What percentage of costs does the speaker say labor represents?

Paul BarnhurstFP&A Expert Empowering Finance Professionals to Excel Everday

Know the business before you model it.

8 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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Short advice from a speaker (Paul Barnhurst) aimed at FP&A individual contributors: start with business fundamentals, understand what moves the needle, prioritize major cost drivers (speaker states "labor is 70% of our costs"), and favor simplicity and repeatable processes over complex, hard-to-improve models. The speaker also notes you don't need perfect accuracy (utters phrase 'No need to be 100% accurate, but at least 1995').

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70%

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If you are an FPA individual contributor, you must start with the basics. First of all, you need to understand the business. You need to understand what moves the needle, what really matters, and what needs to be investigated at the FP&A for example, you know that labor is 70% of our costs. You need to make sure that we are within the boundaries and need to analyze again in a high level. No need to be 100% accurate, but at least 1995. We need to keep things very, very simple, build processes you can repeat and improve. Not just something which is very, very difficult and very, very complicated that you cannot repeat, improve and investigate.