Stepping into a CFO role comes with immediate pressure. Leadership expects results, the finance team is wondering what’s going to change, and you’re logging into a new system for the first time.
The temptation is to jump straight into strategy. But experienced finance leaders know that the first 90 days aren’t about making sweeping changes. Finance leaders already in the job suggest that your first steps should be operational and execution focused. Once those foundations are in place, then you can shift your focus to higher-level work.
We asked three finance leaders what incoming CFOs should prioritise during their first three months. Here’s what they said.
This roadmap is designed to help balance operational firefighting with long-term strategic planning, while uncovering hidden issues like inefficient processes, limited spend visibility, and spreadsheet debt.
Your first month is all about diagnosis, rather than decisions. “The first 90 days for a new CFO should be treated as a ‘diagnostic sprint’ rather than a prolonged settling-in period,” explains Ian Wright, SME expert and Managing Director of PayrollPrices.com.
Instead of jumping straight into strategic projects, focus on three key areas instead: cash, operations and people.
Every finance leader we spoke to highlighted cash flow as the number-one priority. Glen Morgan, CEO at itsettled, explains that a new CFO's first job is to understand how cash really moves through the business. “In my experience, the businesses that perform best financially are not always the most profitable on paper—they're the ones that convert profit into cash efficiently,” he explains.
Glen recommends mapping the entire order-to-cash cycle from beginning to end. Questions to ask include:
He adds that while management accounts and forecasts help, the real insight comes from understanding the operational processes behind the numbers.
Ian echoes this view, recommending that CFOs identify their CEO's biggest financial concern, pinpoint areas of weak financial control, and map the movement of cash from sale to collection. In his experience, these exercises reveal business pain points much faster than reviewing reports alone.
Des Cooney, financial consultant and financial advisor at Axis Financial Consultants, also suggests creating a clear picture of the organisation’s cash position. “By day 30, I would expect a reliable 13-week cash forecast delivered, along with agreement on the numbers among all leadership levels.”
Once you understand how cash flows through the business, it’s time to look at the systems and processes that support it. Raymond Gong, senior partner at Profitability Partners, recommends making sure that the fundamentals are in place across accounts receivable, accounts payable, and payroll. “You need to confirm that you can actually invoice and collect from customers, pay your vendors, and pay your team on time,” Raymond explains.
He adds that a lot of the time, you’ll uncover core operational problems in how these functions work, which are significantly slowing down or limiting the business. Revealing these early means strategic decisions you’ll make later won’t be undermined by disorganised systems, inconsistent data, or messy processes.
3. Meet the people behind the numbers
Financial reports rarely tell the full story. So within your first 30 days, don’t skip meeting each department head. “When a CFO has a deep understanding of the pressure points being experienced by their departments, they begin to become a ‘business partner,’ rather than simply the individual responsible for controlling the budget,” explains Ian.
According to Des, this is one of the most overlooked parts of the CFO role. While financial reports may appear healthy, many underlying issues stem from day-to-day friction between departments, limited spend visibility, or conflicting reporting metrics. He suggests speaking with everyone involved with financial processes, from top to bottom: “Included but not limited to finance, operations, sales, procurement, and departmental leaders.”
These conversations can help uncover issues or warning signs that don’t appear in financial dashboards but have a significant impact on financial performance.
Your first 30 days are also the perfect opportunity to identify the warning signs of hidden problems, for example, spreadsheet debt, poor spend visibility, or inefficient processes.
The experts we spoke to suggested watching out for common red flags like:
Glen added that when processes become more dependent on people rather than systems, risk increases significantly.
By this point, you’ve mapped how cash moves, verified systems, and met key stakeholders. That foundation should have provided a clear understanding of where the biggest challenges lie.
The next step is to demonstrate progress by fixing some of the issues you found.
Glen mentioned that many organisations are impacted by longstanding issues, and while everyone knows they exist, nobody owns them: “Resolving a major debtor dispute, streamlining approvals or improving month-end processes can demonstrate progress quickly,” he said.
These improvements don’t need to be transformational, either. The objective is to show that you can remove friction, optimise processes, and help the organisation operate more effectively.
Ian added that these kinds of quick wins help establish trust, something that’s essential as you start to make more of an impact on the finance function.
The 31-60 day period is also a good time to review working capital performance in detail. “That means looking beyond the headline cash balance and understanding debtor days, aged debt, creditor days and the accuracy of cashflow forecasting,” said Glen.
He added that these metrics often reveal opportunities and risks that aren’t immediately visible in the monthly accounts. In many cases, “unlocking cash already within the business often delivers faster results than seeking external funding or implementing major cost reduction programmes.”
With the foundations in place, days 61-90 are all about shifting towards a finance operating system that enables greater visibility, faster decisions, and better efficiency.
One of the most important contributions a new CFO can make is helping the rest of the leadership team get a better understanding of spend and performance.
“By day 90, I would provide department leaders with a simple overview of their monthly spend so that they don't have to call upon finance for every minor question,” says Des. This kind of visibility allows other teams to make more strategic decisions while strengthening your role as a strategic partner across business strategy, tech adoption, and operational efficiency.
AI and automation have become a standard part of the finance toolkit, but experts caution against using them as a starting point rather than an outcome.
Raymond points out that while AI makes repetitive work easier, it’s still a CFO's job to set up the processes first, and getting this initial set-up right needs judgement and skill. “These processes act like guardrails for AI,” he adds.
When identifying which processes to automate, Ian recommends implementing one project, like expense categorisation or automated invoice matching. Make sure to measure the time savings, so you can show your impact.
As Des explains, the objective of using AI and automation is to free up the time spent gathering data, so your finance team can provide better information more quickly, and spend more time analysing it.
Read more: Pleo’s AI vision for spend that runs itself
Before the end of your first 90 days, Des recommends writing a formal State of Finance Memorandum for delivery to the CEO and Board of Directors.
This should outline:
This document creates alignment around financial priorities and shows you’re thinking not just about operational firefighting, but also about long-term strategy and success.
The first 90 days aren’t about making big changes, but the pressure to show progress can still feel like a lot. By understanding how cash moves through the business, validating the systems behind the numbers, building cross-functional relationships, and improving visibility, you’ll create a strong foundation for everything that comes next.
Glen’s advice for this period is simple: “Focus on people, process, and cashflow. Get those fundamentals right and everything else becomes easier.”
Days 1-30:
- Build a reliable 13-week cash forecast
- Map the order-to-cash cycle
- Review AR, AP, and payroll workflows
- Meet department leaders
- Identify operational bottlenecks
- Assess spend visibility and reporting quality
Days 31-60
- Resolve at least one major friction point
- Review working capital performance
- Improve forecast accuracy
- Prioritise operational improvements
- Build trust across key stakeholder groups
Days 61-90
- Improve spend visibility for leaders
- Implement one automation initiative
- Deliver a State of Finance Memorandum
- Align leadership around finance priorities
- Establish a roadmap for the next 12 months
See how finance leaders use Pleo to gain full visibility into company spend and automate manual tasks, allowing their teams to reclaim time for high-value work.