Money matters: How non-profit organizations can maximize impact with effective cost management

James Bryan Torrico
James Bryan Torrico

Senior Manager

Money matters: How non-profit organizations can maximize impact with effective cost management
Your organization does great things, and you know that keeping a tight grip on costs and expenses is key to achieving your mission. With limited resources, non-profits like yours are constantly facing the challenge of balancing the reach and impact of their services and programs with ensuring financial stability and sustainability.

The good news is, there are ways to manage costs and expenses that can help you make the most of what you’ve got. In this article, we’ll share cost management and expense control techniques that’ll empower you to better serve your mission.

Check out our Nonprofit Organization Accounting page

Three must-know cost management techniques

First, let’s start with three critical cost management techniques every non-profit organization should be using to maximize its impact.

1. Budgeting

Budgeting is a big part of making sure your non-profit is financially healthy. Think of it like a map for your money—it helps you plan for the future and see where you’re at now. In the beginning, budgeting can be tedious, but it’s a game-changer with the right approach.

The first step is building a budget. Budgeting looks different for every organization, but you might like to start with a ready-made template. This will provide a solid foundation you can edit and adapt to meet your needs. Be sure to include all your main revenue sources and basic expenses like personnel costs, office expenses, and travel. Start with your fixed and necessary costs—the must-haves your organization needs to function. By prioritizing these costs first, you can ensure financial viability and make informed decisions on allocating your remaining resources.

Once you have a budget in place, track your expenses. You can use budget tracking software, an app, or a spreadsheet. By keeping a close eye on expenses, you can quickly identify areas where you are over or under budget.

Finally, you’ll need to adjust your budget if your needs change. So, review your budget regularly and compare it to your actual expenses. This will help you see where you might need to cut back or where you can reallocate funds. From there, you can ensure you’re making the most of your resources and staying financially healthy.

Also read: 8 Ways to Ensure Your Nonprofit Is Tax Compliant

2. Forecasting

Forecasting is the process of estimating future events or conditions based on historical data and current trends, and it’s a powerful tool that non-profit organizations can use to make decisions.

Start by assessing historical data. Look for past patterns and trends that give you an idea of what to expect moving forward. This information can help you make accurate projections and prepare yourself for any unexpected bumps in the road. For example, if you notice that a certain expense has been increasing over the past few years, you can anticipate that it will continue to do so in the future and plan accordingly.

Forecasting is also great for identifying and mitigating risks. By projecting future costs and income, you can get a sense of potential financial risks and take steps to address them before they become a problem. For example, if your forecast suggests that revenue will be lower than anticipated, you can take action to increase fundraising or reduce expenses. Or, if you expect that a specific fee will be higher than usual, you can plan to minimize that expense or find additional sources of income.

Forecasting can be a bit of a tricky process, but it’s well worth the effort. By taking the time to forecast your organization’s financial situation, you can make better budgeting and resource allocation decisions and help ensure that your organization is financially stable and equipped to have the greatest positive impact.

3. Cost-benefit analysis

Cost-benefit analysis is a technique that evaluates the potential costs and benefits of different projects or initiatives. It’s a way to determine whether the benefits of a particular project or initiative outweigh the costs and whether it’s worth the investment of time, money, and resources.
When conducting a cost-benefit analysis, consider both the monetary and non-monetary costs and benefits:
  • Monetary costs include things like expenses, labor costs, and materials, while non-monetary costs include things like the volunteer time and effort required to complete the project or initiative.
  • Monetary benefits include things like revenue or savings, while non-monetary benefits include things like improved community relations or increased social impact.

To evaluate the potential benefit of an initiative, you’ll first need to gather data. This might involve doing research, conducting surveys, or consulting with experts. Then, you’ll need to directly compare the costs and benefits to determine whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Keep in mind that non-monetary costs and benefits can be challenging to quantify.

Finally, take the time frame into account. Some benefits may be immediate, while others may be realized over a longer period. Similarly, some costs may be upfront, while others may be ongoing.

Controlling your expenses

In addition to cost management, expense control is another integral aspect of financial management for non-profit organizations. It’s essential to keep expenses in check to ensure that your organization has enough resources to carry out its mission and achieve its goals.

Here are a few tips to help you get a handle on your expenses:

Review expenses regularly: Take a close look at where you’re spending money and ask yourself if there are any areas where you can cut back. Maybe you’re paying for subscriptions that aren’t being used, or perhaps you’re purchasing more supplies than you need. By identifying and cutting unnecessary expenses, you’ll be able to free up more resources for your organization’s mission critical activities.

Negotiate with vendors: When buying goods and services, shop around to find the best deals. Vendors are often willing to adjust their prices, too. By being prepared to negotiate and clearly understanding what you need and what you’re willing to pay, you can often secure cheaper prices on the products and services you need.

Evaluate outsourcing: Outsourcing can be a cost-effective way to get work done, as it allows you to access specialized expertise and resources without having to hire full-time employees. However, evaluating the costs and benefits of outsourcing different tasks or functions is essential to ensure it’s the best option for you.

