Home › Resources
Resources

Finance transformation resources

Guides for finance leaders modernising the function - benchmarks, the value case, and where AI pays off.

Finance Value Score by AIS

Practical guides for finance leaders modernising the function - how to benchmark where you stand, where the value and the AI opportunities actually are, and how to build a costed case to fix what's slowing you down. No vendor hype.

Benchmarks and maturityConsolidation and the closeSystems at end of lifeReplacing a systemOutgrowing your systemsAI in financeESG and CSRDPrivate equity

Benchmarks and maturity 4 guides

Open the series →

Where a finance function stands, measured: the sourced benchmark tables, the five-level maturity model, and the vocabulary the rest of the site uses.

Finance function benchmarks 2026 →
Days to close, cost of finance, finance team size and budget cycle - top quartile, median and bottom, every figure sourced.
The finance maturity model: the 5 levels of a finance function, process by process →
What separates a manual, spreadsheet-bound finance function from a touchless one - and how to find the one or two areas dragging the rest down.
Finance Function Value: Moving Beyond Cost-to-Serve →
Cost-to-serve tells you what finance costs; a value case tells you what finance is worth - here is how to build one that holds up to scrutiny.
Finance transformation glossary →
Close, consolidation, FP&A, iXBRL, driver-based planning - the terms that come up when a finance function modernises, defined without the fog.

Consolidation and the close 6 guides

Open the series →

The group close itself: what consolidation involves, intercompany, charts of accounts, and how many days it should take.

What Is Financial Consolidation? A Process Guide for Group CFOs →
Consolidation is not the last mile of the month-end close - it is a distinct discipline with its own failure modes, and most groups have never written it down.
Seven signs your group has outgrown spreadsheet consolidation →
A practical, honest symptom checklist for group CFOs still closing the books in Excel.
How many days should a group month-end close take? →
The benchmark for a consolidated close, why groups run slower than single entities, and where the days actually go.
Month-end close benchmark: how many days should it take? →
A leading group close runs in 1-3 days; many run in 8 or more. Where the days actually go, and the order to compress them in.
Do all entities need the same chart of accounts to consolidate? →
No - but the choice between mapping and harmonising is a design decision with real consequences for your close, your auditors, and your intercompany eliminations.
Why Is Intercompany Reconciliation Important? →
An unreconciled intercompany balance is not a rounding problem - it is a symptom of unclear ownership, inconsistent cut-off and too many systems, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment.

Systems at end of life 7 guides

Open the series →

SAP BPC, SAP BFC, Cognos Controller and Oracle Hyperion: what each vendor has actually published, and what it obliges you to do.

SAP BFC, BPC, Oracle EPM, HFM and Cognos Controller: what each product actually is →
A neutral identification guide for group CFOs who need to read a vendor lifecycle notice correctly before deciding anything else.
SAP BFC End of Life: What Group CFOs Need to Know →
SAP has confirmed mainstream maintenance for Business Objects Financial Consolidation until end of 2030 - longer than BPC, but not long enough to defer a decision.
How to Build a Consolidation System Business Case a Board Will Actually Approve →
Before you choose a system, you need a baseline, a process audit, and a benefit case denominated in cycle time, assurance and capacity - not licence fees.
End of Support Doesn't Set a Direction - It Sets a Date →
Most groups default straight to migration without pricing the three alternatives. Here is what a support deadline actually obliges you to do - and what it leaves open.
Hyperion Financial Management End of Life: Correcting the Record →
Oracle Premier Support for Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) 11.2 runs to at least December 2037 - the migration pressure you are hearing is a sales position, not a support position.
Cognos Controller End of Support: What IBM Has Published and What Your Finance Team Should Do Now →
The software is not stopping overnight - but the compliance, audit and key-person exposure that builds while you defer the decision is the risk that actually matters.
SAP BPC End of Life: What SAP Has Actually Published, and What It Means for Your Group Close →
A maintenance deadline is a decision point, not an instruction - and the real complexity is that one product has become two separate questions.

Replacing a system 3 guides

Open the series →

Once the decision is made: what carries over, how long it takes, what to migrate, and the questions to settle before any demo.

