Fractional CFO, Outsourced CFO, Virtual CFO Topics
Anthropic and Open AI: How Core Values May Be the Difference Maker in the Battle for #1
Focus comes from principles guiding to a vision. Success comes from execution guiding to an opportunity. This depends on teams aligned on core values. Exceptional success relies on focus to create remarkable outcomes. But it does not work the other...
The Fraud Triangle’s Achilles Heel – Engineering Trust Through Systematic Controls
Outright financial fraud in the form of stealing company funds is something that happens. In the news you can find a variety of examples of systemic cash fraud, and, all too often, this occurs in the accounting and finance areas...
When Every Dollar Has a Name on It: Mastering Third-Party Fund Accountability
Throughout my CFO consulting work, I’ve helped numerous owners restructure their financial approval processes to close a dangerous gap: when dividing responsibilities across a team, it’s surprisingly easy to create workflows that accidentally circumvent the controls designed to prevent fraud...
Strategic Forecasting Part 3: Modeling Staffing and Productivity Curves for Accurate Financial Planning
In part one of this series of articles, I discussed “Strategic Financial Forecasting: How Time Tracking Data Transforms Multi-Year Financial Models.” In part two, I focused on “Building a Calendar System that Anchors Multi-Year Models.” In this article, I will...
Why Tariff Increases Haven’t Shown Up in Inflation—Yet: A CFO’s Real-World Perspective on E-Commerce and Consumer Packaged Goods
Last year, when tariffs were introduced, I wrote a blog article about how they represented a critical kitchen table issue for many small American businesses that have built their business models around contract manufacturing in China and selling through U.S....
The Real Cost of DIY Financial Operations
I sat across from a business owner last week who proudly told me he’d saved $200,000 by handling his company’s finances himself rather than hiring professional help. His bookkeepers processed transactions. His CPA handled taxes. He managed everything else —...
When Fractional CFO Can Solve Founder Bottlenecks Costing You Growth
Throughout my years working with established businesses, I’ve watched the same pattern unfold dozens of times. A founder builds a company from nothing to $5 million, then $10 million, then $20 million in revenue. Success creates its own set of...
Beeper After One Year: The Evolution Continues
A little over a year ago, I published a blog article titled “From Too Many Messaging Apps to Just One” and discussed my discovery of Beeper, a unified messaging app that I use on my desktop and iPhone. I have...
How Fractional CFOs Use Scenario Planning for Strategic Decisions
TL;DR: Most strategic decisions fail not because leaders choose poorly but because they plan for only one future. We’ve found that companies using rigorous scenario planning avoid 80% of the “unexpected” problems that derail growth—not through prediction but through preparation....
The CFO’s Paradox: Managing Risk
I’ve watched CEOs who built companies from nothing suddenly freeze when faced with decisions that would have been easy calls five years earlier. Success rewrites the rules of risk. When you’re bootstrapping, every decision feels like a calculated gamble; when...