By reducing unnecessary expenses, negotiating with vendors, and outsourcing, you can increase your financial stability and better serve your mission.

Technology and tools for money management

If your organization is like most non-profits, you’re always looking for ways to stretch your budget as far as possible. Technology is one solution, making managing your costs and expenses easier than ever. From accounting software to expense-tracking apps, there are so many options to choose from. How do you know which ones are right for your organization?

First, consider the type of tool you need. Accounting software, for example, can help you track your income and expenses, create financial reports, and even send invoices. On the other hand, expense tracking apps are great for keeping track of costs as they happen. Some apps will even help you categorize expenses and create reports.

Then, think about any specific challenges you have. For example, if you’re a small organization with a limited budget, look for free or low-cost options. But if you’re a larger organization with a lot of transactions to track, you might need more robust software. In addition, consider your employees or volunteers. Are they tech-savvy? It’s important to ensure the software you choose is accessible and user friendly.

As more donors and stakeholders look for transparency and accountability, some nonprofits are also beginning to explore ESG reporting services as part of their long-term strategy to enhance trust and demonstrate impact. This is something we also see with industries that rely heavily on specialized expertise, such as those seeking biotech accounting services, where compliance and transparency are essential.

You might also like: 4 New Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit Financial Reporting

Are you financially efficient?

Even if you adopt every cost management techniques above, your non-profit may not be as financially efficient as it could be. The question begs: What does good look like? What’s a fair industry benchmark to aim for?

According to CharityWatch, a charity is highly efficient when it produces a program percentage of 75 percent or more. In other words, the charity successfully balances its finances and social impact when it costs less than $25 to raise $100.

Some of the top-rated charities in terms of efficiency include:
What can you learn from their success? These charities share the following characteristics:
  • Full financial transparency
  • Good governance, including reports that show independent accountants audited financial  statements
  • Independent board members, with 51 percent or more of voting board members claiming to be independent

By implementing effective financial management techniques and keeping an eye on expenses, you can optimize your resources, embrace financial transparency, and increase your efficiency.

Get started today

Managing costs and expenses is crucial for non-profit organizations wanting to make the most of their resources and achieve their goals. The good news is, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

To get started, set clear financial goals, create a budget, and track your expenses regularly. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry. There’s a solution for that. Enter Scrubbed, your one-stop shop for all things accounting and finance.

We can take care of everything from bookkeeping and tax compliance to transaction advisory services, leaving you free to focus on what really matters—running your non-profit. Plus, we work with all types of organizations across a variety of industries, so no matter what stage you’re at, we’ve got you covered. Get in touch today to learn more.