Replacing Hyperion (HFM): How CFOs Should Choose a Successor →
Migration realities, what carries over, what does not, and the questions to ask vendors before committing.
Replacing Cognos Controller: what your options actually are →
A Cognos Controller replacement is three separate decisions - whether to move, what to carry over, and how to run the project - and the traps that sink budgets are the ones specific to Controller that nobody costs in advance.
Replacing SAP BPC: what your options actually are →
A neutral guide for group CFOs and controllers weighing their next move - before any vendor gets in the room.

Outgrowing your systems 2 guides

Open the series →

The processes that carried a group to £50m and will not carry it to £250m, and what breaks first.

Finance Systems for a Growing Company: Fix the Process First →
Board pressure to 'get a system in' before a funding round is real - but a system built on a broken process automates the problem and hard-codes it.
When a Group Outgrows Its Finance Systems →
How to tell a busy month from a structural limit - and read the sequence of strain before it becomes a crisis.

AI in finance 6 guides

Open the series →

Where AI pays off in a finance function, where pilots stall, and the governance a CFO has to be able to evidence.

Where AI actually pays off in finance →
Beyond the hype: the finance use-cases AI genuinely repays - and why readiness is gated by how mature your process already is.
AI in FP&A: how forecasting teams actually use it now →
The concrete uses working today in planning and forecasting - and the discipline that separates the teams that gain from the ones that stall.
AI in the Financial Close: Fix the Process First →
Most AI close pilots stall not because the models are weak, but because the close itself is broken - and no algorithm fixes messy intercompany or late manual journals.
AI Governance in Finance: Why CFO Confidence and Auditor Readiness Are Not the Same Thing →
Two surveys published two days apart in July 2026 reveal a gap that will matter when external audit season arrives: having a governance framework is not the same as being able to produce evidence on demand.
An AI agent with excessive permissions is an access failure, not a model failure →
Segregation of duties, joiner-mover-leaver disciplines, and privileged access recertification were built for humans - here is why they apply to AI agents in finance without modification.
Finance teams are not deploying AI agents badly - they are being appraised badly →
When the governance gap in AI agents is really an incentive design problem, the audit committee owns it - not IT.

ESG and CSRD 3 guides

Open the series →

Sustainability reporting from the finance side: the boundary, the value chain, and why it lands on the consolidation team.

CSRD is a consolidation problem - and finance owns the data →
The sustainability statement is prepared at group level, over your consolidation perimeter, to an assured standard. That is finance's machine.
CSRD Reporting Boundary: Why the CFO Must Own It →
Under the revised ESRS, the GHG consolidation boundary is no longer fixed - it is a permitted choice, and that choice belongs in the office of the CFO.
The CSRD value-chain cap has a hole in it - and it is the expensive one →
Every Omnibus summary leads on supplier relief. The carve-out for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions means the one supplier data request that costs the most survived intact.

Private equity 6 guides

Open the series →

Sponsor reporting, the first 100 days, carve-outs, buy-and-build and exit readiness.

What does a private-equity sponsor actually want from the monthly pack? →
The weekly flash, the monthly pack and the quarterly board deck are three cadences that must reconcile to one base of numbers - and most of the pain is definitional, not a speed problem.
Buy and Build Finance Integration: Why Group Consolidation Becomes the Binding Constraint by the Third Deal →
For the platform CFO absorbing a second or third add-on, the consolidation process stops being an accounting task and starts governing how fast the whole strategy can move.
Quality of Earnings: What It Actually Examines and Why It Matters →
When an adviser says the books are not deal-ready, the phrase that follows you out of the room is quality of earnings - here is what that process covers, why both sides of a transaction commission one, and how clean consolidation is already most of the work.
What a Carve-Out Does to a Finance Function - and How to Stand One Up for Day One →
A carved-out entity rarely has a finance function of its own: it has a share of someone else's, and a ticking TSA to prove it.
Exit Readiness: What It Demands of a Finance Function →
A successful exit is decided years before the process opens - by whether the finance function can evidence its numbers at entity level, without a rebuild.
PE-Backed CFO First 100 Days: What the Finance Function Actually Needs From You →
From reading the investment thesis to being honest with the sponsor about the gap between the reporting they want and the function they bought.

Stop guessing where you stand

The 2-Minute Snapshot scores your whole finance function across seven areas, free and with no login - the fastest way to stop reading about it and find out where you stand.

Open the Snapshot →See a sample Full Report