Free E-book
Finance has always planned. Now it can act.
A practical guide for finance leaders. Learn the five-stage FP&Action loop, watch a forecast miss run the old way and then through the loop, and leave with five moves for your next two quarters.
Get E-book
What you'll learn
From seeing what’s coming to acting on it
The guide runs six short chapters. Here is what you walk away able to do, from spotting where your stack stops at the report to a plan for your next two quarters.
01
Name the era you’re in
Tell Era 2 reporting from Era 3 action with one test: when something changes in the business, who notices first, the system or a person with a spreadsheet? See where the work stops at each of the five stages, and why a bolted-on assistant helps with only one.
02
Run the FP&Action loop
Learn the five stages (understand, monitor, decide, act, learn) and how each one feeds the next. Then follow a forecast miss start to finish, first the old way and then through the loop, with the drift flagged weeks before close.
03
Build in the right order
Work up the stack: governed data, open access, finance agents with defined roles, and controlled write-back. Write approval rules for what the system may recommend, what it may change on its own, and what needs a named approver.
04
Start with one loop
Pick the forecast miss as your first loop. Trace ten figures from your last board deck to their transactions, set thresholds and owners, and move analyst time to testing briefs. Measure it by the time between a signal and a decision carried out.
INSIDE THE E-BOOK
Six chapters, from the reporting era to your next two quarters
The Reporting Era Is Ending
Three eras of finance technology, and what a report cannot do: notice, prepare, follow through, or remember.
Why Planning Software Stopped at the Report
Where the work stops at each of the five stages, and why a bolted-on assistant inherits the same limit.
The FP&Action Loop
Understand, monitor, decide, act, learn. Five stages that turn finance into an operating function.
The Forecast Miss, Start to Finish
The most common finance fire drill, run first the old way and then through the loop.
What Agentic Finance Requires
Governed data, open access, finance agents with defined roles, and write-back with controls.
What to Do in the Next Two Quarters
Five moves for finance leaders, and a note for the advisors who help them.
The next era of finance goes to the teams that close the gap between knowing and doing.
Cube · FP&Action: The Next Era of Finance
Who's behind it
Written by a three-time CFO
Christina Ross has been CFO three times, at companies from high-growth startups to global enterprises. This e-book comes out of a conversation she has had dozens of times, with controllers who were excellent at their jobs and still not ready for hers.
It ends where Cube starts. When 60 to 80 percent of a finance team's capacity goes to reconciliation, the strategic work never gets a calendar slot. Cube's four FP&Agents work on a single governed data layer, so the hours the close used to take go to the judgment only you can supply.
Get your copy
Get FP&Action: The Next Era of Finance
Six chapters, the five-stage FP&Action loop, a forecast miss run start to finish, and five moves for your next two quarters, plus a note for the advisors and partners who work alongside finance leaders. Yours in one download.
Free download
Get your copy
Tell us where to send it and the e-book lands in your inbox.
We’ll email you the download link right away.