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The Technology Spotlight was one of three industry spotlights at The Future Is Fractional 2026, hosted by Scrubbed on September 24, 2026. Anthony John Rogador, Accounting Advisory Services Manager at Scrubbed, spoke with Abdul Wahab Zafar, SVP of Finance at Studycast, who has led M&A integrations and financial systems consolidations at fast-scaling companies. They covered building a single source of truth, rationalizing the tech stack, forecasting usage-based revenue by cohort, managing cash with payment terms, and preparing a back office for M&A. The short version: tie customer, contract and billing data together, hold payment terms firm, and operate as if you might sell tomorrow. Fast-growing technology companies tend to add tools faster than they connect them. Finance ends up consolidating data from systems that don’t agree, forecasting revenue that won’t sit still, and hoping the back office holds up if an acquirer calls. At The Future Is Fractional 2026, a virtual conference hosted by finance and accounting advisory firm Scrubbed on September 24, 2026, Session 4 split into three industry breakouts running at the same time: real estate, nonprofit and technology. In the technology track, Scrubbed Accounting Advisory Services Manager Anthony John Rogador spoke with Abdul Wahab Zafar, SVP of Finance at Studycast, who has run M&A integrations and systems consolidations at fast-scaling companies. Key Takeaways: Accurate financials start upstream. Customer, contract and billing data need a common key tying them together. 90–95% data alignment is often enough. The last last few percent can cost more than it’s worth. Forecast usage-based revenue by cohort . In Zafar's experience, a cohort’s second year grows fastest, then growth settles to low single digits. Protect cash with payment terms. Hold customer terms firm and negotiate longer vendor terms to create a cushion. Operate as if you’ll sell tomorrow. Buyers judge revenue by how well customer, contract and billing data tie out. Don't rush to merge systems after a deal. Move acquired customers into the process that already works. Meet the Speakers Anthony John Rogador (moderator): Accounting Advisory Services Manager, Scrubbed. [LINK: LinkedIn] Abdul Wahab Zafar, MBA, CMA : Senior Vice President of Finance, Studycast, with experience leading M&A integration, financial systems consolidation and scaling finance operations at fast-growing companies .  Building a Single Source of Truth upstream Finance, Zafar said, takes data from everywhere else and consolidates it. So accurate financials start 'on the head of the pipe,' with customer data. He thinks of each data set as a 'cube,' and the order matters: customer first, then contract, then billing, then vendors. Data Set The Question To Answer Customer Data  Who is buying from you, and is that record correct? Contract Data  What exactly did they buy? Billing Does billing reflect the same customer name and contract terms? Vendor Data Who do you pay, under which contracts, against which invoices? When those line up, he said, the financial data naturally becomes accurate and trustworthy. Standardizing data across disconnected systems Growing businesses add the tool they need and forget to connect it. Zafar’s approach: Define the North Star for your data, then break it into the steps needed to get there. Get leadership aligned. If data alignment isn’t a priority for sales or customer teams, finance can only do so much. Create a common hook. Every record in the customer, contract and billing “cubes” should share a key so anyone can trace one customer across all three. Decide whether the last 5% is worth it. Reaching 90–95% alignment is often achievable. The final 5% may require retooling working processes or systems that already work, and in his experience is often less cost-effective than working around it. Rationalizing the tech stack before adding tools New finance tools launch constantly. Zafar’s discipline before buying one Identify the actual problem you’re solving, in depth. Check whether your current systems can solve it . Many companies use only part of what a platform like NetSuite can do. Only then evaluate third-party options, with a clear picture of what you need. Keep it simple. The fix is sometimes the smallest tool on the market and don't create processes 'just to make it look like you're doing a good job.' Complexity has a staffing cost. “If it’s more complicated processes, then a lot of times you need a bigger team to manage those processes,” and most small and mid-sized finance teams run lean. Forecasting Usage-based Revenue by cohort Usage-based revenue billed on how much customers use the product, not a flat fee) shifts with business days, holidays and seasonality. As Zafar put it, 'It's not as simple as, the customer signed a $12,000 contract, my revenue is $1,000 a month.' Studycast groups customers into cohorts by the year they went live, because cohorts tend to behave consistently over time. Cohort Year Typical growth, in Zafar's experience Why Year 1  Partial year Customers go live partway through the year Year 2  Roughly 70% to 100% The first full year of revenue Years 3-4 onward  Around 4–5% a year Growth declines sharply, then settles Forecasting each cohort separately is more reliable than projecting the whole customer base at once. Separating enterprise and small-business customers to handle outliers The outliers at Studycast, single customers growing 100% or more a year, were mostly enterprise customers who went live at one site, then rolled out to others, compounding revenue month after month. The team now forecasts SMB and enterprise customers separately. Finance can’t forecast enterprise accounts alone, he added. Customer success and sales know whether an account is at capacity or has room to expand, which turns the forecast from “just a number on the paper” into a strategic decision. AI in Finance: Faster automation, Higher stakes for Data integrity Zafar sees AI making finance both easier and harder. It already helps automate bank and account reconciliations, reporting and financial decks. But deeper uses, such as combining data points to analyze a customer fully, depend on data that lines up across systems. Without that common hook, “it’s essentially garbage in, garbage out,” and AI may point you the wrong way. His team has also implemented third-party tools that automate accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP), significantly reducing processing time. They aren't cheap, he said, but they're 'not the Mercedes of the brands.' 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The better move is to understand how data flows from customer to contract to billing, then move the acquired customers into your existing process. “If we are acquiring a business, we’re acquiring revenue.” Don’t break a process that works just to force systems together. Before closing, he said, the one thing finance leaders should understand is the target's billing process, from identifying a customer to signing a contract to sending an invoice. Finance is usually more involved before a deal closes, so it can then guide sales and revenue operations on how to bring that data across. Vendor data, by comparison, is 'a pretty easy lift.' M&A readiness checklist, drawn from the session Can every customer be traced across customer, contract and billing records with one common key? Would your customer-to-billing data tie out if a buyer tried to merge it? Do finance, sales, customer success and revenue leadership tell the same story about customers? Are payment terms consistent, and are exceptions approved and documented? Before closing a deal, do you understand the target’s billing process end to end? Rogador’s closing thought: Getting financial systems and data right doesn’t start when the deal shows up. It’s what makes you ready when it does. This session is part of The Future is Fractional 2026. For how deal readiness connects to the wider shift in finance team design, read Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt   what finance leaders are rethinking about talent, AI and team structure.

