By
the
way,
this
podcast
is
called
Agent
CFO.
And
I
think
the
idea
is
I
want
people
to
getconfused
whetherit's
Agent
007
or
the
AI
agent.
So
we're
going
to
talk
about
all
the
things
under
finance,accounting,
andeverything
falls
under
a
CFO,
right?
These
days
even
operations,
some
of
the
operations
arenow
under
CFOincluding
AP,
tax,
treasury,
accounting,
FP&A.

Welcome
Jason,
welcome
to
Agent
CFO
podcast.
It's
great
to
be
here.
We
had
a
lot
of
chatswith
coffee
today.We
don't
have
coffee,
but
we
can
still
chat
about
finance.

Jason
has
20
years
of
experience
in
finance.
He
worked
in
retail.
He
worked
in
wine
industry.Now
he'sworking
at
various
other
companies.
And
I'm
very
glad
to
have
him
here
today.
Welcome
Jason.

Great,
happy
to
be
here,
thank
you
so
much.

So
what
are
you
doing
these
days?

Yeah,
so
I'm
doing
a
lot
of
fractional
CFO
work.
My
primary
is
working
for
a
company
calledFoxit
Software.They're
a
SaaS
company,
kind
of
competing
with
Adobe.
But
yeah,
my
previous
company
was
withVovino,
whichis
the
largest
wine
app
in
the
world,
connecting
buyers
and
sellers.
And
before
that,
I
waswith
Gap
Inc.for
about
10
years.
And
really
coming
out
of
the
public
accounting
space,
right?
Deloitteand
Touche,
GrandThornton,
when
I
started
my
career.

I
mean,
I
know
you
from
GAP.
We
both
worked
at
GAP
for
a
really
long
time.
Jason,
how
doesretail
financediffers
from
other
industries?
Is
it
totally
different
or
are
there
similarities?

I
mean,
there's
similarities
across
all
industries
when
it
comes
to
finance.
When
you'relooking
at
your
P&L,your
balance
sheet,
and
your
cash
flow
statement.
But
I
would
say
that
when
you're
talkingabout
retail,you're
talking
about
physical
inventory
and
movement
of
that
physical
inventory
andcapitalizing
certaincosts
and
so
on
and
so
forth.
At
the
end
of
the
day,
you're
creating
a
financial
statementthat
is
accurateand
under
US
general
accepted
accounting
principles.
So
they're
both
similar,
but
eachindustry
has
itsspecific
accounting
guidance
that
goes
with
it.

That's
right.
I
think
that
the
understanding
of
industry
is
very
important.
If
you're
talkingabout
aclothing
company,
it's
not
about
design
or
the
brand
or
the
manufacturing
part
of
it.
It
isabout
supplychain.

How
do
you
manufacture,
and
you're
not
even
doing
it,
you're
outsourcing
it
to
a
differentcompany,
how
doyou
design
somewhere,
send
it
to
this
outsourced
firm,
they
actually
make
it,
then
how
doyou
ship
them
veryefficiently
to
the
country
where
you're
going
to
sell
and
then
distribute
to
each
store?
Andyou
have
thesedifferent
stores,
different
brands,
how
do
you
distribute
all
this
stuff
based
on
designcosts,
where
theyare
located.
And
I
think
that's
where
the
competitive
advantage
is
for
a
retail
company,even
though
fromoutside
we
only
see
a
brand,
right?
Did
you
get
that
understanding
very
easily
while
youwere
at
Gap?

Yeah,
no,
it's
really
fascinating
when
you're
talking
about
finance
too.
It's
kind
ofmin-maxing
every
littlepart
of
the
supply
chain
in
order
to
minimize
costs
but
increase
efficiency,
right?
So
youhave
to
do
a
lotof
thought
process
with
the
business
to
understand
where
can
we
create
efficiencies,
notonly
in
cost,
butsometimes
it's
actually
more
important
to
increase
the
cost
in
order
to
speed
up
some
partof
the
supplychain
because
later
on
that
creates
more
revenue
in
for
the
company
at
Gap.

Right.
You
worked
as
a
VP
of
Finance.
What
do
they
usually
get
wrong
when
people
hear
aboutthis
job?

Yeah,
so
I
think
there's
a
lot
of
different
types
of
VPs
of
finance.
Are
you
focused
on
justthe
accountingside
or
are
you
focused
more
on
the
FP&A
side?
Sometimes
VPs
of
finance
can
be
acting
CFOs.They'rereporting
right
into
the
CEO
and
doing
presentations
to
the
board
of
directors.
Sometimesthey're
not.

