Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I usually sell my Cash Flows Dashboard for $49. Today you can have it for free.

📩 Join our newsletter and get instant access 👉 yourcfoguy.kit.com/cash-flows-dashboard

Cash flow is the one thing my clients ask me to explain more than anything else.

And honestly, I get why.

You can look great on paper and still wake up to an empty bank account.

Revenue is up, the P&L looks healthy, everyone feels good about the month.

Then payroll hits, a big invoice comes due, and suddenly there's nothing left in the account.

I've watched it happen to real businesses more than once.

The problem is that almost nobody can actually see their cash clearly.

They can pull a profit number in seconds.

But ask them where the cash actually went last month, and you get a blank stare and half a day of digging through bank statements.

Profit tells you whether you made money.

Cash tells you whether you can keep the doors open.

Those are two completely different questions. And most reporting only answers the first one.

So I built this dashboard to answer the second one in about ten seconds.

It shows you where your cash started, every dollar that moved through operating, investing, and financing, and exactly where you ended up. All on one screen.

You can see the months your cash climbed and the months it quietly drained, lined up across the whole year.

You drop in your own numbers and the entire thing updates on its own. No formulas to wire up, no charts to rebuild from scratch.

What you walk away with is a view you can put in front of a founder, your board, or an investor, and they understand your cash position before you finish your first sentence.

You stop exporting data, rebuilding the same report every month, and hunting through tabs just to find one number.

And you finally get to talk about your cash with the same confidence you talk about your revenue.

It's yours free today.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/cash-flows-dashboard

17 hours ago | [YT] | 47

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

The Financial Statements...explained on ONE page
🔖 Bookmark this one for later

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in…

EVERYONE should understand how to read financial statements

When you understand Financial Statements you…

✅ Understand more about business

✅ Can perform your job in Finance & Accounting better

✅ Can build a robust forecast

and so much more

Let’s do a deep dive on how they work

➡️ The Profit & Loss (also known as Income Statement)

This statement is all about telling you about the PERFORMANCE of your company…IE your income, and your costs

Your income is summarized by

1️⃣ Revenue → income related to your core business

2️⃣ Other Income → income related to none core activities (like credit card points)

Your expenses are summarized by:

1️⃣ Cost of Goods Sold → Costs that relate to carrying out your product or service

2️⃣ Operating Expenses → Costs that relate to operating your business

3️⃣ Other Expense → Costs that don’t relate to carrying out your income, or operating your business

From these you get a bunch of profitability metrics such as Gross Profit (Revenue-COGS), Net Operating Income (Gross Profit - Opex), and net income (all income - all expenses

➡️ The Balance Sheet

This statement tells you all about the financial POSITION of your company

it is summarized by:

1️⃣ Assets → Amounts of Economic value that business owns, or substantially controls

2️⃣ Liabilities → Amounts that you owe to creditors

3️⃣ Owners Equity → Amounts that you owe to the owners

The Balance sheet is presented on a cumulative basis, which is the only statement of the 3 that acts this way

➡️ The Statement of Cash Flows

This statement is all about telling you where your cash is going

it is separated by:

1️⃣ Cash from Operating activities → this section relates to cash movements from operating your business

2️⃣ Cash from Investing activities → cash movements from fixed & long term assets (IE, Assets that are invested for long term benefit)

3️⃣ Cash from Financing activities → cash movements from amounts invested by owners, or creditors - both for amounts put in, and amounts repaid

===

I’ve done my best to include everything you need to know about how to read Financial Statements in the graphic below…

but there’s so much more to say.

What would you add?

4 days ago | [YT] | 152

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

How to perform a close the books and perform a month-end close

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an accountant…

A bookkeeper…

a controller…

or a CFO

Financial reporting is a key piece in Finance & Accounting,

and closing the books is where it all begins.

After closing the books 100s of times in my career for dozens of clients, here’s my go to method for how you can do.

But first…

➡️ What is a Month End Close?