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Building a Resilient Nonprofit Finance Function When Funding Is Unpredictable

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The Nonprofit Spotlight was one of three industry spotlights at The Future Is Fractional 2026, hosted by Scrubbed on September 24, 2026. Laurence Ruelo, Director of Business Development at Scrubbed, spoke with Costa John of CFO Assignments, who has decades of CFO experience across nonprofit and for-profit organizations. They covered the three pillars of financial resilience, tracking restricted funds, what to do when a major funder pulls out, board reporting, and how to build finance capacity without overbuilding. The short version: watch unrestricted cash, act early and in phases when funding is cut, and give your board the forward look rather than the history. For many nonprofits, the funding hasn’t disappeared, but its timing has become harder to predict. Grants arrive late. Proposals take longer to secure. Visibility six or twelve months out is thin. At The Future Is Fractional 2026, a virtual conference hosted by finance and accounting advisory firm Scrubbed on September 24, 2026, Session 4 split into three industry breakouts running at the same time: real estate, nonprofit and technology. In the nonprofit track, Scrubbed Director of Business Development Laurence Ruelo asked veteran CFO Costa John how nonprofits can build a finance function that is resilient, useful to leadership and scalable when resources are already stretched. Key Takeaways: Resilience rests on three legs: liquidity, flexibility and the cash cycle. Timesheets and integration drive restricted fund tracking. Programs are delivered by people, so staff time is what releases restricted funds. When funding is cut, act early and in phases. The first cost reductions are the cheapest ones. Don't hire strategy to fix bookkeeping. Get the books closing cleanly before bringing in a fractional CFO, or the CFO gets pulled back into reconciliations. Give boards the forward look, not the history. Show the outlook, its impact and a range of decisions. Watch operating cash flow, and show days of cash. “Reserves and profits are a matter of opinion. Cash is a matter of fact.” What is nonprofit financial resilience? It’s an organization’s ability to keep delivering its mission when funding is delayed, reduced or withdrawn. In John’s framing, that depends on having unrestricted funds(money not tied to a specific grant or purpose) available, enough cash on hand to absorb delays and a clear view of how long the organization must pay its costs before funding arrives. Meet the Speakers Laurence Ruelo ( moderator): Director of Business Development, Scrubbed. Costa John : CEO CFO Assignments, with decades of CFO experience across nonprofit and for-profit organizations, including as CFO of Sapiens North America.  The Three Pillars of Nonprofit Financial Resilience John frames resilience as a three-legged stool: Liquidity: The level of unrestricted funds the organization can draw on. Flexibility : The cushion to absorb a delayed grant or a slow proposal. The board usually sets it with the CFO as a target number of months of cash operating expenses. The cash cycle: How many days the organization must cover rent, salaries, travel and office costs before funding arrives. Together, they give the organization a stable footing. John acknowledged it’s hard for small nonprofits, but said building toward it should be a priority. How to Track Restricted Funds without the Spreadsheet Wrestling Match Restricted funds are grants or donations that can be spent only on a specific purpose or program. Start with timesheets. Nonprofit programs are delivered by people, so releasing restricted funds and matching expenses to grants comes down to how staff time is spent. “If you cannot have a good on-hand grip of where and how your program people are delivering against the mission, you’re already on a slippery slope." Integrate the systems. The more the organization’s systems connect end to end, the less restricted revenue tracking becomes “a wrestling match between confusing and sometimes broken spreadsheets.” Affordable, easier-to-integrate software has made that more realistic than it used to be. Contingency planning when a major funder pulls out Stay close to funders. Organizations with strong funder relationships can often see cuts coming, whether funders planned them or are reacting to their own budget pressures. Have the outline of a plan ready. John described a phased response, from least to most disruptive: Delay contractors and capital spending not required this year. Delay replacements when people resign. Delay salary increases. Delay benefits such as 401(k) matches. Only if those steps don’t buy enough time, consider reductions in force. Act early. Once you know funding is going away, move. “Your first cost reduction steps are ironically your cheapest ones.” Hesitating can make the eventual response more painful and more expensive. Board Reporting: Forward-looking Information, Not just data “Data is not the same as