Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Hand a CEO a full set of financial statements and watch their eyes glaze over.

There are too many line items and too much noise, so nobody actually reads it.

The fix is a clean summary, and that's exactly what this template gives you.

Today it's free.

👍 Like and comment, then grab it from the link below.

yourcfoguy.kit.com/summary-financials

There's a part of finance that almost nobody teaches you.

Your job is to make the story behind the numbers obvious, and a wall of detail does the exact opposite.

A full P&L with dozens of line items just buries the point.

A clean summary brings it back, rolling all that detail into a few groupings that even a non finance person can follow.

That's why I treat this template as the starting point for every report I build.

It gives you all three statements, summarized on one page.

Your P&L, your balance sheet, and your cash flows, each rolled into clean groupings you control.

You can flip between monthly, quarterly, and annual with a click, or pull up year to date and trailing twelve months.

And you can group the same numbers by section, class, or department, depending on who's sitting in the room.
There are even built in error checks, so if your balance sheet doesn't tie or retained earnings is off, it flags it before you ever hit send.

It's all built in Excel.

You drop your own numbers into the Drivers tab, set your assumptions, and every statement builds itself from there.

The first time you hand someone this instead of a raw export, you'll feel the difference.

People actually follow what you're showing them.

That's what a good summary does. It makes you the person whose reports get read instead of skimmed.

I usually sell this one for $29.

Today it's yours, free.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/summary-financials

2 days ago | [YT] | 68

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

This is the cleanest profitability dashboard I have ever built.

Today I'm giving it away for free.

👍 Like and comment, then grab it from the link below.

yourcfoguy.kit.com/profit-margin-dashboard/

Here's why I keep coming back to this one.

Most finance teams can tell you their revenue without blinking.

But ask them whether their margins are actually getting better, and the room goes quiet.

That's the exact question this dashboard answers in about three seconds.

It puts your whole profitability picture on a single screen.

Revenue, gross margin, operating margin, and net margin, all in one view.

And every number is measured against last month, last year, and your budget, color coded so you can tell at a glance where you're winning and where you're slipping.

Each metric gets its own trend line too, so you can see which way things are actually heading over time.

It's all built in Excel.

You drop your own numbers in, and the margins, the comparisons, and the charts all calculate themselves.

And honestly, there's a part of this that has nothing to do with the numbers.

A dashboard this clean changes how people see you.

When you walk a CEO or a client through it, you come across as someone who truly understands the business and where it's heading.

That kind of clarity is what gets you taken seriously in the room.

It's the quiet thing that turns a finance person into a trusted advisor.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/profit-margin-dashboard/

I usually sell this one for $49.

Today it's yours, free.

3 days ago | [YT] | 35

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

After working with over 100 fast-growing companies…

I've realized most people overcomplicate financial reporting.

They build a forecast, email it to the CEO, and wonder why nobody reads it.

So I built what I call the Ultimate CFO Reporting System.

👍Simply Like and comment on this post, then grab the free template here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-cfo-reporting-system

A company once hired me for $15,000 a month to get their reporting in order. They had just raised close to $20 million.

Our team worked day and night…and all of it was useless.

Why?

Three data sources. All three conflicted with each other. Before you build anything…you need to trust your data.

Once you have that, the system has three parts.

→ FORECAST YOUR REVENUE (EPN FRAMEWORK)

Break it into three buckets:

Existing customers…what you already have locked in

Pipeline customers…warm deals you're tracking

New customers…future logos you're projecting

When you blend all three into one line, you can't challenge your own assumptions.

→ FORECAST YOUR HEADCOUNT

Your biggest expense and the hardest to control.

Build a roster with start dates, salaries, and departments. Most of your operating expense lives here…get this wrong and everything else falls apart.

→ FORECAST YOUR BALANCE SHEET (BASE FRAMEWORK)

Beginning balance + Additions − Subtractions = Ending balance

That formula works for deferred revenue, AR, AP, inventory, fixed assets…all of them.

→ PRESENT IT WITH DASHBOARDS

This is where most people fail. They send a wall of numbers nobody wants to read.

Your CEO needs dashboards…not 50 of them. Five.

And the one that gets the most attention in every meeting I attend? Budget vs actuals. What you expected…what happened…and how close you were.

===

That's the Ultimate CFO Reporting System. Clean data. Three area forecast. Dashboards that tell the story.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-cfo-reporting-system

What does your reporting setup look like right now?

Let me know in the comments below 👇

4 days ago | [YT] | 104

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Most dashboards try to show everything. The best ones show one thing perfectly.

I call this the Spotlight dashboard.

👍 Simply Like and comment on this post, then grab your free Spotlight dashboard here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/spotlight-dashboard

Here's the idea.