And
I
think
you
said
it
best
earlier
when
you
were
talking
about
how
finance
has
really
kindof
taken
on
moreand
more
these
days,
not
just
accounting,
FP&A,
treasury,
right?
But
it's
also
businessintelligence,
humanresources,
right?
And
what
I'd
like
to
think
is
that
we've
kind
of
taken
over
the
backoffice,
so
to
speak,right?
And
I
think
that's
where
when
someone
says
they're
a
VP
of
Finance,
you
really
wantto
dig
in,
maybescratch
the
surface
a
little
bit
more
to
find
out.

Yeah,
you
can,
I
mean,
it's
so
general
that
you
can
be
a
controller,
you
can
be
an
FP&A,
oryou're
eventaking
care
of
tax
or
treasury
part
of
it,
right?
But
it
became
a
very
general
leadershiprole
as
a
VP
ofFinance.
And,
or
even
you
could
be
taking
care
of
all
the
financial
systems
as
well.

Yeah,
that's
a
huge
part
of
it,
right?
Making
sure
your
ERP
system
is
in
place,
but
alsoimplementingtechnology,
you
know,
speeding
up
these
days
with
AI
that
is
allowing
us
to
be
moreefficient,
but
you
dokind
of
need
to
keep
your
ear
to
the
ground
to
see
what
new
tools
are
out
there
and
applythose
new
tools.

There
is,
that's
the
other
thing
too,
right?
You
talk
about
VP
of
Finance,
you're
also
doingsystem
work.Like
operational
flows
and
backend
office
and
you
get
involved
with
the
order
managementteam
and
the
cashapplications
team
and
like
all
these
in
the
sales
team.
It's
like
we're
connected
throughoutthe
entireorganization
and
you're
just
trying
to
make
that
as
efficient
as
possible,
right?

And
in
terms
of
influence,
how
influential
is
your
VP
of
Finance
role?

I
think
they
need
to
be
hyper
influential,
right?
They
need
to
be
able
to
communicate
witheverybody
in
theorganization,
right?
From
top
to
bottom.
They
need
to
be
able
to
present
to
the
all
handsand
get
people
whomaybe
are
not
financially
savvy
to
understand
the
importance
of
their
role
and
how
they
playinto
the
PNL,right?
How
they
play
into
the
financial
performance
of
the
company.
So
I
actually
think
a
VPof
finance
isthe
glue
that
kind
of
holds
the
company
together
in
a
lot
of
ways.

We
should
know
every
kind
of
challenge
that
the
business
has
happened,
that's
happening
tothe
business
andbe
able
to
connect
those
dots.
So
a
good
VP
of
Finance
is
communicating
with
all
thosedepartmental
leaders,but
also
bringing
that
up
to
the
board
and
even
other
senior
leadership
like
the
CEO
or
theC-level.

And
I
think
a
good
VP
of
Finance
has
that
empathy
towards
the
business
to
help
them
succeedand
not
to
justfocus
on
compliance
rules
or
not
just
to
focus
on
the
nitpicky
details
about
finance.
Youknow
people,
theysay
no
to
everything,
right?
They're
always
trying
to
cut
costs,
they're
always
trying
tocontrol
stuff,right?
And
it's
like,
no,
we
need
to
be
supportive
of
our
business
partners
so
that
they
cangenerate
moremoney
and
focus
on
the
business.
And
if
you
can
flip
that
narrative,
you're
gonna
find
thatyou're
gonna
bea
much
more
effective
VP.

That's
right.
I
think
this
is
a
role
where,
correct
me
if
I'm
wrong,
you're
influential.
It'salso
aleadership
role,
but
at
the
same
time,
it
has
to
be
hands
on.
You
can't
be
far
away
from
theprocess
beingat
that
leadership
level,
because
now,
since
as
you
said,
you're
a
glue.
That
means
you
areexpected
toperform
a
few
things
by
yourself.

You
have
to
back
up
your
numbers.
You
have
to
have
your
own
reasoning.
But
at
the
same
time,also
be
able
tobe
strategic
and
analytical
about
the
data
that
you
see.

You're
absolutely
right.

But
if
you
weren't
in
finance,
what
do
you
think
you
would
be
doing?

I
have
a
psychology
or
something.
I
find
people
absolutely
fascinating,
right?
And
I
thinkthat
that's
thefunnest
part
of
the
finance
for
me
is
getting
away
from
the
numbers
and
getting
closer
tothe
people
thatoperate
the
business,
right?

