Finance Data Analysis
Explore how data analysis can empower you to deliver valuable insights to your business and clients. This pathway provides the tools, technologies, and methodologies you need to ensure you play a pivotal role in decision making.
£500 +VAT
As finance professionals, we understand data and use it every day. How can we analyse data for the good of our business? Through this pathway you will discover what data analysis is and how to use tools and technologies to analyse data. Improve your knowledge of Excel, statistics, data visualisation and financial models, and learn how you can utilise new skills to predict and plan your organisation’s future. This pathway will enable you to use data analysis to have a real impact on your business or clients, and to become an essential part of decision making.
- This pathway addresses all of ACCA’s seven key technical and professional data analysis skills as specified in their report “Analytics in finance and accountancy”
In this pathway
Learning
Supporting your journey to the next stage of your career
Analytics
The tools, techniques, and skills you need to provide valuable business insights
Flexibility
Learn where you want, when you want
Certificate of Achievement
21 verifiable hours of CPD, an assessment and a Certificate of Achievement
Learning resources
Immerse yourself in the rich variety of articles, videos, activities, quizzes, discussions, and more, to develop your understanding and skills.
Expert interviews
Find out how data analysis works like in the real-world from our prestigious team of experts in the areas of Excel, data modelling, visualisations, financial models, data protection and decision making in accounting.
Action plan
Build up a practical plan of how you will put your new skills into action, and download a convenient summary of all the learning to take away.
Assessment
Achieving 75% on the multiple choice assessment is required to complete the career progression pathway. The assessment features two questions on each topic that has been covered.
Secure certification
Once you’ve finished the programme, you will receive a unique and secure Certificate of Achievement as evidence of your new understanding and capabilities.
This Career Progression Pathway is divided into six sections corresponding to the key Finance Data Analysis skills you will need to develop. Complete all six to unlock the end of pathway assessment and access your Certificate of Achievement.
Analysing finance data
Data analysis presents businesses with a way of gaining insights and creating value, and it presents you with a chance to be the heart of that value creation. This first section introduces the concept of data analysis and looks at some of the basics involved in working with data.
- Foundations of data analysis
- Data protection
- Analysing data
Excel skills
It is now easier than ever to use Excel to work with large and complex datasets, and as such it can often be your first port of call when analysing data. Here we cover some key Excel skills to have at your disposal, and look at how to clean and prepare data so that it is fit for purpose.
- Recent improvements
- Essential Excel skills
- Data preparation
Statistics and data modelling
In this section we see how to use statistics to simplify your data, and how to create models and relationships between multiple tables and sources of data to help you uncover deeper insights.
- Descriptive statistics
- Hypothesis testing
- Getting started with Power BI
- Modelling with Power Pivot
- Modelling with DAX
Data visualisation
A core part of finance data analysis is telling the story of the data. You need to be able to present your findings in a straightforward and compelling way, so that they can be easily understood by others, whatever their level of technical expertise. Techniques available to do this include charts, graphs, reports, interactive dashboards, and more.
- Communicating via data
- Engaging dashboards
- Highlighting issues
Financial models
As well as looking backwards, data analysis can help you look ahead and better prepare your organisation for an uncertain future. One way to do this is to use financial models, which take existing data and extrapolate from that to predict potential outcomes and to support decision making.
- Building spreadsheet models
- Successful business simulations
Supporting the business
At its core, data analysis is about to supporting your organisation to achieve its goals. Even the most accurate data analysis is pointless if you don’t know how to use what you’ve learned to make an impact. Armed with insights from the data, your organisation can improve decisions and strategy, reduce costs, function more efficiently, protect itself from threats, and take advantage of the opportunities available.
- Data-based strategy
- Data-driven decisions
- Business performance management
- Technology disruptors
Assessment
Once you have completed all the elements of the pathway, you can take the assessment to access your Certificate of Achievement.
