If you have ever sat in a leadership meeting and heard, “This is our top priority,” then watched the budget get approved like it was built for a completely different company, you already know the core problem. Financial strategy is supposed to be the translation layer between what the business wants and what the business actually does. From a CFO seat, alignment is not a buzzword. It is the difference between funding the plan and funding a pile of good intentions. The organizations that win...

If you sit in the controller seat long enough, you realize most financial questions boil down to something simple: are we okay, or are we drifting toward trouble without noticing. That is just as true for a housing authority as it is for a small business. The terminology can sound intimidating, but underneath it you are really tracking a small set of numbers that tell you whether cash is stable, operations are sustainable, and assets are being taken care of. Think of these as your dashboard,...

Let’s be honest: if you’re still using spreadsheets to track your company’s finances, you’re not alone, but you are probably spending more time than you should on tasks that could be automated. I’ve been in the CFO seat long enough to remember what it was like running month-end reports with six different tabs open, hoping no one touched the formulas. And I’ve also seen firsthand how a well-executed transition to automated accounting can transform the finance function from a cost center to a...