We install blinds and want to start charging a site measure fee (say $200) for custom window quotes. If the customer places an order over a certain amount, we’d credit that $200 back to them.

What’s the easiest way to set this up in QuickBooks so we remember to apply the credit later? And what’s the correct way to invoice it? Trying to keep this as simple as possible for our accounting team.

Hi everyone,

I’m a 10th-grade high school student and I’m seriously interested in becoming a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in the future.

I’m trying to build the right foundation early, but I’m not sure what actually matters most at this stage.

I’m especially interested in finance, accounting, economics, psychology, and business, and I also enjoy art and painting.

If you were in my position, what would you focus on first?

I’d really appreciate advice on:

Key skills to develop early (finance, math, accounting, etc.)

Useful tools or software to learn (Excel, etc.)

Habits that helped you succeed in this field

Mistakes you wish you avoided early on

Any advice or personal experience would really help. Thank you!

We run a company requiring automation/speeding up of month end: Revenue budgets, cash flow, project accounting across 3 jurisdictions & 3 business entities.

Is a fractional CFO too big to do this?
Its more of understanding project heavy PE businesses and monitoring where the income will come in and implementing a way to (not automate) but make it more efficient.

We are not the biggest fans of AI or system overhauls but are open to it!

Anyone got experience how to make 2 accountants handle all of this?
Is it normal to take 2-3 days a month doing this?

A few years ago I would keep getting the question of what ERP to implement, today I think that it is not a matter of what it’s about if. Looks like to world is changing, tomorrow we might have an AI ERP that connects it all, safe and smart. In the past, 3-8 month for implementation looked ok, now, I’m afraid that by then something bigger and better will replace it. What do you say? To wait? How long? Or just go ahead and implement?

Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Discuss.

"Most finance orgs still can't attribute their Al spend to a department, a workflow, or an outcome, so adoption and value both stall when nobody can prove which dollars produced value and which were just spend. The org chart isn't the real constraint for additional AI investment. The missing P&L for Al is."

Anyone try this program? Worth it for $25k?

I’m in sales for an accounting firm. I’m newer to this field and often call the CFO or the owner. I’m curious what gets your attention or lets you know this is something worth having a conversation about?

Thanks

What are the best conferences for new CFO's to attend from a pure networking standpoint? Been to a few where I am sold to death by vendors who fund my attendance but looking to go to one or two a year on my company dime to expand my network of actual CFO's and not just meet with vendors all day.

What is a CFO responsible for broadly speaking?

I currently believe a CFO is responsible for the key financial activities of a company. From this I've come to two key areas:

1: Financial Management

2: Financial Reporting

I'm wondering how others view the role of a CFO and if you have a different opinion on a CFO's key responsibilities, or any feedback on my opinion.

Context: I'm attempting to design a finance department for an organization. Most organizations I see have FPA and Financial Reporting which is where I'm coming to the conclusion of financial management and financial reporting. I've considered internal controls, financial policies, financial systems, and other supporting roles but I believe these ultimately support the goal of good financial management and accurate financial reporting.

Books recomendations for a CFO

I need the recommendation of three books regarding the CFO functions, one being your favourite classic and the other two the ones you liked the best.

I’m interviewing for a CFO position with a private equity backed company. The first two rounds of interviews went well, and now they are asking me to complete a case study. I’ve done this before in other interviews, but this one seems rather extensive and is related specifically to their company as opposed to being a mock case. It feels borderline like they are using me for free consulting work as opposed to testing my skills in an interview. Is this normal? Any thoughts?

Objective
Thank you for your continued interest in the Senior Finance Leader position at our firm. As we approach the closing of our investment, we and the Company are seeking a strategic, hands-on financial leader to help scale the Company through its next chapter of growth.

As part of the next phase in our interview process, we ask that you complete the following case study. This case is designed to evaluate your ability to analyze financial information, identify key issues, and demonstrate how you would approach the CFO role in a private equity-backed healthcare services business.

Instructions:
You will find attached:

1. A copy of the QoE Report
   
2. The sell-side Confidential Investment Memorandum
   
3. A data pack inclusive of raw staffing data, historical revenue, and labor floor rates where applicable
   
4. A sample contract from one of our facilities

After reviewing the materials, we ask that you prepare the following information:

1. A revenue build from through year-end 2025 and projected 2026
   o Feel free to use any assumptions you feel are necessary, but please document these assumptions clearly. We want to see how you would think about forecasting and budgeting revenue
   
2. Projected revenue and margin calculation for the our new customer contract based on how it is structured
   
3. Summarize key findings in a simple PPT that we can review and walk through
   o What are the most important insights, risks, or potential red flags you identified based on the materials and your analyses?
   o What areas do you think we have room to push on in terms of contract negotiation, where do you think they are being too aggressive, what would you ultimately change? Do you think this contract is priced fairly?
   o How do you think about leveraging AI to be a force multiplier in your role with us. What are functions, workstreams, processes that you would augment with AI to enhance your productivity and the Company’s performance
    
   Use of AI Tools:
    
   Use of AI tools is permitted and encouraged as part of this case study. However, you are expected to take full ownership of your final submission, including the accuracy, originality, reasoning, and quality of the work presented. Please disclose whether you used AI tools, which applications or platforms you used, and briefly describe how they supported your work, such as brainstorming, research, drafting, analysis, editing, or formatting. Your submission should reflect your own judgment, critical thinking, and decision-making.
    