Lead Consultant
Samuel Ellis
Samuel Ellis is a chartered accountant with experience working in private accounting firms and a number of high growth businesses. He has spent the past six years working as Head of Finance for InterWorks, a global specialist data consulting practice. Sam was the founding Chair of the ACCA’s Global Technology Forum and currently Chair of ACCA’s Member Advisory Committee and a member of the ACCA’s International Assembly.
Other contributing faculty
Paula Guilfoyle
Paula Guilfoyle is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland and accountingcpd.net’s resident expert on all things to do with Excel and Power BI. In this pathway, she is the author of many of the modules on excel and data modelling with Power BI and DAX, as well as the presentation and visualisation of data.
Becky Reid
Becky Reid is a digital marketing consultant & practitioner with over 20 years marketing experience across, amongst others, automotive, publishing and fire protection industries. Becky is an expert in conducting data protection audits and training clients on how to manage their data. Becky is the author on Data Protection in this pathway.
Ross Maynard
Ross Maynard is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He has worked as a consultant and trainer for over 20 years, specialising in process improvement and lean for finance teams. He has presented at lean conferences in the UK, Australia, Italy and Denmark and has written many articles and blogs on process improvement. Ross has written the modules in this pathway on Spreadsheet Models and Business Simulations, on Business Performance Management, and on Highlighting Issues.
Yusuf Justin Holcroftt
Yusuf Justin Holcroft is a Director of CTS Consulting and Training Specialists, a company specialised in business rescue, turnaround and expansion. He became Trade Development Manager at Coca-Cola Amatil Austria in 1996, and subsequently worked with the Iams Company and Procter & Gamble fulfilling country manager roles for Austria, Switzerland and South Africa. He is the author in this pathway of the module entitled Data-Based Strategy.
Anna Faherty
Anna Faherty is a writer, editor, researcher and educator who has written extensively for accountingcpd on topics as diverse as ethics and strategy. She is an expert in the communication of complex ideas. Anna has delivered numerous workshops and webinars for ACCA and the AIA and has lectured at City University, Kingston University, Oxford Brookes University and University College London. Anna is the author of the module on Data-driven Decisions in this pathway.
Ben Edwards –
Really informative!
Valentina Testa –
Longer than I expected but lots of useful insights and deep learning
Gorata Constance Selebatso –
The course was insightful. I learnt a lot.
Lynn Blake –
Well thought out course
Wendy Irish –
very informative useful content good videos
Pratik Patel –
The Career Progression Pathway in Finance Data Analysis is a game-changer—practical, insightful, and tailored for real-world impact. It sharpens analytical skills while empowering finance professionals to drive smarter, data-led decisions.
Tina Smith –
Self paced learning Directly relevant to today’s work environment Learned new skills Developed awareness of transformation tools Assessment focused me to really pay attention which made learning more enjoyable
Olessya Gelyuta –
Very interisting module.
Scott Britnell –
Very thorough, and also used a variety of mediums (video, transcript, article, case study).
Christie Liang –
.
Summer Sheng –
Like the Excel, and Power BI technical parts. But not the theories. Do not think will use too many theories in real life.
Paul Randall –
Disjointed content, looks like copied and pasted from other courses. Odd variable competency level, very basic on excel and too much irrelevant detail in other e.g. Power Query. Many videos not present or do not work (had cleared cookies, closed down and tried different browser). Much content does not easily lend itself to reading just text. Questions appear on content that have not yet been presented. There is repetition. Not clear assessment was limited to two attempt so after 21hrs of study by failure to pass the test would seemingly not provide a certificate for CPD.
Andria Meletlidou –
very interesting course with tips and tricks on the technical part of financial analysis but also on the decision making that results from that. I found very interesting the reference on the technology and how this will impact in the future the accountancy profession. Although, the excel version that it was used along the course was not working on my personal laptop, I found it still interesting with the new releases and updates.
Heidi Davies –
Excellent coverage of emerging financial tools – very much a looking forward course.
Russell du Plessis –
Would have been nice to know what software was going to be referenced. My version of Excel does not have access to all the addins Same description for count and counta?
Malcolm Comerford –
A really good course which has helped me a lot