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Hey there,
What happens when a CFO’s first instinct in a shaky market is to freeze instead of fine-tune? This issue follows McKinsey’s Yuval Atsmon as he argues for a different playbook, one that tightens cash and working capital while still funding small, high-conviction pilots that prove ROI in 12 to 24 months.
Take a moment to see how moving first on innovative tools, while everyone else pauses, can quietly reset your cost base and decision speed.
Quick Win For Your Finance Team
15-Minute Daily “Off-Plan Spend” Scan
In 15 minutes every day, give yourself a clear view of where money went yesterday that might not match the plan, so you catch waste and surprises while they are still small.
Pull yesterday’s card, expense, and AP transactions from your ERP, card platform, or spend tool, including Vendor, Amount, Department, and GL Category.
Filter to items above a simple threshold you care about, for example, over $1,000 or over $5,000, plus any transactions in sensitive categories such as travel, software, contractors, and T&E.
In one tab, give each line a quick tag: In Plan (budgeted), Timing Shift (expected but earlier or later), or Off Plan (not in the agreed budget or unclear).
For off-plan items, add one short note with Owner (person or team) and Next Step, for example, “ask for context,” “roll into revised forecast,” or “tighten policy.”
Highlight any repeat vendor that shows up three or more times this week, or any new vendor over your threshold, and drop those into a small “Watch List” box at the top of the sheet.
Share a screenshot of the Off Plan list and Watch List with your controller or FP&A lead, and agree on one or two follow-ups that day, such as a policy reminder, approval tweak, or a quick Slack to the spender.
Immediate payoff:
You will see off-plan spending within 24 hours instead of at month-end, have calmer conversations about surprise costs, and build a daily habit of guarding the plan without turning finance into the police.
🔧 Don’t Freeze: CFOs Cut Waste and Pilot Smart Tools Now
McKinsey CFO Yuval Atsmon says finance chiefs should not pause tech bets. Focus on controllables, keep liquidity tight, trim friction, and run quick pilots that prove cash impact within 12 to 24 months. The win comes from moving first on high-ROI uses while peers stall, then scaling what works across teams. See full article.
Why this matters (fast take):
💵 Cash-First Moves: Extend runway, tighten working capital, stress-test covenants, then fund only near-term payback projects.
✂️ Cut Friction Fast: Standardize vendors, reduce cycle times, and automate reporting where ROI is clear in under a year.
📊 10 CFO Skills to Tighten Forecasts and Speed Decisions
Workday maps the 10 must-have finance skills for modern CFOs. The piece spotlights rolling forecasts, data fluency, cross-functional playbooks, risk discipline, and sharper communication. More than half of CFOs now spend most of their time on transformation, and many use non-financial data to steer choices, raising the bar for teams in 2026. See full article.
Fast move:
📈 Data Fluency Wins: CFOs push for a single source of truth, using financial and non-financial data to make decisions, not gut checks.
🗓️ Plan in Motion: Rolling forecasts and scenario modeling replace static budgets so teams can pivot quickly as signals shift.
🧭 Bridge the Risk-to-Action Gap: CFO Playbook from AuditBoard
AuditBoard CAO Tina Yeh says CFOs face rising change and muddier risk maps in 2026. Her approach pairs finance and risk teams, then uses scenario planning to show the hard financial impact and trigger action on threats such as supply chain shocks and cyber incidents. See full article.
Fast move:
🔍 Expose Blind Spots: New tech frees time but creates blind spots, especially where oversight of tool use is unclear.
📈 Make Risk Strategic: Risk work is shifting from compliance to strategy as rare shocks feel routine, so show the P&L impact.
Automation Play Of The Week
Daily Exceptions-Only Flash Report
Automate a one-page daily view that only shows metrics outside your guardrails so you stop scanning full dashboards and start the day with just what needs attention. This report uses your existing ERP, AP, AR, and expense data and can be owned by finance, not IT.
Pick the exceptions and thresholds: Decide which items should appear, for example, invoices past due by more than X days, spend over budget by more than Y percent, vendors over a limit, or GL entries missing approvals, and write simple rules for each.
Set up daily exports: Configure your ERP, AP, AR, and expense tools to drop CSVs each morning with only the fields you need, such as date, owner, amount, category, and status, into a shared folder with consistent names.
Build a single “Exceptions Flash” tab: Use Excel or Google Sheets with data connections or Power Query to pull in those files, filter to rows that break your rules, and show them on one summary tab sorted by impact and due date.
Automate refresh and email: Use Power Automate, Zapier, or a scheduled macro or script to refresh the file at a set time each morning and email the summary as a PDF to you, your controller, and key finance leads.
Benefits:
Gives you a focused list of daily problems instead of hunting through multiple reports and dashboards.
Helps your team resolve issues faster by making owners, amounts, and deadlines visible in one place.
Control check:
Once a week, have the controller compare a day’s Exceptions Flash to the underlying systems to confirm no major issues are being missed and that thresholds are still appropriate.
📊 Take This Edition’s Poll:
Would you rather greenlight one 12–24 month pilot with clear cash impact first?
Why It Matters
If you cut all tech bets, you lock in today’s friction just when you most need faster, cleaner information. By focusing on cash first, standardizing vendors, and backing automation only when the payback window is short and measurable, you de-risk innovation rather than gambling on it.
In a crowded field of cautious peers, that discipline is what turns “wait and see” into “move early and gain ground.”
Until the next financial insight,
Corrine Maxwell
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights
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