CFO

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Days cash on hand is easy to calculate, but setting the right target has become more difficult. Under increased scrutiny from boards and creditors and amid higher levels of market and economic uncertainty, finance leaders must weigh risk, investment needs and access to capital, at a time when each one can shift quickly.

For many mid-size companies, the B2B payments process remains plagued by an outmoded mix of paper checks, manual reconciliation, and siloed workflows, all of which erode efficiency and eat into margins. But finance leaders across industries are increasingly recognizing the potential to optimize their payments operations. By leveraging automation, organizations can transform B2B payments from a back-office function into a driver of valuable savings, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

Contractors are no longer peripheral to enterprise growth. They are core to how modern companies scale across markets, manage specialized talent and respond to demand shifts. But while the workforce model has evolved, contractor operations often remain fragmented, manual and financially unpredictable. Papaya Global has recently launched ourFull Contractor Management Platform – purpose-built to give Finance leaders control, visibility and predictability across global contractor operations at scale.

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The skills and competencies needed to perform many jobs in finance and across the enterprise are shifting, as tools and technologies advance rapidly and become embedded in core workflows. In some organizations, widening skill gaps may warrant a fresh look at how training and development resources are allocated. The median organization provides an average of six paid learning days per year for each employee.

The autonomous enterprise is not a future state. It is your present condition, whether you’ve named it that way or not. AI is permeating finance and accounting from three directions at once. First, individual staff are using AI to accelerate workflows, both through sanctioned tools and through unapproved “shadow AI.” Second, ERP vendors — SAP, Oracle, Workday, Microsoft — are embedding AI agents directly into the systems of record that run your financial operations.

In today’s ever-changing tax environment, managing tax data, technology, and talent has become increasingly complex. From siloed data and rigid legacy systems to a shortage of tax expertise and recruiting challenges, tax teams are facing intense pressure on all fronts. This three-part podcast series, The Tax Operations Playbook, examines how companies are rethinking their approach to common tax challenges.

Corporate finance teams have invested heavily in AI technologies. Dashboards are richer with financial commentary, reporting is faster and automation is now handling complex repetitive tasks. And yet, most CFOs still face a familiar challenge: unwanted financial surprises. Margins drift. Forecasts miss. Variances appear fully formed at the end of the period, when the opportunity to act has passed. The issue is not whether AI works.

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Invoices go out on time. Cash still comes in late. For many finance leaders, that disconnect has become routine. The billing process looks efficient on paper, but teams spend a growing share of their time answering questions, resolving disputes and chasing down details. These costs add up, not just in dollars, but in attention diverted from higher-value work.

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Small cracks in financial control processes rarely draw much attention. Despite being important aspects of information security, maintaining proper access rights and timely approvals are often seen as routine activities by IT and finance teams. Yet many cyber incidents trace back to weaknesses in access and governance, the same areas where control violations tend to surface.

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. When I wrote my first CFO action plan in 2022, many CFOs were navigating their organizations through incredibly turbulent waters caused by multiple COVID-19 spikes and related challenges. Uncertainty has been a constant theme every year since. 2026 will likely be the same due to unsettled trade policy, tariffs and general economic uncertainty, as well as digital transformation challenges, cost pressures and talent gaps.