CFO Capital Efficiency Checklist

01

0 / 4 done

Cash visibility and runway

If cash visibility is weak, every other efficiency decision gets slower and riskier.

We run a rolling 13-week cash view. It is refreshed weekly, not rebuilt only when pressure rises.
Finance can explain major near-term cash movements quickly. The next few weeks of inflows, outflows, and obligations are visible without a scramble.
Runway is reviewed alongside downside triggers. Liquidity is discussed with debt constraints, covenant pressure, and scenario risk in mind.
Leadership sees one liquidity truth. The CEO and finance lead are working off the same cash narrative, not competing files.

02

0 / 4 done

Cash gets trapped quietly when receivables, inventory, and payment timing have no clear owners.

Receivables have named owners and an active review cadence. Aging buckets are monitored with clear escalation, not just reported.
Inventory and purchasing follow real demand signals. Operational teams are not locking up cash through habit or optimistic planning.
Payment terms are actively managed. Vendor and customer terms are renegotiated when volume, leverage, or risk changes.
Finance can quantify trapped cash. The business knows how much cash sits in receivables, inventory, or poor payment timing.

03

0 / 4 done

Recurring cost creep usually reflects weak operating discipline, not just a sourcing issue.

New recurring spend needs an explicit owner and business case. Costs are not added without a reason, a decision-maker, and a review date.
Major renewals are reviewed early. Finance has enough lead time to renegotiate, consolidate, or cancel before auto-renewal hits.
Committed spend and discretionary spend can be separated fast. Finance can identify what is essential, what is growth-linked, and what can pause.
Approval thresholds are obvious. Teams know what requires CFO review instead of discovering it halfway through the process.

04

0 / 4 done

Capital allocation weakens when projects are approved once and then left to drift.

Growth bets and operating investments use the same return logic. Capital is compared on a common basis instead of separate narratives.
Underperforming initiatives face a stop, continue, or reset review. Projects do not keep consuming capital only because they already started.
Downside resilience is funded before upside experiments. Leadership knows how much capital must stay reserved for operating risk.
The top capital priorities are explicit. The team can clearly name which investments deserve focus this quarter.

05

0 / 4 done

Good reporting compresses judgment time. Bad reporting makes leaders hunt for the point.

Monthly reporting highlights decisions and trade-offs. The pack is built to trigger action, not just show numbers.
Forecast changes trace back to a few real drivers. The business can explain what moved instead of hiding behind model complexity.
Board and management packs are short enough to read before the meeting. Length is not being used to compensate for weak prioritization.
Finance commentary answers what changed, why, and what follows. Leaders are not left to infer the action from a variance table alone.

06

0 / 4 done

AI is only useful when it removes real manual work without weakening review discipline.

There is at least one finance workflow worth automating. The team can point to a real analyst task where time savings would matter.
AI-assisted outputs have a named reviewer. Anything that reaches management or the board is checked by a human owner first.
Prompts, sources, and review rules are repeatable. The workflow is documented well enough to use consistently instead of improvising every run.
AI is being used to remove manual work, not hide weak process design. The automation thesis is operationally sound before any tooling stack expands.