Month-end close refers to the process of producing financial statements each month

Follow these steps to complete your Month End Close with EASE

➡️ Step 1: Import Transactions from Bank or Credit Card

Start by importing all of the transactions related to your business from your financial institution

Most accounting software has an API connection allowing you to do this automatically once properly set up

➡️ Step 2: Classify Transactions

Now that you have your transactions synced, it’s time to classify them.

I like to group transactions with a similar description together so I can bulk classify transactions more quickly…

If I see a recurring pattern, I’d even set up a custom rule.

For transactions above a certain threshold, it’s also a good idea to upload a receipt for audit purposes

➡️ Step 3: Bank Reconciliations

This may be the most important step in a month-end close…

Without it, I wouldn’t trust a thing on the financial statements…

➡️ Step 4: Adjusting Journal Entries

Now comes the real heart and soul of a month-end close…

Here, you book journal entries to adjust the balances on your general ledger.

This is especially relevant under accrual accounting, but still applicable for cash basis accounting.

The key thing here is to have workpapers that match to the balances on your general ledger

➡️ Step 5: Review for Accuracy

Now that you’ve completed steps 1-4…

It’s time to take a step back and confirm accuracy.

Do any amounts look abnormally higher compared to last month?

Are there any new accounts that are redundant and can be combined with an existing account?

Do the balances match to your workpapers?

Step 6: Finalize & Present

Now comes the fun part…

Here you’ll want to present your key takeaways to various stakeholders.

Did anything significant happen?

Do we have any large deviations from our budget?

Remember to use pretty design with your reporting to add credibility and make the experience more enjoyable

===

Congrats, you just completed a month-end close!

These steps are my preferred approach after closing the books 100s of times in my career…

What’s your approach?

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

5 days ago | [YT] | 94

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I gave my editor an Excel file.

A few minutes later he sent back a video that walked through the numbers out loud... in my voice.

That's one of the four steps that go into a board report, and AI now touches all four.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUMOM...

There's a lot of AI advice out there for finance people that falls apart the moment you point it at a real client's numbers. So I wanted to show what holds up on live work.

Step one is capturing the conversation.

I've been Nicolas's fractional CFO for about seven years, so I know how much those board meetings matter. Here's how they used to go for me.

"Sorry, can you repeat the part where you said... the things?"

Not my finest work.

Now Wispr Flow runs in the background. It transcribes the whole meeting, pulls the action items, tells me who said what, and catches the things I missed while I was busy scribbling.

What separates a good note taker from the rest is the names. My last name is Aharonoff, and I've watched one spell it THREE different ways in a single transcript.

And if it can't get my name right, it was never getting who owned what right either.

Step two is connecting the data.

ChatGPT can plug straight into your finances now. I tried it, and found out I'd been paying for Hulu for almost a year without using it.

My wife's reaction, roughly: why isn't our Hulu working anymore?

Losing a few dollars a month to Hulu isn't a CFO crisis. But point that same idea at a company spending millions across hundreds of vendors, and it gets a lot more interesting.

Because your bank only knows so much. It knows who you paid and how much. Your accounting system knows what that payment actually MEANT.

Step three, building the model.

In February I got into the beta for Claude for Excel, and halfway through a build I caught it referencing the wrong column.

So I sat back, ready to declare victory over AI.

Instead I watched it spot the mistake on its own, go back, fix it, and hand me something close to flawless.

But I'd NEVER hand this kind of work over without checking it.

I've watched AI hardcode assumptions, build dashboards I wouldn't put in front of a board, and stall completely when I asked it to roll a model forward with a new month of actuals.

That last one is the one I care about most, because rolling a model forward every month is exactly the repetitive, finance specific work these tools STILL struggle with.

And step four is the one I opened with.

My editor used to build every animation in my videos by hand, so I asked him whether he could do the same thing with a spreadsheet.

The video he sent back plays at the very end.

Watch the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUMOM...

So which of these have you tried on real client work? I'd love to hear what's worked for you.

6 days ago | [YT] | 98

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Your business can be growing, profitable, and completely fine on paper, and still be three months from running out of cash.

This is the dashboard that shows you exactly how much runway you have left.

Today it's free.

📩 Join our newsletter and get instant access 👉 yourcfoguy.kit.com/cash-out-dashboard

Profit and cash are two completely different things.

