Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Good SaaS founders know their MRR. Great ones know their NRR, LTV:CAC, and Rule of 40 without looking.

I've sat in enough board meetings to know the difference. Some founders rattle off metrics like they're breathing. Others start scrambling through tabs the moment someone asks a follow-up question.

Guess which ones get funded faster.

Here's the thing. MRR is table stakes. Everyone tracks MRR. But investors don't stop there. They want to know if your revenue is actually healthy.

Let me break down what this dashboard shows.

→ Core Metrics

MRR and ARR. The basics. But also CAC and LTV:CAC right next to them. Because MRR means nothing if you're spending $5 to acquire $1. I've seen companies with beautiful MRR growth that were bleeding cash on acquisition. The dashboard catches that immediately.

→ Retention Metrics

This is where most founders get shaky. Churn rate, sure. But Net Revenue Retention? Gross Revenue Retention? Rule of 40? These are the metrics that tell you if your business actually works.

NRR above 100% means your existing customers are growing faster than you're losing them. That's the holy grail. Gross retention tells you the baseline without expansion revenue. And Rule of 40? That's growth rate plus profit margin. Investors use it to compare you against every other SaaS company they're looking at.

→ MRR Bridge

Beginning, new, expansion, churn, ending. All in one waterfall. You see exactly where revenue is coming from and where it's leaking. No guessing. No "let me get back to you on that."

→ Cohort Retention

Month over month retention by cohort. This is the chart that tells you if your product is actually sticky or if you're just outrunning churn with new sales. Most founders don't track this. The great ones obsess over it.

→ Revenue Breakdown

By plan. By customer type. New vs returning. You see the full picture without jumping between five different tools.

When an investor asks "how healthy is your revenue?" you should be able to answer in 10 seconds. Not 10 minutes.

I built this dashboard inside Model Wiz. It connects to your QuickBooks, pulls your numbers, and keeps everything updated automatically. So when your investor asks "what's your Rule of 40?" you don't scramble. You already know.

Which SaaS metric do you get asked about most?

14 hours ago | [YT] | 36

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Most SaaS founders know their ARR. Very few can explain 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.

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.

Let me break it down.

→ 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 it's 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 bad 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.

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

2 days ago | [YT] | 125

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Custom formatting is the most underused feature in Excel.

Most people stick with the defaults.

Currency, percentage, two decimal places.

But the moment you need something specific, like showing thousands with a "K" or hiding zeros, you're stuck.

Custom formatting fixes that.

→ How It Works

Right click any cell, go to Format Cells, then select Custom. You'll see a format code box where you can build your own rules.

The syntax looks intimidating at first but it follows a simple pattern. The code is split into four sections separated by semicolons: positive numbers, negative numbers, zeros, and text. You don't need all four. Most of the time you only need one or two.

→ Formats I Use Constantly

For showing thousands with a K: #,##0,"K"

For millions with one decimal: #,##0.0,,"M"

For hiding zeros entirely: #,##0;(#,##0);""

For percentages without decimals: 0%

That last semicolon trick is one of my favorites. Leave the third section empty and zeros disappear from your report. Clean.

→ Why This Matters

Custom formats don't change your underlying data. A cell showing "500K" still holds the value 500000. Your formulas still work. Your references stay intact. You're just changing how it displays.

This means you can build dashboards that look polished without messing up your calculations. No more helper columns converting values. No more CONCATENATE formulas just to add a label.

Once you learn the syntax, you'll use it everywhere.

Custom formatting is one of those small details that makes dashboards look professional. It's built into every template at Model Wiz. Connect your QBO data, click Roll Forward, and get board-ready dashboards with the formatting already done.

What custom format do you use the most? Drop it below.

6 days ago | [YT] | 174

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Claude for Excel is taking the world of finance and accounting by storm.
My mind is blown at the capabilities and everyone is discussing the same question:
Will it eventually replace the need for analysts?
Cast your vote below 👇

1 week ago | [YT] | 13

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I've built dashboards for 100+ companies. These are the 10 that actually get used.

Not the ones that look pretty in a presentation. The ones leadership opens every month without being asked. Big difference.

Let me walk you through them.

→ Summarized P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flows

The big three. Custom mappings across any time period. If your leadership can't see these in one view, you're making them work too hard. And trust me, they'll let you know.

→ Budget vs Actuals

This is where the real conversations happen. Variances, trends, what's off and why. I've never worked with a company that didn't need this one. Not once.

→ KPI Dashboard

The 8 metrics that actually matter. Compared against prior period and prior year. No fluff, no vanity numbers. Just the stuff people make decisions with.

→ Comparison Financials

P&L with custom mappings against prior period and prior year. One glance tells you if things are getting better or worse. Your board will love you for this one.

→ Profit Margins

Gross, operating, net. All in one place. If you're not tracking margin trends, you're flying blind. I learned this the hard way early in my career.