Right.
And
now
with
AI,
and
we
all
thought
2025
would
be
a
transformational
year
for
finance.It
didn't
turnout
to
be.
I
mean,
to
be
honest,
right,
we
have
seen
tools,
we
have
seen
functionalities,
wehave
seenagents
doing
operations.
But
I
think
in
2024,
we
expected
a
big
bang,
even
though
even
Iwalk
in
AI
day
inand
day
out.

I
expected
a
big
bang
kind
of
impact
on
our
processes.
And
particularly
in
finance,
I
don'tthink
thathappened.
I
think
we
are
just
naive
to
think
everything
will
change
in
a
day
or
two.
But
nowcoming
into2026,
I
think
we'll
see
this
incremental
change
happening.
The
pace
might
pick
up,
but
Ithink
it
will
stillbe
a
slow,
more
cautious
and
careful
approach
that
we'll
all
take
an
approach
towards
AI.What
do
you
think?

I
think
you're
right.
I
think
you're
right.
I
think
there's
a
lot
of
exciting
things
that
AIcan
do
for
usand
we're
excited
to
see
it
do
for
us.
I
don't
know
if
we've
really
seen
it
in
a
package
yetthat
has
been,I
mean,
for
lack
of
a
better
word,
sexy
for
the
finance
folks,
right?
It's
like
we
know
whatit
can
do,
butwe
just
haven't
seen
anybody
implement
it
in
the
right
way.
And
what's
funny
is
that
whenyou
look
atindustry
leaders
like
Oracle
who
owns
NetSuite,

You
look
at
their
NetSuite
tool
and
it's
rather
lacking
in
a
lot
of
these
areas
that
youwould
expect
wouldalmost
be
implemented
by
now,
right?
When
it
comes
to
AI
and
supporting,
you
know,
automaticreconciliations,
P2P
processes,
I
think
it's
ironic
that
these
big
ERPs,
there's
a
lot
oftools
that
we
buyexternally
from
Oracle
to
kind
of
sit
on
top
of
NetSuite
to
do
the
things
that
NetSuitecan't
do.
And
maybeAI
will
just
be
one
more
layer
that
sits
on
top
of
our
ERP
system.

I'm
really
excited
for
the
day
where
we
can,
I
can
almost
chat
with
my
ERP
system.
I
can
chatwith
my
PNL.
Ican
chat
with
my
balance
sheet
and
understand
what
is
causing
this
flux?
What
is
causingthis
change
yearover
year
or
month
over
month?
Where
are
my
problems
at,
right?
Understanding
my
cashflow,understanding
myrevenue
and
my
customers,
right?
To
be
able
to
communicate
with
it
and
communicate
with
thedata
using,
youknow,
language,
you
know,
English
language
and
like
an
LLM.
I
think
that
that's
going
to
bea
game
changer.

Have
you
seen
Chatfin
yet?
I'm
just
kidding.
Right.
You
know,
we
have
been
building
Chatfinfor
a
while.There
is
always
this
AGI
goal
of
having
this
100%
automated
systems
that
talks
to
you,
butalso
that
canmanage
everything
internally
without
our
human
intervention.

As
we
work
on
this,
actually
realized
it's
pretty
difficult
to
build
it,
not
because
of
themodels.
Modelsare
already
really
smart,
but
because
of
the
context
it
needs
to
make
that
decision.
Whenyou
are
a
VP
offinance,
you
have
20
years
of
experience
that
you
brought
in.
Worked
in
a
lot
of
companies,you
work
hard,you
failed,
all
that
expertise
that
you
bring
it
in,
giving
that
expertise
to
AI
almostfeels
impossible
atthis
point
of
time.
And
I'm
talking
about
in
December,
2025,
right?
Things
could,
canchange.

So
managing
that
context
in
a
way
that
can
be
easily
changed.
For
example,
we're
talkingabout
a
retailindustry,
totally
different
context
to
a
manufacturing
different
context.
And
then
alsotaking
layers
thatare
similar
and
managing
that.
That
has
been
a
very
difficult
task
and
that's
probably
theanswer
why
if
youexpect
a
large
companies
already
in
the
market
to
have
solved
it
because
still
no
one
knowshow
to
managethis
context
at
that
big
scale.