You can book a huge sale, feel great about the month, and still not have the money in the bank when payroll hits.

That gap is exactly where businesses die.

They watch revenue climb, they never watch the cash, and one day the account just runs dry.

That's the whole reason I built this dashboard the way I did.

It takes your cash and lays it out month by month, so you can watch the balance drop over time.

Then it does the one thing most reports never do.

It tells you the exact date you hit zero.

It gives you a real month on the calendar you can actually plan around.

So instead of hoping you have enough runway, you know exactly how many months you have left, and you still have time to do something about it.

It's all built in Excel.

You put your own cash numbers in, and it plots your whole runway and marks the month you run out.

It's a simple dashboard.

But it might be the most important one you ever fill in, because no number matters much if the cash is gone.

And today it's completely free.

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

yourcfoguy.kit.com/cash-out-dashboard

1 week ago | [YT] | 42

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

I spent 12 hours turning 8 financial metrics into one dashboard in this Financial Health Dashboard.

Today you can get it for free.

📩 Join our newsletter and get instant access 👉 yourcfoguy.kit.com/financial-health-dashboard

The hardest part of running a business is knowing whether it is actually healthy.

Your revenue can be climbing while your margins quietly shrink.

Your P&L can look great while you are two months away from running out of cash.

I have watched founders get blindsided by this more times than I can count.

The numbers were always there. Nobody had them in one place where the problem was obvious.

I am a Microsoft Excel MVP, and I have built hundreds of dashboards and financial models over my years as a fractional CFO.

This is the one I reach for when I want to know if a business is truly healthy.

It took me about 12 hours to get right, and it puts the eight metrics that actually matter on a single screen.

ARR, gross margin, working capital, EBITDA, net margin, CAC, cash flow, and how many months of runway you have left.

Then it grades each one against your target and colors it green, yellow, or red.

So you can tell in about three seconds what is winning and what is about to break.

At the top you get an overall status and a simple count of how many metrics are on track and how many are not.

You drop in your numbers and the whole thing updates on its own.

No formulas to build, no charts to wire up from scratch.

What you walk away with is the one view I would want in front of me before any board meeting, any investor update, or any Monday morning.

You can have it today for free.

Grab it here: yourcfoguy.kit.com/financial-health-dashboard

1 week ago | [YT] | 71

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

This is the CRAZIEST dashboard I've ever built…

and today I'm giving it away for FREE.

📩 Join The CFO Files newsletter and I'll send you this dashboard for free: yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-dashboard?utm_source=s…

I spent 20+ hours researching, designing, and building this one.

It tells you all sorts of key information, like:

✅ Revenue & Gross Margin

✅ Comparison against budget

✅ Comparison against prior period

✅ Departmental breakdown

✅ Breakdown by cost type

And all of it updates with just ONE CLICK.

Here's how I built it.

→ Step 1, Design Your Dashboard

But don't make the mistake of exporting a P&L straight from your accounting software and sending that to management or investors.

Instead, invest in DESIGN. And when I say design, I mean:

🎨 a cohesive color scheme

🔡 a proper font

🔀 proper alignment and placement

→ Data Structure

Here, we have 4 departments.

👥 General & Administrative

👥 Sales & Marketing

👥 Research & Development

👥 Customer Support

So each department gets its own P&L, segmented by:

1️⃣ Section

2️⃣ Summary Grouping

3️⃣ Account

Then we have a data set for ACTUALS, and another for BUDGET.

That's 8 tabs total. 4 with actuals, 4 with budget.

→ Transform With Power Query

Now that the data's in place, it's time to TRANSFORM it so it's actually easy to MANIPULATE.

That means UNPIVOTING everything with Power Query.

And then we append all the actual tabs together, and all the budget tabs together.

→ Create Relationships In Power Pivot

Power Pivot is the big leagues of Excel. Honestly, I'm still learning a ton about it myself…

What's amazing about Power Pivot is that you can build RELATIONSHIPS between different tables, so you can mix and match when you build your pivot tables.