→ Executive Summary Dashboard

P&L and cash flows with custom commentary. This is the one the board actually reads. Everything else? They skim. This one they study.

→ Cash Out Dashboard

Projected cash out date, current cash, monthly burn, runway remaining. If you're a startup, this one isn't optional. It's survival.

→ SaaS Metrics

MRR, ARR, churn, retention. If you're running a subscription business, these numbers run your life. You probably check them more than your text messages.

Here's the thing most finance teams get wrong. They build way more dashboards than anyone needs. Dozens of tabs, fancy charts, color everywhere. Then wonder why nobody looks at them.

Start with these 10. Add more only when someone actually asks. You'll be surprised how rarely that happens.

I built all 10 inside Model Wiz. One click and they're yours.

Which dashboard does your team rely on most?

1 week ago | [YT] | 367

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

"How's cash looking?"

If that question makes you nervous, you need this dashboard. Every finance leader gets asked this. Most scramble for the answer.

Let me show you what I mean.

Four KPIs at the top. Revenue, COGS, Opex, Ending Cash. Each one shows where you are and how it compares to last year. Green means up. Red means down. No digging required. Your board can read it. Your CEO can read it. Even your cousin who "works in finance" can read it.

Below that, a 12-month trend chart. You can see exactly where things are heading. Revenue climbing? Great. Cash dropping? Problem. Both visible in the same view. No tabs. No hunting. No "give me a second."

Here's the thing. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a meeting where someone asks "how are we doing?" and the finance lead starts pulling up tabs. Five spreadsheets. Three exports. A pivot table from last week that may or may not still be accurate. Classic.

By the time they find the answer, the room has moved on. Or worse, someone else answers for them. That's not a good look.

This dashboard fixes that. One glance. Full picture. Conversation moves forward.

The numbers in this example tell a story. Revenue up 67%. Opex up 78%. Cash down 87%. That's a company growing fast but burning faster. You see it immediately. No one has to explain it. The dashboard does the talking.

That's what a good dashboard does. It makes the answer obvious before anyone asks the question.

I built this one inside Model Wiz. It's a free Excel add-in that connects to your QuickBooks, pulls in your data, and generates dashboards like this one automatically. No formulas to build. No templates to customize. Just connect and go.

What's the first question your CEO usually asks?

1 week ago | [YT] | 92

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I used to lose an entire day just updating last month's numbers.

Not because the model was complicated. Because I hadn't built it to survive the roll forward.

Most models break the same way every month. A new account shows up that your formulas don't recognize. Someone inserts a row and half your references shift. The dashboard pulls from the wrong period and nobody catches it until the board meeting.

After rebuilding the same things over and over, I started doing a few things differently.

→ Keep your raw data on its own tab. Never mix imports with formulas.

When you paste new data into a tab full of calculations, you're asking for trouble. I keep one tab that's only for QBO exports. Everything else references that tab. When I update the data, the model updates itself.

→ Use named ranges instead of cell references.

Formulas that point to B14:B87 break the moment someone adds a row. Named ranges don't care where the data moves. Define them once and your formulas stay intact no matter how the structure shifts.

→ Build your formulas to expect new accounts.

SUMIF and XLOOKUP don't break when new line items show up. VLOOKUP with a hardcoded range does. I stopped writing formulas that assume the data stays the same. It never does.

→ Lock your periods in one place.

If your current month is referenced in 40 different formulas, you're updating 40 cells every roll forward. I use one cell that says "December 2024" and everything else points to it. Change it once, the whole model follows.

These changes cut my roll forward time in half. But I still wanted it faster.

At Model Wiz we handle all of this with one button. Click Roll Forward and it moves the timeline, detects new accounts, preserves your formulas, and keeps your dashboards intact. Two minutes and you're done.

What's the most annoying part of your roll forward?

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 115

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

They told me their reports take 6 hours. I showed them 8 formulas. Now it takes 10 minutes.

Join my free masterclass with Ramp on February 19th 👉 virtual.ramp.com/path-to-cfo-8-excel-formulas/?utm…

I've seen this pattern dozens of times.

Smart FP&A teams. Good analysts. Solid finance backgrounds.

But every month, the same chaos. Copying data from exports. Pasting into templates. Fixing broken links. Manually updating date labels.

By the time the report reaches leadership, the numbers are already stale.

The problem is never the people. It's the infrastructure.

The best finance teams I work with have dashboards that refresh with one click.

Monthly, quarterly, annual, and custom views all pulling from the same source. No rebuilding. No copy-paste. No prayer that the formulas still work.

And it comes down to 8 formulas used the right way.

Here's what I'll walk through live:

EOMONTH for building date ranges that roll forward automatically each period

YEAR and MONTH for dynamic labels that update without touching a single cell

ROUNDUP for calculating Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 from any date without hardcoding

DATE for start dates that adjust themselves based on the period you're in

IF for switching between actuals and projections with one cell change

SUMIFS for pulling P&L data across any date range you define

XLOOKUP for grabbing balance sheet values as of any point in time

You'll leave knowing how to turn static exports into dashboards that update in minutes instead of hours.

