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Hey there,
Ever look at a shiny new finance tool and wonder if it is solving a real problem or just adding another subscription? This edition argues CFOs should start with the outcome, then choose the smallest tool that gets the job done, keeping human judgment sharp and avoiding expensive overkill.
Take a moment to see why “right-sized” is becoming the new smart.
Quick Win For Your Finance Team
15-Minute Daily “Renewal Radar” Pass
In 15 minutes every day, keep a live view of upcoming customer and vendor renewals so you never get surprised by a lost logo or an auto-renewed contract you did not want.
Export all customer and key vendor contracts with renewal or term-end dates from your CRM, billing system, or contract repository into a single sheet.
Add columns for Renewal Date, ARR/Annual Spend, Type (Customer / Vendor), Risk (High / Medium / Low), Owner, and Status (Not Started, In Discussion, Signed, Churn / Cancel).
Filter to items renewing in the next 30–90 days and above a simple materiality threshold (for example, >$20k ARR for customers, >$10k annual for vendors).
Sort by Renewal Date, then tag Risk based on a few quick signals: usage trends, NPS/CSAT, recent escalations, pricing pressure, or strategic importance.
For High-Risk or High-Value contracts, add one concrete Next Step and Date (for example, “exec touch,” “pricing options,” “benchmark before renegotiation”) and confirm each Owner in Slack or email.
Keep a small “This Week’s Focus” box at the top listing the top 5 contracts that must move this week, and review it daily with RevOps (for customers) and Procurement or IT (for vendors).
Immediate payoff:
You will avoid surprise churn and unwanted auto-renewals, walk into renewal conversations earlier and better prepared, and build a daily habit where finance quietly de-risks both revenue and major spend before it hits the P&L.
📊 Cut Spend, Keep Speed: CFOs Go Outcome-First, Says Blaize CFO
Blaize CFO Harminder Sehmi tells CFO Dive that finance teams should define outcomes first, then pick right-sized tools. Overbuying burns budgets, and over-automation risks a future skills gap as entry-level work shrinks. The fix is simple: use the smallest tool that fits the job and keep human judgment sharp. See full article.
Why this matters (fast take):
🎯 Outcomes Over Apps: Start with the business result, then select the smallest tool that delivers it. CFO owns the decision and ROI.
💸 Right-Size the Chips: GPUs are Ferraris, great for speed, wasteful for weekly “Costco runs.” Match compute to task to trim capex and opex.
💳 $60K to $1M: Fintech Outsourcing That Ships and Passes Audits
Appinventiv lays out how fintech teams outsource work to move faster and stay compliant, with typical budgets from $60K to $1M+. The lever is upfront regulatory mapping, clear scope, and tight governance, plus proof from case results like a 35% manual load drop and 20% retention lift, showing predictable delivery beats cheap hourly rates. See full article.
Fast move:
💵 Budget Ranges: MVPs run $60K to $150K. Core products, $150K to $400K+. Enterprise programs often hit $400K to $1M+ per year.
🧩 Compliance First: Map PCI DSS, GDPR, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 upfront, plus local regulators. Shared security and audit readiness reduce rework and delays.
📉 2026 Spend Rules: Match Group CFO Demands ROI Before Machine Learning Pilots
Match Group’s CFO, Steve Bailey, will require business cases for 2026 automation spending, ending the unlimited-pilot era. In 2025, finance green-lit millions without cases. Wins include a Hinge feature lifting matches 15% and tax automation tracking VAT across about 190 countries. The shift ties tools to clear savings, productivity, or revenue. See full article.
Fast move:
🎯 Business Case First: 2026 approvals need a clear ROI, cost savings, or user impact. Experiments no longer get more or less unlimited budgets.
🧾 Tax Ops Win: Finance used tools to automate VAT tracking across about 190 countries, cutting manual data collection on repetitive tasks.
Automation Play Of The Week
Daily Revenue & Pipeline Pulse for Tech CFOs
Automate a one-page daily view of bookings, billings, and pipeline shifts so you stop asking “Did anything move on revenue yesterday?” and instead start the day knowing where you stand vs plan. This pulse uses your existing CRM and ERP/billing data and can be owned entirely by finance with light help from RevOps.
Pick the revenue and pipeline KPIs. Decide what you want every morning (e.g., yesterday’s bookings, MTD bookings vs plan, billings, slippage and pull-ins, pipeline added/removed, and top 10 deals moving stages or dates).
Set up daily exports. Configure your CRM and ERP/billing tools to drop simple CSVs each night (closed-won deals, bookings and billings by date, pipeline by stage and close date) into a shared folder with consistent names and columns.
Build a single “Revenue & Pipeline Pulse” tab. Use Excel or Google Sheets with data connections/Power Query to pull those files in, calculate daily and MTD bookings vs plan, and create a simple table of key deals that slipped, pulled in, or changed value, all on one summary tab.
Automate refresh and email. Use Power Automate, Zapier, or a scheduled macro/script to refresh the file at a set time each morning and email the summary as a PDF to you, the CEO, and GTM leaders.
Benefits:
Gives you a daily, CFO-grade answer to “Are we on track for the month and quarter?” without waiting for forecast meetings.
Surfaces addresses slippage and forecast risk early enough to drive recovery actions while there is still time.
Control Check:
Once a week, have FP&A or RevOps compare the pulse to the official forecast and CRM dashboards to confirm mappings, plan versions, and stage definitions are still aligned.
📊 Take This Edition’s Poll:
Would you rather enforce this rule for every 2026 tool request?
Why It Matters
Outcome-first thinking protects budgets and keeps teams focused on measurable wins instead of tool collecting. Matching compute and automation to the actual job also reduces long-term risk, including a skills gap when entry-level work disappears.
In finance, restraint can be a competitive advantage.
Until the next financial insight,
Corrine Maxwell
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights
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