When
we
build
Chatfin,
this
is
what
we
realized,
you
can't
really
approach
this
problem
asone
big
bangrather
than
you
can
actually
take
up
multiple
pain
points
and
take
each
pain
point
and
solvethem
and
thenyou
can
unify
them
as
you
move
forward.
That
seems
to
be
a
much
more
manageable
approach,taking
AI
andfinance.
And
have
you
seen
any
other
tools
in
the
market
right
now
that
you
think
are
veryinteresting?

Yeah,
there's
so
many
tools
right
now
that
it's
almost
overwhelming.
So
for
instance,
you'relooking
at
likea
procure
to
pay
process,
right?
And
you're
trying
to
streamline
that.
There's
tools
likechatfin
that
areusing
AI
to
automate
end-to-end
procurement,
right?
So
new
vendor
approval
process,
purchaseorders,approvals,
invoices
coming
in,
AI
scanning
the
invoice,
booking
it
into
your
ERP
system,then
ultimatelyeven
helping
you
pay
that
vendor
all
with
a
very
streamlined
processes
with
the
AI
kind
ofin
the
backgroundand
they
say
that
the
AI
is
learning,
right?
So
every
new
invoice
it
gets
in
and
how
youcode
it,
itcontinues
to
learn
so
that
you
can
touch
it
less
and
less
as
time
goes
on,
right?
So
that'sjust
one
exampleof
one
tool,
but
even
drafting
accounting
memos,

Utilizing
the
internet,
what's
already
out
there,
I
mean,
I
was
playing
around
with
Geminieven
and
you
know,ChatGPT
and
others
where
they
can
look
at
the
codification,
the
US
GAAP
codification
to
helpyou
draft
anaccounting
memo.
Say
like,
hey,
I
got
this
issue,
how
do
I
account
for
it?
What
guidance
isgonna
help
meget
there,
right?
And
you
you
still
have
to,
it
helps
you,
you
still
have
to
read
theguidance
and
make
sureit's
right,
but
it
guides
you
there
much
faster
than
a
simple
Google
search
ever
would,right?

That's
right.
And
you
remember,
you
and
me,
we
had
this
conversation
probably
a
year
agothinking
about
whereAI
can
be
applied
and
FP&A
process.
If
you
take
budgeting,
long-term
planning,
how
do
we
doit?
For
today,let's
take
an
example
of
budgeting,
Such
a
manual
process.
You
take
small
company
tomid-size
company
tolarge
company,
still
very
manual
process.

I
think
the
only
automation
probably
we
have
done
is
having
a
planning
tool
and
thensubmitting
all
the
dataat
a
line
item
level
to
that
and
then
consolidating
it.
That's
the
only
automation
I
thinkwe
have
done
inbudgeting.
What
do
you
think?
I
mean,
even
if
we
leave
AI,
can
you
envision
how
an
automatedbudgetingprocess
should
look
like?

The
tricky
thing
is
that
people
are
involved.
People
are
involved.
Why
are
people
involved?Because
they
haveideas
of
what
the
future
is
going
to
be.
They
have
to
create
the
initiatives.
So
you've
gotan
R&D
teamwho's
maybe
developing
a
new
product,
they
got
a
new
initiative.
They're
gonna
roll
that
outin
a
certainperiod
of
time.
And
then
you've
got
the
sales
team
that
have
to
go
out
and
sell
it.
And
soyou've
got
kindof
this
roadmap
roughly
and
you've
got
all
these
people
involved.

You
can
collect
data
from
them.
You
can
say,
fill
out
this,
you
know,
Excel
file,
right?
Fillout
thesenumbers.
When
do
you
think
this
is
gonna
go
live?
How
much
revenue
do
you
think
that's
gonnabring
in?
Thechallenge
is
that
they're
not
finance
people.
So
there
needs
to
be
some
kind
of
financelens,
right?
Thatgoes
through.
It's
like,
well,
what's
amortized
revenue?

It's
capturing
that
human
element
and
capturing
that
human
data,
running
it
through
kind
of
afinancial
lensand
then
putting
that
into
a
budget
and
a
monthly
budget
that
other
people
will
believe.
Theboard
ofdirectors
looks
at
it
and
goes
like,
okay,
that
seems
achievable.
The
CEO
says
that'sachievable,
right?Based
on
what
we
want
to
accomplish.
And
AI
I
think
can
get
there.
But
it's
taking,
it'sthose
meetings,it's
those
budget
meetings.
The
reason
it
takes
so
long
is
you're
having
these
budgetmeetings
and
planningmeetings
and
the
finance
people
are
trying
to
take
what
everything
is
said
and
again,
put
itinto
financialterms.
So
that's
gonna
be
very
tricky.