This is the exact process I use when building three-statement models for my clients.

February 19th at 2pm ET.

Save your spot here 👉 virtual.ramp.com/path-to-cfo-8-excel-formulas/?utm…

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 255

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I was trembling, stomach twisted - I had to lay someone off for the first time.
He was such a great guy with so much potential, but he just wasn't delivering what we needed.

I felt extra torn because the number one thing people appreciate about working at Mighty Digits is how much we care about them.

How am I supposed to tell a man with a wife, 3 children, and a mother-in-law that he's losing his primary income?

This moment shaped my journey as a business owner and taught me how vital it is to let someone go when they aren't performing.

For a long time, I didn't know how or understand why.

➡️ I HAD IT COMPLETELY BACKWARDS

"Hire Slow, Fire Fast" was the mantra I heard everywhere.

But that didn't make sense to me. When you fire someone, you disrupt their livelihood and affect their family's financial situation.

So my approach was the opposite: "Hire fast, Fire slow."

Show employees you have a spine by treating them well, and they'll give you more output and dedication.

Until I realized I had it completely reversed.

➡️ WHY QUICK ACTION IS ESSENTIAL

Someone told me: "You're not just hurting the underperformer by keeping them - you're hurting everyone else on the team."

At first, I didn't resonate with that. But after letting a few people go, I finally understood.

You're not the only person who works with an underperformer. Your entire staff is exposed to their work.

Pairing an underperformer with an amazing performer adds pressure and workload to the performer, leaving them frustrated and at risk of leaving.

You not only have someone underperforming - you diminish the well-being of your best people.

➡️ HOW TO FIRE THE RIGHT WAY

I learned you can act quickly without burning bridges or destroying culture:

— Give ample feedback and notice before taking action

— Put them on a Performance Improvement Plan as a last resort

— Offer reasonable severance with a separation agreement

— Tell them they're better off somewhere else (usually true)

— Offer to provide a recommendation focusing on their good qualities

When you don't fire correctly, it can be one of your worst mistakes as a business owner.

Between hits to company culture, lawsuits, and disgruntled employees, treating someone unfairly creates incentives for retaliation.

➡️ THE BALANCE

It's a healthy sign when organizations let people go each year. Companies constantly evolve, and not everyone remains a good fit.

But it's important to show staff you don't see them as just output machines - you appreciate them and invest in them.

How you demonstrate that balance makes the biggest difference.

===

To me, learning to fire properly was one of the hardest but most important leadership lessons.

You can protect your team's well-being while still treating departing employees with respect.

What's your experience with letting someone go?

Have you ever had to fire someone?

Share your thoughts below 👇

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 62

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Your Model is 70% There. Here's What's Missing.

Most VPs of Finance I work with have a solid financial model.

P&L looks good. Balance sheet ties out. Cash flow makes sense.

But when the board starts asking harder questions, the model falls short.

"What does our deferred revenue waterfall look like?"

"Can you break down headcount costs by department with projected raises?"

"Show me the CapEx schedule with depreciation by asset class."

Silence. Scrambling. Or a promise to follow up next week.

→ The 30% That Separates Good From Credible

Your model handles the basics. That's the 70%.

The missing 30% is what makes investors and board members take you seriously:

Deferred revenue schedules that show exactly how contracted revenue converts to recognized revenue over time.

Headcount planning that breaks down salaries, taxes, benefits, and start dates by department and role.

AP aging that forecasts when cash actually leaves based on vendor payment terms.

CapEx schedules that track asset purchases, useful life, and depreciation by category.

Debt schedules that map out principal, interest, and covenant compliance.

These are the tabs that make board members nod instead of squint.

→ Wy Most Models Don't Have Them

Building these schedules from scratch takes weeks.

And most VPs of Finance learned modeling in a different context. Investment banking templates don't transfer cleanly to operational SaaS models. The company you came from had different revenue recognition. The templates online are too generic to actually use.

So you skip it. You tell yourself you'll build it later. You hope the board doesn't ask.

Until they do.

→ Why I Built Model Wiz

I spent years as a fractional CFO building these exact schedules for clients.

Deferred revenue. Headcount. AP. AR. CapEx. Debt.

The same modules, over and over, customized to each business.

So I built them into Model Wiz.

Model Wiz is an Excel plugin that connects to QuickBooks Online and lets you add professional schedules to your existing model with a few clicks.

You're not rebuilding anything. You're not learning a new platform. You're just attaching the modules your model is missing.

Each schedule plugs into your driver's tab and flows through to your statements automatically.

Your 70% model becomes 100%. And when the board asks about deferred revenue, you pull up the tab instead of promising to follow up.

Book a call with my team to see how this can look for you. Link in the comments.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 54