[ TL;DR ]
Prepare the work. Review the evidence. Keep the decision with the CFO.
A board meeting is coming on Thursday. An investor meeting follows on Friday. The finance team is still working through close. Before the CFO can focus on either meeting, someone needs to assemble the figures, explain the movements, check cash and identify decisions that cannot wait.
CSM built a finance operating-system demonstration around that preparation. It brings together workspaces, specialist agents, records and procedures, showing how a finance function could prepare more of the work before asking a leader to review it. The walkthrough follows a service accrual and a delayed customer receipt.
Omnia, the conversational assistant, connects a question to the information behind an answer. Shared workspaces hold the proposal, evidence, status and next decision. Agents have defined preparation roles, while the controller and CFO retain responsibility for judgement and approval.
The opportunity is less repeated gathering, checking and drafting around close, reporting and cash decisions. The demonstration uses illustrative records and simulated activity. It provides a practical workflow to test with a business; client savings have not been measured.
• Less chasing: priorities and review materials arrive together.
• Better visibility: cash assumptions remain connected to their consequences.
• Clear ownership: finance professionals review proposals and decide the next action.
[ The Challenge ]
Finance has to explain the position while finishing the work behind it
A board pack needs more than numbers. The finance team has to explain what changed, which assumptions remain uncertain and what management should do next. Close items, reconciliations, collections and investor questions can compete for the same people’s attention. Each request may draw on familiar records but trigger another round of preparation.
The challenge is connecting those records in time. A bank balance describes today’s position. A cash forecast depends on future receipts and payments. An unresolved accrual may affect the reported result. The CFO needs to understand how these pieces relate before deciding what requires attention.
When the explanation sits in one message, the figures in a spreadsheet and the supporting documents elsewhere, people have to reconstruct the picture. That gathering and checking takes time away from reviewing the substance of the decision.
The demonstration starts with this practical problem: prepare the relevant evidence, show its status and make the next decision clear. It explores how finance professionals could receive a useful starting point while keeping uncertainty, outstanding work and responsibility visible.
[ What CSM Built ]
A shared operating layer around the finance team’s work
CSM created a demonstration combining a dashboard, finance workspaces, a specialist-agent directory, a knowledge area and Omnia. Together, they show a route from an overview of priorities to the evidence behind an individual review.
Month-End Close and Cash & Treasury are the two processes followed in the walkthrough. The first presents a service accrual awaiting controller review. The second explores how a late customer receipt changes the lowest point in a cash forecast. Each example connects the question, supporting context and next decision.
The agent directory also presents roles for collections, forecasting and management reporting. These indicate the wider operating-system concept; the recorded examples establish the scope demonstrated here.
An implementation would sit around the business’s existing accounting, banking, spreadsheet and document tools. The company would agree the sources, procedures and responsibilities, then test the outputs against its finance team’s review standard.
The resulting experience is designed to make preparation easier to progress and review. The recorded demonstration uses prepared data and simulated retrieval, with the finance team remaining responsible for the conclusions and any external action.
[ Preparing the Week ]
Bring the priorities to the CFO with the review materials ready
The opening illustrates a finance assistant recognising an approaching board meeting, investor meeting and close deadline. It brings the week’s priorities together before the CFO begins another round of information gathering. The proposed experience follows four steps.
01
Recognise the work ahead. The assistant identifies the coming meetings and deadline, giving the preparation a business context. The briefing centres on what the finance leader needs to address during that week.
02
Bring the priorities together. A summary presents the work and decisions requiring attention. The intention is to give the CFO a starting point for review, with the competing demands visible together.
03
Present the review materials. The opening shows three attachment cards: Draft Board Pack, Investor Meeting Briefing and Cash Outlook. They are labelled draft and illustrative. Their contents are not opened in the recording.
04
Agree the delivery route. Daily and weekly briefings are part of the proposed experience. A business would choose the timing, recipients and channel, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack or WhatsApp. Live delivery is not demonstrated.
The purpose is a prepared handover that helps a leader decide where to focus. An implementation would agree what belongs in the briefing and how facts, assumptions and decisions are distinguished. The attachment cards illustrate that experience; they do not establish that finished documents were generated.
[ A Cash Question to a Decision ]
See what a late customer receipt changes before choosing a response
The cash example begins with a direct question to Omnia: “What is our 13-week cash outlook?” The interface shows a simulated sequence gathering ledger records, aged debt, bank information and forecast data. It then moves into Cash & Treasury to explore a delayed receipt.