Someone asks "how's cash looking?" You don't dig through 5 tabs. You don't open 3 reports. You don't start sweating while everyone waits.

You pull up one screen. Pick the metric. Pick the time period. Done.

Revenue this month. Cash trailing 12. Opex YTD. Gross margin last quarter. One dropdown and it's there.

Check the images.

See how the whole screen focuses on just one number? That's the point. No distractions. No clutter.

On the right side you get context. vs Prior Period. vs Prior Year. vs Budget. Click on. Click off.

Trend chart shows where it's been. Comparisons tell you if that's good or bad.

Here's why I love this.

Board meetings are unpredictable. Someone always asks about something you didn't prepare for. Classic.

With this? Switch the dropdown. Answer's right there.

No more "let me get back to you on that." No more scrambling while everyone watches. We've all been there.

You just know.

This dashboard is also inside Model Wiz.

Model Wiz is a free Excel add-in that allows you to connect your QuickBooks Online, pull your data, and the Spotlight just works. Any metric. Any time period. It's all there.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/spotlight-dashboard

What's the first question your CEO usually asks?

5 days ago | [YT] | 50

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Most SaaS founders can tell you their ARR. Almost none can tell you where it came from.

I've sat in dozens of board meetings where someone says "ARR is up 20%" and the room nods.

Then a board member asks "how much of that is new logos vs expansion?" Silence. Scrambling. "Let me get back to you on that."

That's not a good look.

👍Simply Like and comment on this post, then grab your free ARR breakdown dashboard here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/arr-dashboard

ARR is one number. But there are five numbers hiding inside it. And if you can't see all five, you're not really running your business. You're just watching it.

Here's the breakdown.

→ Opening ARR
Where you started. Simple enough. But this is your baseline for everything else. If you don't track this monthly, you're already behind.

→ New ARR
New customers. New logos. The stuff sales gets excited about. Important, yes. But not the whole story. I've seen companies celebrate new ARR while ignoring the hole in the bucket.

→ Churn
The hole in the bucket. Customers who left. Revenue that walked out the door. This number hurts to look at. Look at it anyway.

→ Expansion
Existing customers paying you more. Upsells, cross sells, plan upgrades. This is the cheapest revenue you'll ever get. If this number is flat, you have a product problem.

→ Contraction
Existing customers paying you less. Downgrades. Seat reductions. Not as painful as churn, but it adds up fast. Most founders ignore this one until it bites them.

→ Ending ARR
Where you landed. Opening plus new plus expansion minus churn minus contraction. That's the real math.

This dashboard shows all of it. One view. Summary chart on the left showing growth over time. Waterfall on the right showing exactly how you got from opening to ending. Monthly breakdown at the bottom so you can spot trends before they become problems.

When a board member asks "where did ARR come from?" you don't scramble. You share your screen and walk them through it in 30 seconds.

That's the difference between knowing your number and understanding your business.

I built this dashboard inside Model Wiz. It's a free Excel add in that connects to your data and builds this automatically. No manual updates. No formula headaches. Just your ARR broken down the way it should be.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/arr-dashboard

What's driving your ARR right now, new logos or expansion? Comment below 👇

6 days ago | [YT] | 52

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I've spent years as a fractional CFO, sitting in more board meetings than I can count, for startups that have raised over $400M between them.

Out of everything I built across those years, one report mattered more than any other.

It's my Budget vs Actuals dashboard. And today, I'm giving it away for free.

Register for my session with Ramp on June 25th, and it's yours 👉 virtual.ramp.com/budgets-vs-actuals/?utm_source=sp…

This is the same view I'd hand a board.

Most Budget vs Actuals reports are a wall of numbers nobody wants to read. So I built this one to be read in one glance.

Here's what's inside:

→ A full Budget vs Actuals table, with budget, actual, dollar variance, and percent variance on every line from revenue down to ending cash

→ The variance math is already wired so green always means good, whether you're looking at revenue or an expense line

→ Donut charts that show the size of each miss at a glance, across revenue, net income, cash burn, and ending cash

→ Cash burn and ending cash are tracked in the same view, so runway is never a separate file

→ Conditional formatting that flags the misses for you, so the big problems find you instead of the other way around

So you'll walk away with the finished dashboard to keep.

And on June 25th, I'll show you live how it actually comes together, one piece at a time.

We'll get into how to build it once, so every month after is a refresh instead of a rebuild.

Plus the variance math behind the colors, why your board reads a clean snapshot instead of all 80 accounts, and the 8 ways to present this report.

The best part is that the dashboard is yours the moment you register.

It's a free hour with me on June 25th at 1:00 PM ET.

