Most companies are making decisions using numbers that are already out of date.
Not intentionally — the reporting cycle simply lags behind reality.
For many businesses, financial statements are 30–90 days behind (CFO.com, 2023).
By the time you find out what happened, the moment where it mattered has already passed.
The Result in Real Life
When leaders don’t have current financial clarity, they:
- Delay hiring because they’re unsure
- Spend “just to test” because there’s no feedback loop yet
- Get surprised by cash dips that were predictable weeks earlier
64% of SMB leaders say they regularly make financial decisions without complete information (Intuit Small Business Insights, 2022).
This is not a planning problem.
It’s a timing problem.
Why This Is Changing
Decision cycles are faster now.
70% of CFOs report making strategic decisions weekly (McKinsey CFO Pulse, 2023).
To support weekly decisions, the books themselves must move to weekly clarity.
This is the shift toward continuous finance — not as a buzzword, but because waiting no longer fits how business works.
Finance is evolving from:
“We’ll know when the close is done.”
to
“We always know.”