From there I built a bunch of MEASURES, which work like Excel formulas, except they run on something called DAX.

→ Create Pivot Tables

Now with the data structured and the measures in place, it's time to build the pivot tables.

Honestly, this part is a breeze.

→ Link Up The Dashboards

And now for the grand finale 🪄🎩

With everything else in place, linking up the dashboard is easy.

===

What I love about this one is that I can click any period, YTD, or TRAILING 12 MONTHS, and the whole thing updates instantly.

Have you ever used a Power Pivot? Think you could build a dashboard like this one?

📩 Join The CFO Files newsletter and I'll send you the full template and tutorial 👉 yourcfoguy.kit.com/ultimate-dashboard?utm_source=s…

1 week ago | [YT] | 59

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

EXCEL VS POWER BI 📊

The great debate continues...which tool should YOU be using?

Most professionals find themselves asking this question at some point.

There's no one-size-fits-all solution, but there ARE specific situations where one clearly outshines the other.

Let's break down when to use each so you don't waste time with the wrong tool!

➡️ EXCEL: THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE

Excel is my daily driver. I open it first thing in the morning and it's usually the last app I close at night.

SPREADSHEET-BASED work is where Excel dominates. You get cell-by-cell control that just feels right when you're building something from scratch.

I absolutely love the FORMULA-DRIVEN approach. From simple SUM functions to complex nested IFs and XLOOKUPS, you can make Excel dance.

STATIC REPORTING doesn't need to be fancy. When you need a quick visual of data, Excel charts get the job done without the overhead.

FILE-BASED STORAGE has its pros and cons. You can email a workbook to anyone, but those 20MB files clogging up your inbox? Not so fun.

INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS is Excel's sweet spot. When diving into numbers alone or with a small team, nothing beats Excel's flexibility.

➡️ POWER BI: THE DATA POWERHOUSE

Power BI solves problems that make Excel crash or slow to a crawl.

DATA MODELING in Power BI is like Excel on steroids. Connecting sales data with inventory and customer info becomes actually doable.

DAX MEASURES - once you get them, you can calculate things Excel can only dream of.

INTERACTIVE DASHBOARDS make your data come alive. The ability to filter data with a click and watch everything update instantly is powerful.

CLOUD PUBLISHING solves the "which version" chaos. No more "final_v3_ACTUAL_final.xlsx" floating around company email.

DATA DISCOVERY lets anyone ask questions in plain English. Type "show me sales by region" without knowing a single formula.

➡️ WHEN TO CHOOSE EXCEL

- Creating ad-hoc numerical analysis
- Working with moderate data volumes
- Building financial models and forecasts
- Users need direct data editing capabilities
- One-off or infrequently updated reports

➡️ WHEN TO CHOOSE POWER BI

- Working with large datasets
- Creating enterprise-wide dashboards
- Need for real-time data connections
- Building interactive, self-service analytics
- Sharing insights across the organization

The two tools aren't competitors but companions in the data analysis journey.

Excel remains the everyday workhorse for many financial calculations and models, while Power BI specializes in visualizing and sharing those insights at scale.

Many teams build initial models in Excel, then connect Power BI when broader organization-wide reporting is needed.

What about you? Are you an Excel die-hard, or have you made the jump to Power BI?

Leave a comment below with which tool you use most often 👇

1 week ago | [YT] | 92

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

33 roles in Finance & Accounting 👤👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👥👨👩

The opportunities in Finance & Accounting are never ending…

and the field continues to be one of the most versatile fields out there,

yielding incredible ROIs for anyone who decides to pursue a background in Finance & Accounting.

Let's dive into 33 roles spanning a wide range of areas & levels of seniority across the profession 👇

◼️ Accounting → Key tasks include creating financial reports and overseeing monetary operations.

👤 Bookkeeper
👤 Accounts Payable Clerk
👤 Accounts Receivables Clerk
👤 Payroll specialist
👤 Senior accountant
👤 Controller
👤 Cost accountant
👤 Financial systems analyst
👤 Inventory specialist

◼️ FP&A → Involves generating forecasts, comparing projected versus actual results, and in-depth analysis of margins and metrics.

