How to Calculate Price, Volume, and Mix Variances Without Fooling Yourself
Learn price volume mix analysis with a practical example, Excel formulas, reconciled revenue bridge, and guidance for better FP&A decisions.
How to Calculate Whether a Sales Discount Is Worth It (Before You Give Away Your Margin)
Learn how to calculate the extra sales needed to offset a discount, protect contribution margin, and decide whether a promotion is worth it.
How to Calculate Break-Even Sales for Multiple Products (And Why the Mix Matters)
Learn how to calculate break-even sales for multiple products, use weighted contribution margins, and see why changes in sales mix affect profit.
How to Forecast Accounts Receivable Collections Without Pretending Every Customer Pays on Time
Learn how to forecast customer payments using AR aging, payment history, and invoice-level cash projections—with practical examples and fewer surprises.
Customer Profitability Analysis: Your Biggest Customer Might Not Be Your Best Customer
Your biggest customer isn’t always your most profitable. Here’s how I calculate customer contribution, cost to serve, and the economics behind the relationship.
When Should I Hire a Controller? Look for the Ownership Gap
When should you hire a controller? I’d look past revenue thresholds and ask whether someone clearly owns the close, balance sheet, accounting judgment, and reporting quality.
Can My Business Afford Another Employee? Model the Gap Before You Hire
Can my business afford another employee? I’d model the gap between the first paycheck and the point where the hire’s benefit actually reaches cash.
How Much Cash Should a Small Business Keep in Reserve?
How much cash should a small business keep in reserve? I’d start with what the cash has to survive—not a generic number of months.
Continuous Planning vs. Rolling Forecast: What Is the Difference?
Finance has accumulated enough planning vocabulary that we can now spend half a meeting agreeing on what kind of forecast we are discussing. Rolling forecast. Continuous planning. Dynamic planning. Driver-based planning. At some point I expect “Forecasting: The Remix,” which would at least feel appropriately 1997. The distinction I care about between a rolling forecast […]
How to Build an AI Business Case for Finance That a CFO Can Defend
I get nervous when an AI business case begins with “everyone will save time.” Maybe they will. But time savings have become the AI version of synergy in an acquisition deck. They appear everywhere, sound financially responsible, and get surprisingly vague when I ask when the cash shows up. If Finance is going to support […]
Headcount Planning in FP&A: Build the Model Around Decisions, Not Rows
Headcount models have a habit of becoming enormous before they become useful. For a quick cost baseline before building the full model, my fully loaded employee cost calculator includes salary, bonus, benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead. Employee ID. Department. Title. Salary. Bonus. Benefits. Start date. Vacancy. Backfill. New hire. Location. Manager. Scenario. Eventually the workbook […]
How to Measure Forecast Accuracy in FP&A Without Gaming the Forecast
I have a mild distrust of forecast-accuracy celebrations. Not because accuracy does not matter. It does. But I have watched forecasts land close to actual results for reasons nobody predicted, while another forecast missed because the business changed and Finance was the first group to explain why. One gets a gold star. The other gets […]
Rolling Forecast vs. Annual Budget: Do You Actually Need Both?
Every annual budget eventually becomes a historical document. Sometimes it takes twelve months. Sometimes it takes until February. A customer delays, hiring moves, pricing changes, a launch slips, and the beautiful approved plan begins acquiring the practical usefulness of a Blockbuster membership card. This is usually when someone says, “We need a rolling forecast.” I […]
AI Governance for Finance Teams: A Practical CFO Framework
I suspect a surprising number of finance teams already have an AI policy. It is just unwritten and different for every employee. One person will not put a customer name into anything. Another has uploaded half a forecast model because the tool promised to make the formulas nicer. Someone else is using an approved enterprise […]
AI in the Month-End Close: What Should Accounting Automate First?
There is a version of AI adoption I find much more convincing than the demo where a chatbot becomes your CFO before the coffee gets cold. It is somebody in Accounting not spending forty minutes looking for support that should have been attached to a reconciliation. Month-end close is not glamorous. That is part of […]
AI Agents in FP&A: Where Should Human Approval Begin?
The AI-agent question I keep coming back to is not whether the agent can do the work. It is whether I would let it do the work while everyone in Finance is at lunch. That changes the conversation pretty quickly. I would happily let an agent monitor actuals, compare them with forecast, notice an expense […]
Contractor+ Is Growing. I’m More Interested in What the Cash Has to Do Next.
Contractor+ grew FY2025 revenue 35% and is now raising growth capital. The SaaS story I’m watching is how an Orlando company turns strong gross margins and a growing run rate into durable cash economics.
Private Colleges Have a Revenue Problem That Looks Familiar
Private colleges are facing a smaller pool of traditional students and more price-sensitive buyers. Strip away the campus language and the business problem looks very familiar.
The Orlando Housing Story I’m Watching Isn’t Home Prices. It’s Household Pressure.
Mortgage stress is easy to dismiss as a housing story. I think Orlando businesses should read it as a household cash-flow story too.
Bookkeeping vs. Accounting: What Does Your Business Actually Need?
I think bookkeeping gets blamed for a lot of problems that aren’t really bookkeeping problems. The books are late. The numbers don’t make sense. Nobody trusts the balance sheet. Management can’t get a clean answer about margins. Month-end arrives with the energy of a small electrical fire. And somebody eventually says: We need better bookkeeping. […]
The 2,232-Acre Osceola Data Center Story Needs One Important Asterisk
A 2,232-acre Osceola County property is being marketed for hyperscale data-center development. That is interesting. It is not the same thing as a committed project.
Orlando Tourism Doesn’t Get to Coast on Being Orlando
Orlando has an extraordinary tourism engine. That doesn’t mean visitor demand should be treated as automatic. Here’s what I’m watching.
Statusphere Just Made a Very Physical Bet on Scaling Software
Statusphere expanded its Orlando fulfillment footprint from about 4,000 to nearly 24,000 square feet. I think the interesting SaaS lesson is what happens when digital scale runs into physical operations.
A $103 Million Orlando Industrial Deal Says More Than the Price Tag
A $103 million Central Orlando industrial acquisition caught my attention. The price is interesting. The occupancy, location and planned reinvestment are more useful signals.
How Much Do Accounting Services Cost in Orlando?
If you’re trying to figure out what accounting services should cost in Orlando, I can give you the frustrating answer first: It depends. I know. Very helpful. It’s the accounting-services equivalent of asking a parent how long it takes to get the kids out of the house. Technically, I can give you an estimate. But […]
Carvana Is Adding 100 Orlando-Area Jobs. The Number I’m Watching Is What Comes Next.
Carvana plans about 100 new jobs at its Sanford operation. The headline is good news. The more interesting question is what happens around those jobs next.
Accounting Services in Orlando: What Should a Growing Business Actually Expect?
What should a growing Orlando business actually expect from accounting? Clean books are only the beginning. Here’s how I think about close, reporting, controls, cash and the point where bookkeeping stops being enough.
The FP&A Calendar: Build a Finance Rhythm That Leaves Time to Think
A practical look at how I build an FP&A operating rhythm around close, analysis, forecasting and decisions—without scheduling away the time Finance needs to think.
How Often Should You Update a Financial Forecast?
Monthly, quarterly or event-driven? A practical FP&A framework for choosing a forecast cadence based on volatility, materiality and decision speed.
Capital Expenditure Forecasting: The Annual CapEx Number Is Not the Forecast
A practical FP&A guide to capital expenditure forecasting through project timing, commitments, cash payments and estimates to complete.