology, finance, and accounting have not, we’re still writing things down. We’re still using 10 key calculators, right? We’re still doing all of these things that we’ve been doing for decades, right? It’s time to, to, to join that next generation of, of technology, even even in the finance department. And so that’s where I think finance leaders today need to look to the future. Again, that’s what you’re supposed to do, not the past, which is what accounting does, right? But that, that applies to even your tech stack. You gotta look to the future and what can make it better, what can make it, you know, help you do what you actually love, what got you in this, you know, to begin with. And that’s usually being able to be created and strategic and not just tying out reports.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. I mean, and we, you know, we joke about paper ledgers and Green Bar and the, the Green Visor and, um, you know, punching numbers into the 10 key, but, um, I don’t wanna say it, it seems archaic because it’s what we all use, but I mean, what, what role does Excel play in all this? There’s a lot of talk about killing Excel, but, um, platforms like Data Rails seem to embrace it. So where, where do you stand on the debate?
Annette deYoung:
I think Excel plays a huge role, right? It, I, I’ve heard, you know, oh, we’re, you know, Excel’s going away. Um, I think I’ve heard that for like 30 years, right? Oh, Excel’s going away. We’re, we’re gonna use this, you know, this brand new sort of, you know, shiny, <laugh>, shiny thing over here, um, to get us out of Excel. We don’t need Excel. And then why do they have a button that says Export to Excel, right? Again, it’s that flexibility to be able to do what you need to do. And, and whether that’s, you know, and I joke, I’m like, whether that’s creating forecasts or budgets or reports or in my case, right? I, uh, I actually like designed this set because I do theater a lot. I designed a set in Excel, right? I mean, like, literally you could use Excel for pretty much anything, whether it’s artistic or, or not.
And so Excel’s not going anywhere because there is no system out there that can do what Excel does with your data. Hands down. There’s nothing out there that can do what Excel does, right? And so being able to pull data from different sets, being able to, you know, run sort of like these analysis and, and what if, and well, what if I change this? Or I, you can’t do that right? In your ERP, you can’t do that in your payroll, right? You have to have a tool like Excel. Um, we’re also very comfortable with it. Uh, you know, and, and so I, I think that’s where like Excel’s never going away. Excel is never gonna go away. I used Lotus 1, 2, 3 straight out of college, right? That was a terrible, terrible thing. But since then, obviously excel into, I, as a finance professional, I would never give up by Excel, ever.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And it’s, I mean, it’s pretty interesting to see how Excel has kind of evolved because it’s, it’s happened over time and you almost don’t even notice it. But the fact that today you can use Python, and I mean, I know we’re not there yet, but Microsoft invested over $15 billion in generative ai. So they’re gonna, um, you know, they’re gonna end up coming up with Clippy revenge <laugh>. I know that’s their ultimate goal there. Um, I guess I’m dating myself with the reference to Clippy, but, um, you know what I mean, like a, an AI assistant that is right there in the sheets. And we’ve just seen, just a couple days ago, Google rolled out, uh, AI integrated into Google Sheets where you can highlight cells and then, uh, use a prompt rather than a formula to get it to analyze data. And I, I know this is where, where, um, Microsoft wants to go, and, um, and I know data rails has gone, gone there too, so can, can you speak, um, a bit to the implementation of, of Gen AI functionality in data rails?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. And, and you’re right, even Microsoft, right, coming out with copilot in, in, in that ai, but it’s gonna be great for finance folks, but what about everybody else? That, that’s the key there, right? If, if you spend your days in Excel, it’s gonna be great for you. Um, and, and, and if you know how data works and how it talks together, again, it’s gonna be great for you. But how does that translate to somebody in operations or somebody in sales, or even your CEO, which by the way, does not spend all day in spreadsheets, right? So how is that gonna help them? They’re gonna come back to you and ask a question, and then you are gonna have to do again, I can just see it, it, it, it, it’s always comes back to finance and accounting to answer those questions. And so, um, ai, like, like what data reels has, it’s having that chat feature, being able to ask questions and get responses.