information,” John said. Boards can drown in numbers. He recommended spending little time on historical statements beyond a status update. “It’s hard asking a board to govern an organization looking in the rearview mirror.” Include in Board Updates What It Means The forward look The outlook for the coming period The impact If this happens, here's what it means financially Decisions,plural A range of choices and their impacts, not a single option to approve or reject Non-financial metrics, with the CFO at the table John pushed back on the idea that non-financial metrics are outside the CFO’s lane. Measures like schools reached, children served or outcomes achieved all have financial drivers underneath, and the CFO can help program leaders see the dollar value of their impact. He sees a missed opportunity with funders: payback . In one illustration, a program costing about $72,000 per school produces an estimated $112,000 per school in lifetime health and education benefits. Framed that way, funders hear two things: the program pays for itself, and more money would do more good. Aligning boards on cash reserves Reserves aren’t shareholders’ equity. John warned that board members without a finance background shouldn't read nonprofit reserves that way. Restricted reserves reported under GAAP are, in economic substance, obligations to deliver future programs, and the cash to deliver them needs to be available. Deficits change the math. With $10 million in grant revenue and $12 million in expenses, every dollar of programming costs $1.20. Delivering more of it without a plan to close the gap can dig the hole deeper, so healthy-looking reserves can offer “a comfort that turns out to be razor thin.” Boards don’t need the calculations, he said, but they should know to ask. Scaling Finance Capacity: Compliance vs. Value-added work Executive directors already juggle fundraising, programs, people and operations. John divides finance into two parts, with different ways to resource each: Non-negotiable: compliance and reporting Value-added: strategy and planning What it covers The Form 990, the audit, paying vendors, payroll Forecasting, budgeting, support at the fundraising and budget tables The risk It “can become a self-consuming monster” without integration and automation It gets crowded out if the CFO is pulled into bookkeeping How John would resource it Outsource it, or at minimum keep it separate from the CFO role A part-time or fractional CFO, kept out of the bookkeeping weeds Don’t hire strategy to fix bookkeeping. Bringing in a fractional CFO for strategic work while the books still don’t close cleanly means the CFO gets dragged back into reconciliations, “the most expensive way to solve the wrong problem.” Messy reconciliations also pull program leaders away from the mission. Start with the lightest system that works . John warned against buying the most sophisticated accounting system too early. A lightweight option such as QuickBooks with nonprofit modules usually serves growing organizations better, while complex systems can “grind the process to a halt.” Ruelo agreed, noting organizations that implement complex systems, don’t get the information they need and end up returning to simpler tools. Non-financial metrics, with the CFO at the table A dedicated CFO role, even a part-time or fractional one, onshore or offshore, kept out of the bookkeeping weeds . Relationship-driven roles such as the grant accountant, who knows program leaders, funders and nuances that may not translate if outsourced. The metric every Nonprofit leader should watch: Operating cash flow “Reserves and profits are a matter of opinion. Cash is a matter of fact.” A balance sheet can look healthy while cash is tied up in grants not yet funded, and “you cannot make payroll with grant certificates or invoices.” John recommended practicing short-horizon cash forecasting, starting at 30 and 60 days, until it becomes muscle memory, especially as the funding environment for nonprofits shifts. One Change to the Board packet: An Unrestricted Cash Schedule What to cut: Liability-side schedules, such as an accounts payable aging report showing how long vendors have waited to be paid. John called that too operational to help a board make a decision. What to add: a schedule showing how many days the organization can run on unrestricted cash. Start with unrestricted reserves. Subtract amounts already committed. Divide by daily cash expenses. The board then knows, at every meeting, how many days the organization can operate: 111 days, say, or 192. It's easy to focus on and easy to understand. Ruelo’s summary of the conversation:   Resilience starts with visibility, good reporting translates information into decisions, and finance capacity is about access to the right expertise at the right time, whether internal, fractional, outsourced or a mix. This session is part of The Future is Fractional 2026. For the themes that ran across every industry, read Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt   what finance leaders are rethinking about talent, AI and team structure.