👤 FP&A Analyst
👤 FP&A Manager
👤 VP of Finance

◼️ Auditing → Focuses on verifying the reliability and completeness of financial documents, ensuring compliance, and overseeing control mechanisms.

👤 Internal Auditor
👤 Forensic Accounting specialist
👤 External Auditor
👤 IT Audit manager

◼️ Treasury → Manages a company's monetary assets, risk assessment, and investment strategies.

👤 Credit Analyst
👤 Risk Analyst
👤 Treasury Analyst
👤 Chief compliance officer
👤 Foreign exchange analyst
👤 Corporate Treasurer

◼️ Tax → Ensures adherence to tax regulations, aims to minimize tax obligations, and advises on tax-related strategies.

👤 Tax associate
👤 State and local tax specialist
👤 Tax director
👤 International tax specialist
👤 Tax attorney
👤 Tax research analyst
👤 Transfer pricing manager

◼️ Corporate Finance → Identifies investment opportunities and supports various financial goals.

👤 Investment Banker
👤 Head of Mergers & Acquisitions
👤 VP of Capital Markets
👤 Valuations Analyst

And then, of course, there's the ultimate position...

The Chief Financial Officer

Placing this role in a single category is challenging, as a CFO can be involved in nearly every aspect mentioned, depending on the company's size and nature.

===

These are 33 positions I've observed, and there are many more out there.

What would you add to the list?

Join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments below 👇

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 85

Josh Aharonoff (Your CFO Guy)

Everything you need to know about CPA Exam 👇

Invest in your career by passing the test! 🎓

When I started interviewing, everyone always asked me the same thing.

When are you getting your CPA license?

While it wasn't easy, I'm glad I got there.

Let's do a deep dive on the exam and cover what you need to know:

➡️ What is the CPA Exam?

CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant.

It's a 4 part test involving multiple choice and "simulations" that test your knowledge and skills in accounting.

➡️ How do you become eligible to sit for the exam, and get licensed?

You'll need 2 things:

• Education: Minimum of 120 semester hours of college coursework to sit for the exam, and 150 hours to get licensed.

• Experience: 1 to 2 years of accounting experience under a CPA to get licensed, though it varies by state.

➡️ What is the Exam Structure?

There are 4 sections to the CPA exam, and each part can be taken in any order.

All 4 tests must be passed within a 30 to 36 month window of when you pass the first section:

• Auditing and Attestation (AUD) → Focuses on auditing processes, ethics, & responsibilities in auditing & attestation services.

• Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) → Involves principles & standards for financial accounting and reporting for various entities.

• Regulation (REG) → Deals with federal taxation, ethics, business law, and professional responsibilities in tax practice.

For the 4th section, you can choose from these 3 topics:

• Business Analysis & Reporting (BAR)
• Information Systems and Controls (ISC)
• Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP)

➡️ How do you pass the exam?

You'll need a 75 or above in order to pass the exam.

Here are my recommendations:

1️⃣ Take a review course

I haven't heard of anyone passing the exam without taking a review course. I'm sure it's possible, but it's most likely a lot harder that way.

I used Becker, but there are many out there.

2️⃣ Take practice exams

This part can be overwhelming, I did very poorly on almost all practice exams…but that's what they are designed for.

The actual exam won't be as tough

3️⃣ Set aside the time you need to pass the exam

This part is the biggest. It's way easier to pass this exam before you enter the workforce…IE when you are still in school.

But not everyone has this luxury. Whatever your schedule is, be prepared to put in a LOT of time to study…

Don't make the mistake of blocking off enough time to pass only a few exams, it will be real painful if you lose any of your passing grades when they expire!

➡️ Is the CPA worth it?

That really depends…

Do I feel more competent & capable in my career after passing it? Not really…most of what I learned came from on the job training.

Did the CPA help boost my employment opportunities? For sure…

but there are many other licenses, such as CMA, ACCA, MBA, CFA.

It all depends on your goals!

===

That's my take on the CPA exam, what are your thoughts?

Is it worth it?

Let us know in the comments below 👇

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 81