REPORT.

In order to make plans for the future, we have to know where we stand today. We need to set the foundation, and that starts with reporting.

Monthly Financial Reviews

Create an engaging, well-planned discussion about the company’s performance every month that will keep your ELT in the loop and accountable.

Board Reporting

Present board slides that now only show financial results, but also tell a story. Shine a light on the most relevant details for the big decisions in the room where it happens.

KPI Must-Haves

Define and track churn, retention, and the almighty ARR snowball, among a few other helpful software business metrics.

Write a Great MD&A

Most monthly Management Discussion & Analysis (“MD&A”) either tell the reader absolutely nothing or way too much. Learn how to provide the right level of detail to answer questions before you get them.

PREDICT.

This is the sweet spot where the finance meets strategy. Once we have set the foundation, we can start to define what “levers” are available to pull. What are levers? For your business, it might be how many sales people you hire, how many dollars go to certain marketing campaigns, or spend on a new product feature. Predicting is all about estimating and measuring the impact of those levers.

Budgeting

Create a budget process that doesn’t drag by keeping a tight timeline and filling in our templated slides that will lead to the right conversations for approval.

Forecasting

Forecasts are the crystal ball of our companies. Keeping an ongoing forecast gives you and your team confidence to place smart bets, push on goals, and pump the brakes when necessary.

Finance Systems & Tools

Help systems help you get the work done in a much more efficient and effective way. Learn what systems work well for other finance teams and best practices for the most-used tools.

IMPROVE.

Oftentimes in our businesses, we’re building the plane in-flight. As we begin to predict which levers to pull, sometimes we’ll hit the jackpot and other times we’ll learn we were wrong about something. We take the information we learn from the results we get to adjust and improve along the way.

Finance Checklist

Use this checklist to find the gaps in your practice, track your progress, and celebrate the wins over time.

Map your Workflow

Monthly close taking forever? Billing getting wonky? In order to improve the process, you first need to understand it. We’ll walk through how to map your workflow to find the gaps and improve them.

Define and Refine: Keys to the Investment

Define and refine the 3-5 most important keys to growing a successful business over the next few years and measure against them. Revisit the measurements and progress against each goal quarterly (at a minimum!).

Assess Impact

What did we think would happen this year? What was the believed outcome of making certain decisions in sales, marketing, and product? Review what’s working and what’s not working by setting up measurements against changes and understanding their impact

OTHER CONTENT.

Because being part of a great finance team does not fit into three catch phrases. Here is content that will help you build and manage a great team, collaborate with others, and prepare for other situations that come your way.

Build the Team

Find resources to help get the right talent in place in the back office to help support and scale the business. For our finance teams specifically, you’ll find examples to hire great FP&A Analysts, Controllers, and Accountants.

Onboard

Having a strong onboarding plan can help get a new hire up to speed and more valuable fast - so you all can spend less time creating reports and more time understanding what they mean.

Cross-Collaboration

Good finance teams wear many hats - often interacting and overlapping with sales, product and human resources. Here is where we house our resources for these common overlaps.

Preparing for Sale

The sales process can be a massive burden on the team; there are steps you can take today to make everyone’s lives easier when it comes time to sell.

Preparing to Buy

Finding, buying, and integrating businesses is hard work. We’re sharing some tools we’ve learned from the deal team and over the years to make it better.