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Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt

Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt

The Future Is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 was a virtual conference hosted by Scrubbed on September 24, 2026. The program included an opening keynote, three panels, three industry spotlights on real estate, nonprofit and technology, and a closing conversation on building a finance team. Sixteen speakers and seven moderators took part, including CEOs, CFOs, fractional finance leaders, AI practitioners, and tax and insurance specialists. The day’s core idea came from Scrubbed CEO Vince De Leon : “Own what is core. Get access to the rest.” This article draws together the themes that ran across sessions: finance team structure, AI and human accountability, data and process foundations, permanent readiness, and early information and cash. It’s written for CFOs, controllers, CEOs and founders deciding how to structure their finance function. For decades, building a finance function followed a simple rule. Need a capability, hire someone. Need more capacity, add headcount. Need deeper expertise, hire a specialist. That rule is under strain. Strong controllers and technical accountants are still hard to find. AI can now do real work inside accounting roles. And demand on finance teams rises and falls with closes, audits, fundraising, acquisitions and downturns, while the payroll behind them stays fixed. Those pressures ran through every conversation at The Future Is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 , a virtual conference hosted on September 24, 2026, by Scrubbed, a professional services firm providing accounting, finance, and tax solutions. The event brought together CEOs, CFOs, fractional finance leaders, AI practitioners, and industry specialists across technology, non-profit, and real estate The speakers came from different seats, and they didn’t always agree. But the same three questions kept surfacing: What should a finance team own? What can it reliably access? And what still requires a person? Key Takeaways: Capability is separating from headcount. Talent scarcity, AI and uneven demand are pushing leaders to ask what they need to own and what they can reliably access, rather than who to hire next. Own what depends on context; access what depends on depth or intensity. Roles built on inside knowledge and relationships tend to stay in-house. Specialized or periodic work is a common candidate for fractional or outside support. AI changes the work, not the accountability. Speakers described real gains in coding, extraction, reconciliation review and drafting, and agreed that a named person must review and own the output. Foundations come first. Documented processes and clean, connected data decide how much AI can deliver. Readiness and early information build trust. Audit, fundraising and deal readiness is a standing condition, and boards value being told early over being told precisely. The Bigger Shift: Capability is Coming Apart from Headcount In his opening keynote, Scrubbed CEO Vince De Leon named three forces arriving at once: talent is scarce, AI is here, and demand is becoming more variable. None is new on its own. Together, they weaken the assumption that capability and employment have to be the same thing. His suggested reframe: instead of starting with “Who do we need to hire?”, start with “What capability do we need, and what do we have access to?” Some capabilities belong inside the company. Some are needed only periodically. Others can come from specialists, global teams, fractional leaders or technology. Fractional finance means accessing finance capability, such as a CFO, controller, or specialized accounting expertise, part time or for a specific need instead of through a full time hire. At TFIF 2026, it was framed as separating capability from headcount: owning what is core and accessing the rest. He was careful about what that doesn’t mean. “A bad fractional hire is still a bad hire. A good full-time hire is still valuable.” The standard for judgment, ownership and accountability doesn’t change with the employment model. He left the audience with three questions that the rest of the day kept answering in practice: What capability do I really need to own? What work should no longer require a person? Where am I carrying fixed capacity against variable demand? Finance Team Structure: What to Own and What to Access A hybrid finance team combines in-house staff with outside capability such as fractional leaders, offshore accounting teams, specialists and AI tools. At TFIF 2026, speakers from very different organizations drew the line between the two in similar places. Owned Layer (In-House) Accessed Layer (Fractional, Outsourced or Specialist) What it depends on Inside context, relationships, final accountability Technical depth, periodic intensity, scalable volume Examples raised at TFIF Handling new vendors and unusual charges; grant accounting; reviewing reports; approving AI-assisted work Routine transaction booking; fractional CFO leadership; merger and scaling support; cost segregation, tax credit and insurance expertise Typical role of people Review, interpret, decide Produce, execute, advise The owned layer tends to be about context and relationships. Ottavio Siani , a fractional CFO who also runs an eight-location coffee business, described the split in his own company. His on-site finance person handles anything new, like an unfamiliar vendor or an unusual charge, while an offshore team handles routine booking. The in-house role shifts, in his words, to “You will be reviewing this report. You will not be producing the report.” Costa John , CEO of Chief Assignments, speaking on nonprofit finance, drew the line at the grant accountant, a role built on relationships with program leaders and funders that may not translate if outsourced. He also flagged a common mistake: hiring a fractional CFO for strategic work while the books still don’t close cleanly. The CFO gets pulled back into bookkeeping, which he called “the most expensive way to solve the wrong problem.” The accessed layer tends to be about depth or intensity. Naita Saechao Chialvo , a fractional CFO who works with nonprofits and social enterprises, described keeping a core internal team and flexing in outside expertise for mergers, scaling or strategic initiatives that internal teams, and often budgets, aren’t built for. The real estate panel made the same point about specialists in cost segregation, tax credits and insurance: the experts “fill out your dashboard, and then the owner gets to make decisions.” Stage changes the answer, and speakers read it differently . Thar Casey , CEO of AmberSemi, described a progression from bookkeeper to in-house accountant to fractional CFO once fundraising begins, with in-house leadership eventually needed because investors want institutional knowledge that stays. Others were less sure the flexible layer has to shrink. Marcus Guerro , President of Guerro