It doesn’t, I don’t ever have to open a spreadsheet, right? I’m in sales, I’m in manufacturing, I’m in operations. I can ask a question or I can say, run this report. Here’s my dashboard. I can drill down. I don’t have to learn a new language. I don’t have to learn how, right. How to, how to read a spreadsheet. So this is where I think AI is going to, is not just for the finance department, but for the, for, for the actual, you know, company as a whole, right? The entire organization can leverage the ai, but using your specific data, anybody can go out to chat GPT and and, and ask it a question, but how does that relate to your specific data, right? It doesn’t. And so this is where ai, like what we have with Data Rails, having, you know, the, the chat, you know, genius, um, being able to have AI create specific report, you know, reports automatically for you without having to do that, I think is not just great for finance, but also for those folks that have to ingest that, that information, you know, whether it’s every week or every month without having to come back to finance and say, Hey, uh, what was my budget?
Or, you know, what, what do I have left to spend? You know what, I can just ask the system.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And, and that’s so powerful. And I always think we, we talk about, uh, we’ve, we’ve talked about democratization of data for 20 years or more now, but with generative ai, what I see, it’s almost the democratization of data science in that, um, you know, there used to be this barrier to entry where if, if you wanted to, uh, do really complex data science kind of work, uh, you’d have to, uh, be able to write SQL queries, be able to write code in Python, and, um, you know, you’d go in and you could, you could see data in a, in a certain dashboard or whatever, but if you wanted to drill down into it, you would have to, uh, you know, this is for leadership outside of fp and a or, or even sometimes fp and a, if, if you wanted additional data or additional analysis that was outside of, uh, the fp and a function, you would have to get in line and, you know, wait on, on reports. But now this is all happening so quickly, and it really is, uh, even without coding, people do have access to these new tools. And I’m wondering, with all this, with AI automation real-time data, where do you see the, the role of fp a going in the next three to five years?
Annette deYoung:
Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of folks are a little afraid of the AI, and oh my gosh, you know, what do you need me for, right? If, if my CFO can just ask a question and get it, like, what do you need me for? And so there is some fear in that, but what I say is embrace it, right? Don’t, don’t be afraid of it. Embrace the ai, like learn as much as you can, because trust me, that’s only gonna make you more marketable, right? You have to embrace new technology. You know, we always talk about, like, you know, in, in statistics you have that bell curve, and usually you have like early adopters, right? And then of course you have laggards, and so you need to be an early adopter. Um, I think when I was a customer for data rail, I think I was like customer number 40, like super early on.
I was an early adopter, but I’m not afraid of technology. And that, that’s where I think sometimes folks are just afraid of it. They don’t know what they don’t know, right? So do your research. Absolutely. But be an early adopter when these things come out, right? So that you are actually, you become more valuable than just being, you know, again, being in spreadsheets alone, and, and, and I, I’ve, I’ve met sort of finance folks before where it was more of a Right. If, if they don’t come to me and ask me questions, I don’t have value, right? I have to be head down, I have to look right. It, I have to show that look at how many hours I’m working, and I’m like, no. Right? That is old school thought, right? Actually, I think you’re more valuable if you’re only working eight hours a day and getting the job done. You shouldn’t have to work 12 and 14 hour days, right? And so I think just embrace that, embrace the new technology as it’s coming out. Be an early adopter.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, a hundred percent. When that old school mentality of being that gatekeeper and, and getting your your power comes from you’re the only person who can do something. You’re the only one who has access to the data. Um, so, well, I’m, I’m the only one who can do this, so you’re gonna have to wait. And then I’m, I’m working 12 or 14 hour days and, uh, uh, I’m the only one who can do this. So I think that, um, we’ve evolved in, in recent years, and I think that that gatekeeper model is, is, is broken. It was broken then, but it’s, it’s less, uh, less acceptable these days. And I’m right there with you about just embrace it and learn it. And I wrote my first, uh, book on using machine learning in, um, in finance back in 2021 when nobody was really talking about that.
