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Budgeting season is in full swing. Some finance teams are faring better than others.
What sets this fortunate few apart? And where is everyone else running into trouble?
We asked 250 finance leaders these questions and more. See what they said (and how your team stacks up) in Aleph’s 2026 annual budgeting & planning benchmark report.
Hey there,
What happens when a finance team rushes into “smart” tools and only discovers the real bill at renewal time? This piece follows CFOs who greenlight automation pilots without fixing data debt, setting guardrails, or benchmarking results, only to be surprised by hidden usage, audit issues, and spiraling costs.
Take a moment to see why slowing down upfront can actually save millions and lead to better, cleaner wins later.
Quick Win For Your Finance Team
15-Minute Daily “3-Number Health Check.”
In 15 minutes every morning, ground yourself and your leadership team in three core numbers so decisions that day are anchored in facts, not vibes.
Pick the three numbers that matter most this quarter (for example: Cash on Hand, New Bookings or Revenue, and Net Hiring or Operating Spend).
Set up a tiny one-tab sheet with rows for Date and those three metrics, plus two simple helper columns for vs Last Week and vs Plan (Up, Flat, Down).
Each morning, pull yesterday’s figures from bank/treasury, CRM, and payroll or ERP, and enter them into the sheet.
Color-code each metric Red, Yellow, or Green based on simple thresholds you agree with the CEO or COO (for example, cash buffer in days, bookings vs target, hiring within plan).
Write one sentence of commentary in a “Notes” cell that answers, “What changed, and what needs attention today?”
Drop a screenshot or PDF of the updated tab into your CEO or exec Slack channel or email with a subject like “Daily 3-Number Health Check.”
Immediate payoff:
You will cut down ad hoc “How are we doing?” conversations, spot drifts against plan within days instead of weeks, and create a simple daily ritual that keeps finance and leadership aligned on the real state of the business.
🚨 CFOs Risk Millions By Misreading Automation Costs
CFOs weighing new tools face budget drains, compliance headaches, and talent churn if they back shiny pilots without data, governance, and clarity on ROI. The article flags cost blind spots and “shadow” usage that slip past finance, then bite in audits and renewals. See full article.
Why this matters (fast take):
🧱 Fix Data Debt First: Clean vendors, chart fields, and lineage. Bad inputs turn pilots into noise, not savings.
📊 Prove Real ROI: Benchmark cycle times and error rates, then A/B the tool against your baseline before procurement signs.
📊 EY Survey: Finance Rewires Hiring as Data Gaps Block Automation Wins
Finance and tax leaders are shifting talent fast. In EY’s 1,600-respondent survey, 89% plan to upskill, 86% prioritize more innovative tools, yet only 16% feel confident in data strategy, and fewer than one in four say their tax data management is mature. The unlock is a tighter blend of accounting depth with data fluency to move from compliance to insight. See full article.
Fast take:
🧠 Upskill at Scale: Leaders want teams that pair accounting chops with data skills to fuel scenario planning and deal support.
🧩 Soft Skills Spike: 81% hire beyond technical tax skills, with problem-solving and critical thinking topping the must-have list.
💸 71% of CFOs Speed Cash Flow, but Paper Habits Still Stall Payments
PYMNTS spotlights how emerging enterprises shorten time to cash. In a roundtable with Bottomline, Coupa, and FIS, 71% of CFOs reported faster cash conversion, driven by automated onboarding, supplier networks, and data hubs that lift trust and forecasting. The unlock is cleaner front-end data and supplier readiness, which removes first-mile friction. See full article.
Fast move:
🔗 Trust at Scale: Paymode-X connects 550,000 authenticated suppliers, boosting invoice confidence and predictable cash timing across AP and AR workflows.
📈 Proof in Numbers: Coupa cases show 5.8% buyer savings and 270% three-year ROI when spend and supplier flows run on automated rails.
Automation Play Of The Week
Headcount & Payroll Drift Monitor for Tech CFOs
Automate a simple weekly view of headcount, fully loaded payroll, and variance to plan so you stop asking “Who did we hire and what did it do to burn?” and instead see the impact as it happens. This monitor uses your HRIS and payroll data and can be managed entirely by finance with a light lift from HR.
Define your baseline: Lock a “plan” snapshot for headcount by department and role, and fully loaded monthly cost. Treat this as your reference for variance and keep it in a separate tab that does not change.
Set up weekly exports: Configure your HRIS and payroll systems to drop weekly CSV files into a shared folder with consistent column names (employee ID, department, title, start date, end date, base pay, benefits, location).
Build a single “Headcount Monitor” tab: Use Excel or Google Sheets with data connections or Power Query to pull in the latest HR and payroll files, calculate current headcount and run rate, and compare to plan by department and location on one summary tab.
Automate refresh and alerts: Use Power Automate, Zapier, or a scheduled macro or script to refresh the file every Monday and email a one-page summary to you, the CEO, and HR. Add a simple alert when the payroll run rate for any department drifts more than a set percentage from the plan.
Benefits:
Gives you a weekly, trusted answer to “Where did our burn move and why?” without chasing HR or pulling ad hoc reports.
Helps you catch over-hiring, unapproved roles, or mix shifts early enough to adjust before quarter end.
Control check:
Once a month, have the controller or FP&A reconcile the monitor to the official payroll register for that month and investigate any variances so the model stays aligned with actuals.
📊 Take This Edition’s Poll:
Which first move would most reduce hidden automation costs this quarter?
Why It Matters
If you cannot answer what a tool really replaced, how much time it saved, and who controls it, you are not managing costs; you are guessing. By cleaning vendor lists and data first, then A/B testing cycle times and error rates before signing big contracts, CFOs turn automation from shiny noise into a measured productivity lever.
In a tight budget year, that kind of discipline is what separates teams that quietly compound value from those stuck untangling expensive experiments.
Until the next financial insight,
Corrine Maxwell
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights
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