Enterprises, described an interim placement scoped for two or three months that was still in place five years later. Siani said he had yet to see, at the small and mid-sized companies he works with, a hybrid model that outgrows its third-party resource. The two tend to grow together. Eric Valle , Director of Partnerships at Aduro Advisors, described a lean version of that model: “You don’t need to build an entire finance team, you kind of just need one controller and have that person manage out a team.” The shared conclusion wasn’t that one model wins. It was that team structure is now a decision made capability by capability, rather than a default. The Flexible Layer Only Works When it’s Integrated Access doesn’t come free. Guerro distinguished relationship-based partners from transactional staffing, and firms whose consultants are trained employees with managers behind them from individual contractors working alone. Siani asks prospective accounting partners how many clients each accountant carries (four or five is a good answer; 20 is a warning sign) and whether the team knows his industry. He sets communication rules early and spends the first months showing in-house staff that outside support is there to lighten an overloaded plate, not to replace them. AI in Finance is Changing the Work, and Accountability stays with a Person No session framed AI as a story about eliminating roles. The consistent message was that AI is changing what those roles consist of. The gains described were specific. Dawn Hatch , founding partner and CEO of MATAX, an AI-native accounting firm, pointed to transaction coding at volume, document extraction, first-pass reconciliation review and narrative drafting that gets “about 90% of the way there.” Her less obvious point: AI lets a team review 100% of transactions instead of a sample, so quality improves along with speed. Siani said that across a nine-month engagement rebuilding a client’s finance function, he “didn’t type a single formula into Excel.” He structured and quality-checked the models Claude built instead. The same speakers were blunt about limits. Blaze O’Byrne , co-Founder of Byron, whose company builds AI agents for CPA tax workflows, said the work “shouldn’t be fully handed off to AI today.” Hatch put it more directly: “the reviewer has to own the output, regardless of what is creating the draft.” Siani, who has been hired to clean up after clients adopted tools promising fully automated accounting, advised skepticism toward any such promise. Rusty Canada , co-founder of Ternpoint Solutions, said it “should scare companies” to picture an agent acting in the accounting system without oversight. Session moderator Kendrick Kho , Scrubbed’s Chief AI Officer, added that products branded as an “AI accountant” or “AI chief of staff” can quietly write the human review step out of the process. This connects to a principle De Leon carried from his years as a CTO: “Technology should remove the work. It should not remove the value.” If AI saves three hours and those hours fill with more of the same work, productivity rises. If they go toward understanding the business or making better decisions, the role itself changes. Kho described that shift in accounts payable, where people move from document capture toward vendor work and analysis. AI in Finance is Changing the Work, and Accountability stays with a Person Banning AI tools doesn’t stop their use, Canada noted; it pushes staff toward personal accounts. Kho shared anecdotes of mid-market companies without a ChatGPT business plan discovering 80–90% organic adoption anyway. The practices speakers recommended instead: Practice What It Means Raised By Classify the data, not the tool Tier data as public or anonymized, client-identifying and regulated, so people know what can go where  Hatch Keep an approved tools list with a fast path Vet training terms, retention and sub-processors quickly; slow approvals push people around the rules  Hatch Provide enterprise tools Give staff an enterprise AI account with limited access rather than leaving them to personal ones Canada, O'Byrne Surface Exceptions Route uncertain or unusual items to a person’s attention instead of asking them to recheck everything O'Byrne Name the approver Put a named person on every sign-off, with an audit trail O'Byrne, Hatch Check with a second model Use a separate AI to look for errors in the first one’s output O'Byrne  Run Evaluations Test workflows against known cases, and retest after any model or prompt change Hatch  Go deeper on where AI is delivering measurable ROI in accounting today . The Foundation Comes Before the AI If one idea ran through every AI discussion, it was that AI amplifies whatever it sits on. Hatch said pilots succeed when a documented process exists before the AI arrives and stall when it doesn’t. Otherwise, “you’re just making confusion faster.” Asked how she would spend a hypothetical $500,000 technology budget, she said AI would come last, after core systems, data hygiene and senior reviewers. Skipping those steps, she said, is “buying the faster way to wrong.” Not everyone ordered it that way. O’Byrne’s first move would be to put an enterprise version of ChatGPT or Claude in staff hands, then invest in cybersecurity. Canada would start with the systems stack and outside guidance. The disagreement was about sequence, not about whether the foundation matters. Abdul Wahab Zafar , SVP of Finance at Studycast, made the case from the systems side. Reliable financial data starts upstream: customer, contract and billing data need a common key tying them together. That’s why, in his view, AI makes finance both easier and harder. Reconciliations and reporting get faster, but deeper analysis breaks down when data from different systems doesn’t line up. He also argued that 90–95% data alignment is often more cost-effective than chasing the last 5%. Simplicity was a recurring defense. Zafar urged teams to fully use the systems they already have before buying new ones. Costa John advised growing nonprofits to start with the lightest accounting system that works. Satoshi Steimetz , CFO of Playworks, supplied the counterweight: across 16 regions and 12 departments, a spreadsheet budget is no longer possible. The right system depends on scale. Readiness is a Permanent Operating State Several sessions arrived at the same view of readiness for audits, fundraising, acquisitions and shocks: it’s a standing condition, not a project that starts when a deal appears. Casey described fielding three inbound acquisition inquiries while raising money and knowing his company wasn’t clean enough to respond. His advice: “readiness, readiness, readiness, be ready, always be ready.” Guerro framed the cost. Companies that save a few thousand dollars a year by under-investing in finance can lose millions in valuation when the books aren’t ready for diligence. Asked when a company should start preparing its back office for a possible acquisition, Zafar answered, “as of yesterday.” The real estate panel added a planning version. Blake Peters, founder