Now
where
budgeting
and
AI
can
meet,
I
think
is
baseline
run
rates,
right?
Show
me
thehistorical
data.
Whatdo
you
think
is
gonna
project
out
the
future
based
on
10
years
of
data
or
five
years
of
dataand
give
mesome
kind
of
baseline,
right,
that
I
can
work
off
of.
And
I
think
that
can
speed
up
theprocess
quite
a
bitbecause
finance
doesn't
have
to
do
as
much
work
to
kind
of
build
those
out.
But
that
layer,that
human
layeron
top
is
really
tricky
to
kind
of
support
with
AI.

That's
right.
I
think
it's
the
modeling
part
as
well.
If
we
take
a
line
item
level,
the
kindof
model
or
thekind
of
equation
you
use
to
generate
numbers
for
that
line
item.
I'm
talking
about
budgetingor
forecasting.That's
going
to
vary
from
line
item
to
line
item.
That's
going
to
vary
from
industry
toindustry.
That'sgoing
to
vary
from
department
to
department.

Because
at
a
company
whole,
we
don't
think
about
how
many
Excel
files
we
have,
right?
At
somepoint,
we
don'teven
care
how
people
come
up
with
modeling.
We
just
say,
what
is
your
output?
Just
upload
itinto
thisconsolidated
system.
But
if
the
system
can
understand
all
the
modeling,
right?
All
the
Excelsheets
you
havein
the
company,
I
think
that
would
become
very
valuable
because
now
it
can
generalize
and
itcan
alsoremember
all
the
modeling
that
needs
to
be
done
that
goes
into
a
line
item.
And
it
can
alsobring
in
datafrom
various
other
industries,
how
that
is
done
for
the
specific
line
item.

And
again,
now
this
goes
back
to
the
question
of
how
do
you
manage
all
this
context
to
getthere.
If
AI
cando
modeling
really
well,
modeling
is
not
just
as
come
up
with
an
equation
with.
Itremembers,
it
cangeneralize
it.
You
actually
don't
need
a
planning
tool.
You
can
just
manage
everything
inExcel
because
nowyou
are
not
doing
it.
You
are
not
checking
every
formula.
You're
just
talking
about
highlevel
assumptions,but
the
rest
of
the
modeling
can
be
done
in
Excel
by
AI.

Yeah,
that
would
be,
I
think
that
would
be
very
helpful.

So
tell
me
in
terms
of
your
career,
you
came
from
big
four
audits
and
then
you
came
intothese
big
companiesand
you
worked
there,
you
went
into
leadership
position.
What
do
you
think
what's
one
habityou
had
early
inyour
career
that
you
wish
you
unlearned
very
early?

Yeah,
you
know,
if
I
had
to
pick
one,
I
think
it
would
be
over
indexing
on
perfection
overspeed.
Right?
So,you
know,
in
accounting,
and
that's
kind
of
where
I'm
bread
and
butter
auditing
andaccounting,
the
detail,you
need
to
be
exact,
right?
Like
the
number
of
units
come
in,
number
of
dollars,
all
exact,right?
But
theproblem
is
as
you
get
into
finance
and
leadership
and
FP&A
and
stuff,
the
focus
on
exactmodels
andhistorical
trends
and
inputs
is
you
gotta
be
careful.
You
can
go
way
too
deep,
way
tooquickly
and
createthis
massive
model
that
is
so
complex
that
is
based
on
definitely
some
good
inputs
and
somerealities
andget
that
in
the
hands
of
leaders
and
business
partners
faster
to
review
that
so
that
you
canthen
tweak
it,right?

So
you
get
a
lot
of
junior
people,
and
even
myself
included,
who
are
kind
of
like,
okay,well,
this
is
gonnabe
the
thing.
We're
gonna
hit
this
by
the
end
of
December,
right?
And
the
probability
ofthat
occurring,
thefurther
out
you
go,
the
worse
chance
you
are
to
hit
that
thing.
So
spending
too
much
timetrying
toperfectionalize
your
model
is
not
a
really
good
use
of
your
time,
necessarily,
right?

But
isn't
accuracy
expected
from
you?
It's
like
a,
it's
an
expected
quality.