Save your spot here 👉 virtual.ramp.com/budgets-vs-actuals/?utm_source=sp…

1 week ago | [YT] | 75

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

The Ultimate Business Dashboard Every CEO Needs 🤓

7 snapshots that tell you everything happening in your business

...and for the next 48 hours you can get this dashboard for free

👍Simply Like this post, then get your dashboard here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-business-dashboard

Every day our company shares internally a number of dashboards into close to every area of our business.

These dashboards give me QUICK insight into KEY areas of the business...after 30 seconds of consumption, I have a good pulse on everything that's happening.

If you are running a business, there's no way that you can get in the weeds with everything...you need quick snapshots to summarize what's happening.

Here is my preferred set up:

➡️ REVENUE & GROWTH

There are few things that are as important as sales, and growth.

This is especially true if you’re an early stage startup, where revenue & growth is what determines your ability to get more funding from investors

➡️ CASH FLOWS

OK…I said there are few things as important of sales & growth…

cash flows is definitely one of them.

I like to keep track of how much cash is coming in from receivables…

how much cash is going out to employees…

as well as to vendors…

The last thing I want is to be taken by surprise with anything cash related

➡️ PROFIT & LOSS

Your P&L is one of the most useful reports…

and is designed to tell you ONE thing…

how much profit (or loss) you are generating

➡️ HEADCOUNT

Your headcount is one of the most important things to key track of…

Why?

Because it’s often times the LARGEST expense…

and often times the BIGGEST contributor to your success

➡️ PIPELINE SALES

It’s not enough to understand how much you’ve done in sales…

it’s just as important to understand what you have coming in the pipeline.

This can help you prepare resources, cash flows, and much more.

➡️ HIRING

Are you in the process of hiring for a new role?

It’s crucial to stay up to date on what’s happening with the job post…

I like to review this snapshot every morning as we have an active role (which we do - check out our hiring page at Mighty Digits!)

➡️ BUDGET VS ACTUALS

Budgets are a great thing - I don’t care how much backlash that comment gets.

It allows you to create a blueprint for what you think the future will look like…

and then track against that blueprint, understanding whether you need to tweak your assumptions, or whether all is going according to plan.

This is by far my favorite report…I can’t get enough of it.

===

That’s my take on the metrics you should be tracking everyday, and the best way to ingest this information at a quick glance via an attractive dashboard…

but every CEO has their own metrics which matter more to their business / industry.

You can grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-business-dashboard

What metrics are you tracking?

Let me know by joining us in the discussion in the comments below 👇

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 198

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Learn every Excel CTRL Shortcut

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…

excel shortcuts can make you FLY ✈️

They take practice, and at first will involve more work than using your mouse…

but once you commit these shortcuts to muscle memory, the sky is the limit.

You can be on a call with a client and make their vision become a reality instantly…

you can be on a call with your boss and impress him / her with your speed…

you can be all alone on a saturday, and play a piano symphony with your keyboard.

What you may not realize is that many of these keyboard shortcuts you already know…

and the rest will become 2nd nature when you practice.

👍 Like & comment this post to grab the high resolution copy of this guide and display it prominently: yourcfoguy.kit.com/excel-ctrl-cheat-sheet

Let’s dive in to my favorite:

➡️ THE ONES YOU ALREADY KNOW

CTRL + N → create a new workbook

CTRL + P → print your document

CTRL + S → save your workbook

CTRL + O → open a workbook

CTRL + A → select everything

CTRL + U → apply underline

CTRL + B → make text bold

CTRL + V → paste content

CTRL + C → copy content

CTRL + Z → undo action

CTRL + X → cut content

CTRL + I → italicize text

CTRL + T → add a table

CTRL + F → find text

CTRL + Y → redo action

➡️ HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SHORTCUTS

CTRL + ARROW KEYS → Move to the first/last cell in a section

CTRL + PgUp / PgDn → navigate between tabs

CTRL + SPACE → select an entire column

CTRL + + → add a new column / row

CTRL + ] → select direct dependents

CTRL + 1 → cell formatting options

CTRL + [ → select direct precedents

CTRL + - → remove a column / row

➡️ LESSER-KNOWN SHORTCUTS

CTRL + G → go to a specific cell

CTRL + K → create a hyperlink

CTRL + : → input current time

CTRL + ; → input current date

CTRL + H → find and replace

CTRL + Q → quick analysis

CTRL + W → close window

CTRL + E → use flash fill

➡️ THREE-KEY SHORTCUTS

CTRL + SHIFT + F3 → Generate a named range from the selection

CTRL + SHIFT + F6 → Switch to the previous workbook window

CTRL + SHIFT + U → display or hide the formula bar

CTRL + SHIFT + O → highlight cells with comments

CTRL + ALT +V → open the paste special dialog

CTRL + SHIFT + ` → change to general format

CTRL + SHIFT + L → apply or remove filters

and several others!

