The old way of creating reports is almost cliché, but only because it remains so pervasive. It’s a familiar scene: A teammate pings you at 4:57 pm asking for a last-minute report. The data and business logic you need live across 10 spreadsheets, in five Microsoft Teams threads, and in an email from two months…
There’s a version of this story you’ve probably lived. The close is approaching, someone pulls a number from a file that hasn’t been updated, and an hour later you’re untangling a discrepancy that shouldn’t exist. The fix takes 20 minutes. Finding the source took two days. This is the part where most articles would tell…
Most finance leaders at large organizations have made the right investments. A modern ERP, cloud data platforms, planning tools, and more. And now, increasingly, AI — for forecasting support, anomaly detection, close acceleration, and reporting at scale. The technology stack looks right. But when the board starts asking about results, the returns are harder to…
Every CFO I talk to right now is under some version of the same pressure: the board wants AI, the business wants faster answers, and the finance team is often still reconciling spreadsheets. The promise of AI in finance is real. But so is the gap between that promise and what most organizations are able to deliver. I…
Say your reconciliation tool flags a break between two ledgers, and now there’s a number that needs an explanation. The AI-generated summary says the mismatch is a timing difference, transaction posted late on one side. Reasonable. You move on. Then your controller asks which transaction, on which date, and why it posted late instead of…
There’s a specific moment every finance leader knows. A number is about to leave the building — headed for the board deck, the earnings call, or the audit committee — and right before it goes, you pause. You want to know where it came from, and you want to know it will still make sense…
If you work in finance, you’ve probably been handed an AI tool in the last year or so. Maybe a copilot in your spreadsheet, maybe something bolted onto the close, maybe a chatbot that promised to answer any question about the numbers. And maybe, if you’re being honest, it hasn’t changed your Tuesday very much. You’re not doing it wrong. The tool isn’t broken. What’s missing is the part nobody put on the slide: AI is only…