Right,
so
we
need
to
know
that
that
stigma
exists
and
tell
people
that
we're
not
oracles,right?
We're
onlyas
good
as
the
inputs
we're
given
and
that's
why
ranges
come
into
play
a
lot.
And
actuallythe
best
thingthat
I've
ever
learned
in
my
career
is
not
only
to
build
the
model,
and
instead
of
telling,asking
forleadership's
input
on
that
model,
so
you
build
the
model
so
that
you
can
tweak
it,
right?
Asyou'representing
it
to
leadership
and
say,
well,
what
do
you
think?
If
we
change
this
number,
thispercentagepoint
by
like
10
basis
points,
it
does
this.
And
they
go,
okay,
well,
yeah,
we'll
crank
thatup
to
20
basispoints.
What
happens
then?
And
you
get
them
involved
in
that
forecasting,
right?
And
nowwhatever
does
occuris
not
just
on
the
FP&A
team,
now
it's
on
the
leadership
team
and
the
FP&A
team.
So
you
makeit
a
usforecast
and
not
just
a
FP&A
forecast.

Yeah,
that's
also
spreading
out
our
risk
to
more
people.

Yeah,
right.
But
also
getting
more
input.
You
know,
again,
we
are
seen
as
somehow
magicaloracles,
right?
Andlike,
I
have
seen
and
worked
at
companies
where
it's,
FP&A
is,
you
know,
performance
isdependent
upon
thevariance
from
which
actuals
occur.
Now,
FPNA,
it's
very
important
to
help
plan,
predict,strategize,
but
Ican
guarantee
you
in
12
months,
something
in
that
model
that
you
didn't
predict
is
gonnahappen,
right?Something
is
gonna
happen—a
merger,
new
competitive
person,
a
contract
falls
through,
a
newsurprise
goodcontract
comes
in.
Life
happens,
right?
And
that's
why
I
actually
prefer
monthly
forecastingcycles
thanbig,
expansive
budget
models
and
things
like
that.
I
just
don't
think
that
those
are
asuseful.

Just
correct
me
if
I'm
wrong,
but
I
feel
like
as
the
company
grows
big
and
the
corp
FP&A,particularly
corpFP&As,
they
are
far
from
operational
finance.
Because
if
you
think
about
it
really
big,let's
say
we'retalking
about
manufacturing
company,
right?
If
you're
in
a
corp
FP&A,
how
much
do
you
thinka
corp
FP&Aperson
is
aware
of
what
happens
in
a
factory
and
what
is
really
impacting
the
operationalpart
of
it.

So
the
way
GAP
actually
did
this
was
we
had
FP&A
people
down
throughout
the
chain.
So
you
hadlike
littleregional
FP&A
people
who
would
be
closer
to
the
business
who
would
then
feed
that
up
to
thenext
level
ofFP&A
people
who
would
then
feed
that
up
to
the
next
level.
And
what's
interesting
is
that
asyou
move
up,the
materiality
of
your
forecast
changes
quite
a
bit,
right?
So,
you
know,
if
you're
down
atthe
regionallevel,
you're
like,
man,
$1,000
is
kind
of
a
big
deal
to
us.
But
you
go
to
the
corporatelevel
and
it'slike,
maybe
it's
5
million
is
the
threshold
before
they
even
start
to
care,
right?
And
so
Ithink
they
did
areally
good
job.
And
I
think
Gap
Inc
is
probably
one
of
the
best
when
it
comes
toforecasting
and
planningand
budgeting
at
that
corporate
level.
They
really,
really
had
a
good
system.
And
thatfeeding
ofinformation
upwards,
I
think,
allowed
leadership
to
trust
those
numbers
with
more
certaintythan
I
thinkother
companies
who
are
just
like,
we've
got
one
FP&A
team,
and
that's
it.

That
makes
sense.
When
we're
talking
about
the
processes,
you
have
seen
it
in
really
largecompanies
to
midcompanies,
right?
What
do
you
think
that
we
are
doing
right
now,
which
is
an
outdatedprocess,
which
will
goaway
in,
let's
say,
next
two,
three
years?
What
is
one
finance
process?

Wow,
there's
probably
a
lot.
There's
one
I
hope
goes
away,
which
is
just
the
whole
procure
topay
cycle,
man.It
is,
you
know,
I'm
surprised
by
the
amount
of
companies
that
I
talk
to
or
work
with
orother
CFOs
wherethey
still
have
like
an
AP
team.
They
still
have
a
team
where
they're
literally
gettinginvoices
emailed
tothem.
And
then
they're
going
to
the
internal
business
partner,
hey,
is
this
the
rightamount?
Can
you
stampthis
PDF
with
your
approval?
Right?
And
then
they
manually
put
it
into
the
ERP
system,
andthen
there'sanother
approval,
and
then
there's
a
payment
later
on,
and
it's
just
like
this
wildly
clunkyprocess,
and
inthis
day
and
age,
it
just
shouldn't
exist.