===

Be sure to hang up this cheat sheet in your office, and practice each one - before you know it…you’ll be a pro.

You can grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/excel-ctrl-cheat-sheet

Which shortcut is your favorite?

Let us know in the comments below 👇

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 119

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

PivotTable Cheat Sheet - FREE lesson on Excel PivotTables 🧑‍🏫 🤓!

PivotTable’s are one of the most popular features that excel has to offer…

and for good reason - PivotTables unlock a TON of functionality…

and when used right, can make your reporting a BREEZE.

Grab it here → yourcfoguy.kit.com/pivottable-cheat-sheet

Here’s what you need to know about PivotTables 👇

➡️ What is a PivotTable?

A PivotTable is a special way in which you can structure your data utilizing relationships.

Think of it as a tool where you can easily toggle and analyze your data in different layouts, or using different calculations.

➡️ What’s so special about a PivotTable?

There are so many benefits, it’s tough to list them all...but here are some of my favorite:

1️⃣ PivotTables allow you to understand relationships & hierarchy with your data

2️⃣ PivotTables allow you to to easily generate reports

3️⃣ PivotTables allow you to utilize additional features such as slicers, timelines, & PivotCharts

➡️ How do you create a PivotTable?

It’s actually fairly simple…

Step 1: Get your data in a STRUCTURED format. That means in a table, with ideally no blank cells

Step 2: Hit Insert > PivotTable.

Another option can be if you already have a table, you can navigate to Table Design > Summarize with Pivot Table

➡️ What are some things to watch out for with PivotTables?

⚠️ Data Structures 🔢

PivotTables can be very sensitive to the way your data is structured - keep your data in as structured of a format as possible before converting to a PivotTable

⚠️ Refreshing PivotTables ♻️

Unlike most functionality in excel, PivotTables won’t automatically update. You’ll have to hit the “refresh” button when the underlying data changes

⚠️ Use PivotTables only when needed

PivotTables are great…but they aren’t the solution for everything.

There are times where it makes sense to leverage or present a PivotTable…

there are times where a basic function, or a nice chart is better to use instead.

You can grab the link here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/pivottable-cheat-sheet

===

OK, lesson’s up! Did you learn more about PivotTables today?

What’s your favorite part of working with PivotTables?

Let us know in the comments below 👇

1 week ago | [YT] | 138

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Wait…you did all of this in EXCEL??

Grab your FREE template today 👇

Just when you think you've pushed Excel to its limits...you discover something new.

This CFO report template will give you the perfect balance between numbers & the story to accompany what is happening in your business

Give this post a 👍 to grab the template for FREE.

Grab it here → yourcfoguy.kit.com/cfo-report-in-excel

➡️ WHY EXCEL

Excel is my favorite application...by far. I use it everyday, and what I love most about Excel is how SEAMLESSLY you can manipulate data.

Most people think of data only as numbers...but in reality, data can be text, pictures, shapes, icons, and so much more.

I chose Excel for this CFO report because it's the perfect tool for merging cells and combining different forms of data easily...plus I can link it to other files that contain DYNAMIC data when necessary.

➡️ WHAT'S IN THE REPORT

The report starts with three core metrics at the top...

The monthly metrics visualization on the right helps track performance between July and June...simple but effective for spotting trends.

Below that, you'll find the OPEX breakdown showing payroll at 47% of expenses...this updates automatically whenever your data changes.

I've included a breakdown of other expenses like travel and general overhead...giving you a complete picture of where money is being spent.

At the bottom, the month-over-month changes give you a clear view of performance shifts...each section has space for commentary to add context to your numbers.

What makes this report different is how it combines high-level metrics with detailed breakdowns...you can start with the big picture, then drill down into SPECIFIC areas that need attention.

➡️ HOW TO BUILD THIS

It's actually not that hard...

The formulas are simple - mostly arithmetic and comparisons...what makes it work is how everything connects. One change updates all related numbers AUTOMATICALLY.

For visualizations, Excel's built-in charts do the job perfectly:

Monthly metrics: combination chart for different scales

OPEX: pie chart for expense breakdown

MoM changes: column charts for easy comparison

Everything in the template is customizable: metrics, charts, colors, calculations...whatever works for your reporting needs.

The commentary sections are structured to guide your analysis...instead of just showing numbers, you can explain variances, highlight concerns, and suggest action items.

This approach simplifies monthly reporting by eliminating manual updates, reducing errors, and keeping everything in one place.

===

That's my take on creating a CFO report in Excel...practical, efficient, and easy to maintain.

Grab the CFO Report here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/cfo-report-in-excel

What tools do you use for your financial reporting?

Let me know in the comments below 👇

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 96