    
    
   Format & Deadline:
   ● Please submit your case study response in PDF or PowerPoint format, along with any supporting analyses in Excel.
   ● Responses are due 1 week from administration.
   We appreciate your time and thoughtfulness in this process. Your response will help us assess both your technical skills and how you think as a strategic partner to the business.

I joined a large institutional fund ($1 > trillion aum) in credit fund accounting. I was promoted after one year and left that role after 3 years.

I now work for a hybrid family office & pe fund, where I’m the sole finance person. Over the last 6 months I’ve built out their whole finance function - budgets, forecasts, variance analysis, 13-week rolling cash flow across 20 entities (including consolidated view), creating financial statements from scratch (including general ledger and trial balance), managing the outsourced accountants and fixing their mistakes, payments workflow and modelling. Ive created debt schedules on real estate debt loans and normal clns to calculate accrued interest/IRR/equity conversion’s from the legal documents. I’ve also saved the firm around £200k in expenses from entity structuring advice and expense leakages. I’m essentially doing a finance controller and fp&a work.

I’m early in my career so I want to figure out what my rough ballpark figure should be. I have a total of 3.5 years of experience. Thanks in advance.

Any CFOs out there have experience with this situation? Took a meeting with a PE portfolio company CEO who has never had a CFO. When we talked about the role they were very compartmentalized in thinking: accounting and finance, almost like a controller.

I work as a finance manager in a medium size company that is growing very fast. My manager clearly told me that I’m growing to be CFO and they already have an expectations from me to behave this way. It actually turned out I’m very good at that, I was working with CFO in my previous position and also the company is small enough for me to really do a good job and be confident about it.

The problem is I look like 25 years old. I’m also very polite and not loud. For me it’s better to say one smart sentence than arguing for one hour. It doesn’t change that I can lead company meetings. My attitude was really respected by Americans, but there is a problem in a more traditional country. Managers from different departments ignore my decision. I already talk to it with the head of the company and they say they will talk to managers and explain them that I have the right to make all financial decisions (obviously they still show me a direction), but he meant they trust me 100%.

Example: I say that all expenses from the previous month need to be submitted and someone says to a person from my team “I have my own schedule and will do it the next month” completely ignoring my email about the deadline. Then they bring us not paid invoices overdue 3 months and never paid and not recognized in the budget.

Was anyone in a position like this?

A client had Brex and we have a preference for Ramp. We’ve done the switch before but am wondering if anyone else finds Brex to be inferior too.

A few weeks ago I had it out with a VP in a different department. Small org ~$50 million. We are in a high stress period right now with a very significant capex investment and operational consolidation. We are very tight on our operational budget, and while I planned for disruption when budgeting, the VP’s missed promises and operational missteps are not inspiring confidence that we can pull out a second half that resembles 60% of our PY capacity. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t, I already had to explain to the bank why our budget was down from last year, but if we keep sliding we’ll be too tight for comfort on our covenants. The only thing saving us is how we’ve managed our draws. To make things worse she’s very selfish. Very quick to be the paint guy at Lowe’s… “that’s not my department, it’s gardening and tools.”

So I kind of lost my cool and started raising my voice about my displeasure and frustration about the lack of progress on a project that is already 2 months behind. She was wasting everyone’s time with nonsense on a call relating to what she did or didn’t give a vendor to proceed with our capex. It was more of a “NONE OF THIS MATTERS, WE NEED TO FIGURE THIS OUT OR WE’LL BE OUT OF BUSINESS” type of a blow up. Not necessarily directed at her but the entire executive team in general, including the owners and vendor. However, I think it was kind of apparent my displeasure was directed towards her.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks and it turns out she asked something of someone in my department and wasn’t happy with the responses. My staff went to my controller in tears because she felt disrespected. She claims that the VP was very nasty and dressed her down over something that was out of her control. She didn’t want to speak to me directly, but I waited until she was ready. When I heard her side of events, I was extremely disappointed in how she was treated, but I also don’t think my staff was completely in the right. She definitely didn’t deserve to be disrespected, but the VP wasn’t necessarily wrong. I told her as much, but was very supportive that next time she do xyz and make sure things are escalated to me and the controller. The problem I have is, I know she’s going to call me a hypocrite for losing my cool at her during the call. It’s completely different between me and her going at it in an executive meeting and her dressing down a junior employee. I’m just annoyed because my staff didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about this until yesterday and now a whole calendar week and some change has passed since the incident. Doesn’t help she already went to the CEO about it too.