01
Establish the starting position. The illustrative base forecast has a weekly cash trough of €92,000. This is the lowest point in the modelled cash position, which matters when assessing whether upcoming obligations can be covered.
02
Change the receipt timing. The scenario assumes an €18,000 customer collection arrives two weeks late. The delayed assumption is kept separate from the base case so the CFO can understand what changed.
03
Show the pressure point. Under that assumption, the cash trough falls to €74,000. The narration identifies this as €1,000 below the illustrative cash floor, bringing the temporary exposure into view.
04
Explain the wider consequence. Week-13 ending cash remains unchanged. The customer receipt is delayed within the forecast period. The issue is a temporary liquidity gap, with the same money still expected to arrive.
05
Prepare the decision. The scenario and evidence support a review of collections escalation or a contingency response. The record states that no funding facility is drawn; responsibility for the response stays with the relevant person.
The output is a reviewable cash scenario, with the assumption, timing and threshold connected. It gives the CFO a clearer question to consider: what should happen before the low point arrives? All figures belong to the illustrative demonstration and are not a named client’s financial position.
[ Month-End Close ]
Prepare the accrual and its evidence for the controller’s judgement
The close example centres on a September service accrual awaiting review. Preparing the entry is only part of the work: the controller also needs enough context to assess the period, amount and accounting treatment. The workspace brings the proposal and that review responsibility together.
01
Assemble the proposal. The Close & Journal Agent’s role is to prepare the illustrative service accrual. The proposed entry debits service expense by €7,500 and credits accrued liabilities by the same amount.
02
Connect the support. The record identifies a contract and service confirmation as supporting evidence. These provide context for the proposed entry and a starting point for the controller’s assessment.
03
Check the balance. Equal debit and credit amounts leave a net journal imbalance of €0. This shows a balanced proposal. The controller must still assess whether the expense belongs in September and whether the treatment is appropriate.
04
Make the next decision visible. The item is awaiting review, with controller sign-off identified as the next step. The screen states that no journal has been posted, keeping the proposal’s status clear.
05
Keep execution separate. The recording opens the review route. The interface states that approval updates the demonstration record only, with external execution remaining separate. A completed approval or posting into an accounting system is not shown.
The intended improvement is in the preparation surrounding that judgement. The proposal, evidence and outstanding decision arrive together, so the reviewer can focus on the substance of the entry. The demonstration shows how that review could be organised; it does not establish the entry’s correctness or a completed accounting transaction.
[ Review and Completion ]
Keep the evidence, status and next action clear
A prepared answer is useful when the finance team can understand its basis and decide what to do with it. Across the two examples, the demonstration makes three review checks particularly important.
01
Check the substance behind the output. For the accrual, the controller considers the evidence, period, amount and treatment. For the cash scenario, the reviewer considers the receipt timing and its effect on the forecast. A balanced entry or a clear chart is a starting point for professional assessment.
02
Check what has actually happened. The accrual remains a proposal awaiting review. No journal has been posted. The cash record states that no funding facility has been drawn. These statuses help people distinguish preparation from a completed external action.
03
Keep the decision with its owner. Controller sign-off is the next decision in the close example. The cash example presents collections escalation or a contingency response for review. The system prepares the material around those choices, while the relevant finance professional decides the action.
A client implementation would define what each agent may read, prepare or change, and where it must stop for review. Exceptions and incomplete information would need agreed handling. The demonstration presents those approval boundaries; their reliability through real operating conditions remains something a pilot would test.
[ Results ]
A demonstrated route from preparation to a reviewable finance decision
The work produced a recorded walkthrough connecting an illustrated weekly briefing with two worked examples: a supported accrual proposal and a delayed-receipt cash scenario. It also shows how shared workspaces, specialist roles and procedures fit around that preparation.
Less repeated preparation
The examples bring the proposal, context and next decision together. The intended benefit is less effort spent gathering records and drafting explanations. A pilot would measure the time returned after allowing for review, corrections and any additional work created by the process.
Earlier visibility of cash risk
The cash example exposes a temporary trough even though ending cash is unchanged. A pilot would test forecast accuracy, traceability of assumptions and how quickly a relevant change reaches the CFO as a useful warning.
Clearer review responsibility
The accrual remains unposted and the cash response remains a decision. A pilot would check whether ownership, statuses and approval boundaries remain clear through exceptions and changes.
These are demonstrated workflows and expected benefits, with no measured client savings asserted. Records and tool activity are illustrative. The recording does not prove live integrations, finished briefing documents, journal posting or external message delivery.
The next step is to choose one finance process, establish its current effort and review standard, then compare the proposed workflow on representative work.