of Peters Specialty Tax Services, said incentives such as R&D credits and energy efficiency deductions are often “looked at a little too late in the process,” once a project is well underway. Geraldine Serrano, Director of Specialty Tax Group, LLC described an owner-builder who missed tax benefits because the cost segregation conversation happened after construction decisions were made. Alex Gilmete, a commercial property and casualty advisor at USI Insurance Services, warned that a $10 million building could now cost $14 million to $15 million to replace, leaving policies written to old values short. Readiness, in these conversations, wasn’t about perfection. It was about not being surprised by questions that were always going to be asked. Read what mid-market leaders learned redesigning their finance function. Finance earns Trust by Being Early The planning and industry sessions shared a view of what makes finance valuable to leadership. It isn’t precision. It’s timing. Steimetz described a budget miss at Playworks that surfaced in the final quarter of the fiscal year, too late to respond. “The size of the miss mattered less than how late it surfaced.” The organization now reviews revenue weekly, refreshes the full forecast monthly and updates a five-year projection quarterly. His conclusion about boards: “Confidence is not built on being right, it’s built on being early with the information.” Cash was the common measure. Playworks holds enough cash for six months of operating expenses, which Steimetz said lets it absorb bad news and act on opportunities. Costa John suggested every nonprofit board packet show one number: how many days of cash expenses unrestricted, uncommitted reserves can cover. Zafar holds customer payment terms firm while negotiating longer vendor terms, keeping a cushion between cash in and cash out. Information also has to lead somewhere. Danielle Morris, a succession and governance strategist, argued that finance teams need predictive indicators because financial statements are lagging ones. Costa John said boards should get the forward look, its impact, and a range of choices, not a single option to approve or reject. This loops back to structure. A team consumed by closing the books has little time for forward-looking work, which is one reason speakers kept separating compliance capacity from strategic capacity. Explore how finance leaders plan when uncertainty is the baseline. A Diagnostic For Finance Leaders: 8 questions TFIF didn’t produce a universal answer, and its speakers would be the first to say it shouldn’t. Scrubbed CFO Aira Pineda offered a better starting point as she closed Session 1: “You don’t have to build the whole engine yourselves, you just have to know it well enough to know when something’s off, and who to call when it is.” Knowing your function that well starts with a few questions to work through with your team: Where is our finance team stretched? By volume, complexity or timing? Each points to a different fix. Which capabilities depend on the context only an insider has? Those are strong candidates to own. Where are we carrying fixed capacity for variable demand? Think technical accounting during an audit, FP&A during planning, or CFO-level work during a raise. Is our process documented well enough to automate? If not, that’s the first project, before any AI tool.   Who signs off on AI-assisted work, and do they know what they’re checking?   If an acquirer or auditor called tomorrow, would we trust our own data? How early does our board hear about a change in assumptions? If we bring in outside support, how will it work with our team, and who owns that relationship? The Org Chart is Becoming a Design Decision The last generation of finance teams was built by accumulation: a new need, a new hire. TFIF 2026 suggested the next will be built by design. Leaders will decide which capabilities to own, which to access, which work technology should take on, and where a person’s judgment has to stay. That’s harder than hiring by default. It takes knowing your processes well enough to redesign them, your data well enough to trust it, and your business well enough to tell what’s core from what isn’t. The speakers who had done that work described finance functions that held up better under pressure and gave leadership answers sooner. For most finance leaders, the question is no longer whether this shift is coming. It’s which part of their own function to rethink first. Explore the TFIF 2026 conversations Want to go deeper? Each session has its own article: How We Actually Built It (Session 1) : Mid-market leaders on the signs a finance function has outgrown its structure, vetting partners, and the first 90 days of a redesign. AI in the Finance Function (Session 2) : Where AI delivers ROI today, why pilots stall, and a practical governance model for finance teams. Planning Through Permanent Uncertainty (Session 3): Rolling forecasts, scenario planning, cash reserves and keeping board confidence when assumptions shift. Real Estate Spotlight (Session 4): Cost segregation, R&D credits and insurance strategy for multi-property portfolios. Nonprofit Spotlight (Session 4): Liquidity, restricted funds, board reporting and building finance capacity on a tight budget. Technology Spotlight (Session 4): Data integrity, usage-based revenue forecasting, cash flow discipline and M&A readiness. Building Your Finance Team (Session 5): Choosing between in-house and third-party support, vetting a partner, and scaling a hybrid model. Who Spoke at TFIF 2026 Session Moderator Speakers  Keynote: The Future Is Fractional   Vince De Leon, CEO, Scrubbed  Session 1: How We Actually Built It Aira Pineda, CFO, Scrubbed Thar Casey, CEO, AmberSemi; Eric Valle, Director of Partnerships, Aduro Advisors; Marcus Guerro, President, Guerro Enterprises Session 2: AI in the Finance Function  Kendrick Kho, Chief AI Officer Rusty Canada, Partner and Co-founder, Ternpoint Solutions; Dawn Hatch, Founding Partner and CEO, Matax; Blaze O’Byrne, Co-founder, Byron  Session 3: Planning Through Permanent Uncertainty Darwin Pangilinan, Chief Client Officer, Scrubbed  Satoshi Steimetz, CFO, Playworks; Naita Saechao Chialvo, Fractional CFOO and Consultant; Danielle Morris, Founder and Chief Strategist, Triconal   Session 4: Real Estate Spotlight Ejie De Jesus, Partner, Scrubbed Geraldine Serrano, Director, Specialty Tax Group; Alex Gilmete, Commercial Property and Casualty Advisor, USI Insurance Services; Blake Peters, Founder and Principal, Peters Specialty Tax Services Session 4: Nonprofit Spotlight  Laurence Ruelo, Director of Business Development, Scrubbed  Costa John, CAO, CFO Assignments Session 4: Technology Spotlight  Anthony John Rogador, Accounting Advisory Services Manager, Scrubbed Abdul Wahab Zafar, MBA, CMA, SVP of Finance, Studycast Session 5: Building Your Finance Team  Debra Andrews, CMO, Scrubbed Ottavio Siani, Founder, Triangle Coffee, and Fractional CFO The event was hosted by Ruth Angela Dela Cruz and Fran Redoblado.

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