But, um, I think we can all see where this is headed. So to me, it was important to get the ideas out early and say, I understand we went to school for finance and accounting, but technology is forcing us to up our game and understand, and we just have to evolve. Um, you know, it’s, it’s like accountants getting CPE credits. We have to, um, evolve and, and, uh, stay up to date with what’s going on to be effective. There’s that thing that everybody’s saying, but the AI is not gonna replace humans. Humans using AI are going to replace those who don’t. And it’s, it’s said so much now, it’s a cliche almost already, but it, I do think it’s true. And if you are gonna use ai, you have to understand it. So I, you know, that’s why maybe I’m, you know, I wrote the second book to really dive in more detail on what these algorithms are, how they work and what they do. Because I feel like you have to know that, because if you don’t understand how the tools are working, then you might as well ask your question to one of those magic eight balls, shake it up and get the answer. Because it’s not, you know, if you can’t justify it, if you’re coming up with numbers that you can’t explain, uh, <laugh> where they came from, then you’re not, uh, doing your job in, in finance and accounting.
Annette deYoung:
Yeah. And, and we need to get rid of the mindset that you’re not replaceable because it, it, and, and that’s not to say that, you know, you’re gonna lose your job, but what I’ve always said is, if you’re not replaceable, you’re not promotable because who’s gonna do that job now? Right? You’re the only one that knows how to do this. If, if you’re not replaceable, you’re not promotable. So I say, right, learn as much as you can, but be willing to hand off and train others so that you can move on and do things that you wanna do.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Love it. Love it. We are hitting about that time of the show where we need to switch over to our key questions that we ask everyone and, uh, having, uh, previously hosted the show, I think, you know, uh, what the two main ones are here. So first I guess we’ll just dive in with, uh, what is something that not many people know about you, maybe, um, something they couldn’t find just by, uh, by Googling you?
Annette deYoung:
Oh, man. Um, theater, I am huge in theater. I direct, I direct children’s theater, so I, I work with kids all the time. We actually just last weekend was our, our final weekend. We, uh, I produced a Bele Juice Junior, um, had 46 kids in the cast. It was absolutely amazing. I love it. Uh, I’ve been doing that for like 20 years as well. It’s a small nonprofit that a friend and I run. Uh, it’s just the two of us. And so we count on, you know, a lot of volunteers for sure. Uh, but that is definitely something you’re not gonna really find, uh, on LinkedIn or any, anything else. But it’s definitely a passion of mine.
Glenn Hopper:
Oh, that’s great. Both, uh, both my kids did theater growing up and they still, you know, they’re grown and outta the house now, but they still stay in touch with the, uh, the director from going all the way back to middle school. Uh, great woman. And it really, it made a difference, um, in their lives. And I, I know you are, are too, so that’s, that’s great. Okay, so now everybody’s favorite question, and we do all this, we, we ask everyone, and I’ve got, I keep saying, I’m gonna log this because we need to do something with this data, but, uh, we’re, we’re not logging it now. So, uh, what is your favorite Excel function and why?
Annette deYoung:
Uh, I, you know, and I knew you were gonna ask this, and so it’s changed. So I, if you would’ve asked me a few years ago what it was, I would tell you index match by far my favorite Excel function, because I always despised VLOOKUPs and, and I still get people who are like, I love a V lookup. I’m like, yeah, but your data’s gotta be sorted, right? And it’s gotta be, I’m like, that’s terrible, right? X lookup is probably my new favorite because it did take my index match and made it so much cleaner and easier, um, to really sort of, again, to bring that data together. So yeah, I’m gonna say X lookup is probably my newest favorite. Alright.
Glenn Hopper:
Alright. So now I know what I need to do. I need to train an AI to go back and listen to all the episodes, grab the answers, uh, uh, and then, uh, you know, put ’em into a, a table and then, uh, and then we can see the plot and see, uh, <laugh>, see what they used. So. Well, thank you you so much for coming on. Um, and I guess, uh, before I let you go, um, where can our, our listeners connect with you to learn more about you and, and the work you’re doing at, at Data Rails?
Annette deYoung:
Oh, absolutely. LinkedIn. I am, I’m on LinkedIn. Uh, I probably don’t post as much as I should, but I, I still do. But yeah, anybody wants to connect with me, LinkedIn is the way to find me.
Glenn Hopper:
Great. Well, Annette, I really enjoyed having you on. Thank you again for coming in at the last minute. Uh, you were an awesome guest and, uh, and I’m sure we’ll be talking soon.
Annette deYoung:
Great. Thank you so much, Glen.