You
should
have
an
accounting
team
that
maybe
spends
a
couple
of
hours
a
week
on
pushing
outpayments
versustwo
or
three
AP,
dedicated
accounts
payable
accountants,
which
is
wild.
We
don't
need
thatanymore.
That'santiquated,
that's
gone.
But
I'm
surprised
by
how
it
still
exists.
And
maybe
that's
for
yourpoint,
when
youtalk
about
AI
in
the
future,
it's
like,
wow,
if
we're
not
even
adopting
enhanced
procure
topay
tools,
as
ina
finance
kind
of
group,
it's
like,
man,
AI,
adopting
AI
feels
far
away
for
some.
The
firstprocess
that
Ithink
will
disappear
is
just
the
whole
accounts
payable
process.
There
is
such
a
better
wayto
run
all
ofthis.

That's
right.
One
of
the
interesting
things
is
you
know
ChatFin
can
query,
can
reconcile,
canprocessdocuments
and
it
can
forecast.
But
one
of
the
very
surprising
feature
that
our
users
reallylove
is
documentprocessing.
I
never
imagined
it.
I
always
worked
in
large
companies
so
I
was
never
veryclose
to
thatdocument
processing
part
of
it.
But
what
users
really
love
is,
I
have
these
contracts
thatare
all
indifferent
structures.
I've
seen
contracts
where
there
is
an
Excel
table
that
is
copy
pastedin
there
withmerge
cells.
So
it's
just
a
nightmare
to
even
standardize
contracts.
How
do
you
even
getextract
things
fromthere,
right?
We
said,
yeah,
Chatfin
can
do
it.
Chatfin
has
much
better
way
rather
than
justwe'll
see
howit'll
do
multiple
things
and
we'll
do
it.
And
people
love
it.
They're
like,
it
can
read
thecontract?
Yeah,we
say
yes.
Can
it
read
a
remittance
advice?
Yes.
Invoice,
yes.
So
that's
once,
which
usedto
be
a
verymanual
process
to
actually
not
just
reading
a
contract
or
reading
an
invoice,
but
what
doyou
do
after
that?Right?
If
you
can
combine
all
this,
that
becomes
very
powerful.
So
hopefully
in
the
nexttwo,
three
years,no
one
has
to
read
documents
manually.
There
will
be
systems
that
can
do
it
pretty
good,unless
it's
kind
oflike
a
doctor's
handwriting.

Yeah,
I
know.
I
love
that.
Take
the
small
problems
that
we
have
and
fix
it
with
AI.
And
thenyou're
fixingthose
small
problems
and
that'll
layer
up
finally
to
get
to
the
bigger
kind
of
problems.
Butif
AI
can
justsolve
those
small
things
that
just
take
so
much
time
and
just
speed
that
up,
theneverybody's
gonna
see
thevalue
of
AI
and
start
adopting
it
more
and
more
rather
than
expecting
it's
going
to
doeverything
that
theERP
system
can
do.
It's
going
to
do
everything
that
the
budget
can
do.

And
coming
back
to
the
outdated
finance
process,
what
is
that
outdated
finance
process
youthink
needs
to
betaken
away?

Okay,
controversial
maybe
a
little
bit.
I'm
gonna
go
out
here.
I'm
gonna
say
budgeting.Budgeting
should
goaway.
Just
look
setting
targets
is
great,
right?
We
all
need
targets.
But
the
truth
withbudgets
is
that
itbecomes
outdated
come
February,
right?
You
spend
all
this
time
in
December
setting
up
thesebudgets
andeverybody
and
their
mother
is
inputting
into
this
thing
and
you
build
it
out
by
month
andblah,
blah,
andthen
come
February,
it's
already
messed
up.

So
instead
of
hyper
focusing
on
these
budgets,
I
would
rather
the
business
focus
onforecasting,
like
kind
ofkeeping
that
forecast
alive,
but
also
spending
more
time
on
the
unit
economics,
the
margins,the
ROI
fromyour
marketing
expense,
your
R&D
investment
and
what
you're
getting
out
of
that,
right?
Andreally
focus
theenergy
towards
even
cashflow,
it
depends
on
the
level
of
the
company
or
where
it's
at
andwhat
the
size
is,but
understanding
your
cashflow
and
your
runway
and
trying
to
forecast
and
manage
thatbetter.
There's
gotto
be
a
better
way,
right?
I
think
there
is.
I
think
there
is.

