Insights for mid-market CFOs

Two critical web bugs landed on the same day in October 2026, with more right behind them. A CFO's read on where they hide in a company and the five questions to put to IT by Friday.

The ratio on your compliance certificate says less about covenant headroom than it seems to. How to put headroom in EBITDA dollars, look a year ahead, and call your lender while it's still an easy call.

The Fed started raising rates again in September, and the swap market had already priced in more. How to think through a cap, a swap or staying floating on SOFR debt, and what to ask your bank.

Your biggest customer just told investors what it plans to buy next year, and almost nobody on the supplier side was listening. How to pull volume, price and payment timing out of the call.

Most new CFO checklists cover the inside of the company. What catches people off guard sits outside it: the lender, the biggest customers, competitors and whatever the board has been reading.

What a board is really approving when it signs off on next year's budget, and how to fit your assumptions, the bridges and the risks you would rather not show into 30 minutes.

The concentration percentage on your dashboard is a lagging number. The warning signs sit in your biggest customer's own news, and your sales team usually hears them first.

How to build a 13-week cash flow forecast in the right order, why the receipts line breaks first, and where the early warnings about your customers usually show up.

Every major benefits consultancy expects 2027 employer health costs to rise 8% to 11%. What that means for your budget, and what to settle before the renewal lands.

Most price increase letters get written backward. Build the number first, time it to your customers' budget cycle, and brief sales before a single letter goes out.

Big industrial peers are posting record quarters, and plenty of mid market CFOs are getting asked why they aren't. Split those quarters by segment and a lot of the growth turns out to be data centers and defense.

Your close can tell the board what happened, but the why usually lives outside the building. Splitting sector wide causes from your own execution is what turns a reporting pack into something a board can act on.

A mid market FP&A team is built for budget, forecast and the board deck. The seat that watches competitors, rules and markets rarely gets funded, and the cost of skipping it shows up later as surprises.

A proposed rule already tells you scope, timing and the shape of the cost. How to turn one into a provisional budget number, using this year's FDA, CMS and EPA proposals as examples.

Most competitor pricing analysis starts after a lost renewal. The earlier signal is a competitor's cost program, and the lag between the announcement and the price move is when a response is still cheap.

Most 2027 budgets start as last year plus a growth factor. These are the budget assumptions most likely to break by March, and a way to test each one against what's going on outside the building.

Acquisition due diligence looks backward by design. The regulation, competitor move or supplier deal that reprices a target after close is usually public beforehand. Here's the section to add to your checklist.

Counterparty failures leave a public trail for weeks. Companies miss it because monitoring a dozen suppliers across trade press is nobody's assigned job.

Most of a refinancing outcome is set before negotiations begin. Watching spreads, peer deals, and credit standards months ahead is what preserves your options.

The CEO forwards an article and wants your take. Whether you have one ready comes down to coverage, not ability, and coverage is fixable.

Interviewing for a CFO role is partly a test of whether you understand the business. A briefing on your prospective employer gives you their real exposures before you walk in.