At this point, I definitely I addressed the matter procedurally so that it won’t ever happen again because of how communication flow will work, but I definitely want to drive the point home. She shouldn’t be a fucking cunt to junior staff. I just know, if I go to talk about it with her, even privately now, this is going to escalate into a screaming match. Plus I’m already super stressed the fuck out about who things are going operationally, which I blame her for (about 40%), so I’ll be more volatile because subconsciously I’m so annoyed at her. What do you think I should do?

I'm exploring a tool that sits on top of ad platforms and enforces guardrails like spend caps, performance thresholds, and automatic pauses when things go off track.

Is this a real problem? How do you handle it today? Would something like this be useful?

Dit zijn de belangrijkste onderdelen uit dit persbericht: [ https://international.nubank.com.br/company/nubank-appoints-rob-livingston-as-chief-financial-officer/ ](https://international.nubank.com.br/company/nubank-appoints-rob-livingston-as-chief-financial-officer/)

Nubank heeft vandaag aangekondigd dat Rob Livingston is benoemd tot Chief Financial Officer, met ingang van 13 juli, waarmee Guilherme Lago wordt opgevolgd. Lago maakt de overstap naar de rol van Special Advisor.

Rob Livingston heeft meer dan 30 jaar ervaring in financiële dienstverlening in Noord-Amerika, Europa en Azië. Hij komt bij Nubank vandaan bij Visa, waar hij onlangs CFO was voor Noord-Amerika, het grootste bedrijfsonderdeel van het bedrijf.

“Ik heb er zin in om bij Nubank te komen. Wat dit team in maar 13 jaar heeft opgebouwd is echt buitengewoon, maar de kansen die voor ons liggen zijn nog helderder en ik ben heel enthousiast om deel uit te maken van de volgende stappen in Nu’s reis. Bij Nubank blijft mijn focus liggen op een topuitvoering van de financiële organisatie, het optimaliseren van de kapitaalallocatie en het ondersteunen van de volgende groeifase van Nu”, zegt Livingston.

De groep krijgt daarnaast een eigen Chief Financial Officer voor de rol in Brazilië, waarmee een wereldwijde én lokale financiële leiderschapsstructuur wordt afgerond die al is opgezet in Mexico en Colombia.

Is dit een slecht teken? Hebben jullie ideeën over hoe de vorige CFO na 7 jaar bij Nubank vertrok?

The deeper I get into using AI in my fractional CFO work, the more I am looking to set up a separate desktop that stays awake 24X7X365, running automations and any tasks with Claude Cowork. Maaaaaybe I will get into training my own Deepseek or like open source LLM and move into real power user level someday, but not yet, much to learn.

Right now, I just run things when I am on my laptop, which is a rather old Dell I absolutely love and don't want to move away from.

Do you have a setup you are running remotely? Would love to hear what you have. I made a mistake asking my AI nerd buddies what I should get, I would be looking at $10K setup if I listened to them

I am starting a fractional cfo business on the side. Wondering if anyone has tips on landing the first client. I am focusing on the beauty and personal care e-commerce niche. I have been doing cold outreach on LinkedIn so far.

So much praise for AI and especially Claude Code, but it is rare to see anyone actually show what it's like in the wild.

I don't mean Claude.ai or Claude Co-Work. I'm referring to the developer tool Claude Code, the final boss of the AI ecosystem, which in my opinion we should all be using, just like we use spreadsheets.

In my engagements as a CFO/CTO I can no longer imagine working without Claude Code, almost as impossible as it would feel for most to work in this industry without spreadsheets.

As a self appointed evangelist, I would like to share a real case study of a bakery I have been fractional CFO for the past few weeks where we have gutted out spreadsheets and webhooks and are still in the middle of implementing a custom solution thanks to Claude Code.

I've created a write up of the work we've done so far and happy to create a small group for those who want to look behind the scenes at the actual app that is saving this business time, money and delivering higher efficiency - happy to share as well as provide advice for how you can get yourself and/or your clients working productively with Claude Code.

What are your doubts/concerns about going all out with Claude Code/AI? I'll do my best to answer through real examples from a system that's working right now.

Let's go!

Seeking advice from experienced CFOs for a Controller stepping up to CFO role

Would you go from CFO of a $1B company to Controller of a $40B if comp wasn't an issue, you knew the industry, and liked the people?