I'm
going
to
make
you
very
popular.
I'm
going
to
make
the
world
like
Jason
thinks
budgetingshould
die.People
will
love
you
or
people
will
hate
you.

That's
it,
yeah.

And
now,
just
talking
about
your
career,
right?
If
you're
starting
your
finance
career
today,what
do
youthink
you
would
do
differently?
A
little
differently.

You
know,
I
think
I
wished
that
I
understood
the
importance
of
people
earlier
on,
right?
AndI
know
that'skind
of
been
a
theme
throughout
everything
we've
talked
about
here
today,
but
you
know,
likeearly
in
mycareer
as
an
auditor,
I
actually
found
some
rather
large
errors
in
a
financial
statement
ofa
company,right?
And
boy
was
I
excited,
right?
I
found
problems,
right?
And
I
went
straight
away
tothe
controller
ofthis
company
and
I
was
like,
look,
I
found
this
problem,
like
it's
$10
million
and
blah,blah.
And
Iexpected,
you
know,
an
applause.
I
expected
just,
oh,
a
big
thank
you,
you
found
this
thing,let's
fix
it,right?
But
the
exact
opposite
happened,
he
got
angry,
right?
He
was
not
happy
with
thisfinding,
because,you
know,
I
think
because
of,
you
know,
from
an
ego
standpoint,
it
was
kind
of
on
him.
Itwas
kind
of
hisfault
and
I
didn't
stop
to
think
about
how
he
would
receive
this
information.

Nor
did
I
take
the
time
to
think
about
how
to
present
that
information
in
a
way
that
maybe
hecould
eithersave
face
or
you
know
come
along
with
that
journey
with
me.
Right?
And
so
I
actually
tend
tobe
very
luckythat
I
learned
this
very
early
on.
Right?
That
people
may
not
always
want
to
hear
what
youhave
to
say
froma
finance
perspective.
And
a
lot
of
the
times
they
don't.
A
lot
of
the
times
you
actuallybring
bad
news,right,
as
a
finance
individual.
And
shooting
the
messenger
is
a
very
common
problem.
So
howdo
you
flipthat?
How
do
you
make
sure
that
you
approach
this
individual
that
you're
talking
toappropriately
based
onwhat
you
know
about
that
person
based
on
where
they're
at
what
their
goals
are
all
of
thatand
having
thatempathy
towards
them
has
really
shaped
my
career,
my
leadership
style.

Because
you
can
deliver
those
tough
messages
in
a
way
that
they
do
receive
it
well
and
thenmaybe
you
knowapplaud
or
even
you
give
away
the
reward
of
it
or
the
feeling
of
gratification
of
you
foundsomethinginstead
I
would
have
been
like,
hey,
controller,
you
found
this,
right?
And
switch
thenarrative,
right?
Andmake
sure
that
he
felt
like
he
was
the
one
finding
the
error
and
telling
his
leadership
teamand
not
theauditors,
right?
And
that
would
have
built
much
better
client
satisfaction,
right?
So
Ithink
overall
that'sthe
one
career
kind
of
mistake
I
made,
but
learned
early
on.
And
that's
changed
everythingsince.

It's
in
the
ideal
world,
it
shouldn't
even
matter,
right?
The
good
news
or
the
bad
news,that's
the
onlything
that
matters.
It's
not
about
how
it
is
delivered.
But
we
don't
live
in
ideal
world.And
there
are
alot
of
people
might
think,
right?
I
can
be
straightforward
and
I
will
get
things
done.
Andthat's
it.
Idon't
want
to
participate
in
it.
But
since
we
live
in
this
maze
of
humans
and
emotions
andthis
works
atvarious
levels,
it
works
at
a
boardroom
level,
it
works
at
a
C-suite
level
and
it
works
atan
analyst
leveland
someone
who
knows
how
to
manage
this
and
again
you
can
just
keep
it
aside,
think
aspolitics,
right?
Butthat's
a
very
over
simplistic
way
of
looking
at
the
human
dynamics.

Thank
you,
Jason.
Thank
you
so
much
for
spending
time
with
us.
Thank
you
for
sharing
all
yourinsights
onretail
finance,
AI,
budgeting,
and
leadership.
It's
been
a
very
enlightening
conversationand
I
really
hopepeople
will
find
it
useful.
Thank
you
for
spending
time
with
us.

Thank
you
so
much,
Ashok.
I
really
appreciate
it.