January can be the month in which the finance team wins the entire year

Investing two weeks in the first quarter to look ahead will save us many multiples of that time over years to come.

I have a confession. Like any fast-growing business, Spendesk is starting the year with an exciting slate of product launches to bring to market. In 2026, we’re debuting in-app travel booking and expanding our CFO community, to name just two initiatives. 

Then last week, my dear colleague, Spendesk’s SVP of Sales, leaned over and asked me, “Where do these new product lines appear in the P&L, Pauline?” Uh oh. In the blur of January busyness, we’d forgotten to set up the proper reporting and dashboards. Thankfully, we still had more than a week to put everything in place, but it was a timely reminder of why January is the toughest month of the year for finance teams – and the one that creates the most opportunities to set yourself and your business on the path to success. 

The January squeeze

For the finance function, January is often when we feel most stretched, as our time is squeezed between looking back and looking forward. The entire business, from the executive committee down, is clamouring to know what happened last year. That, of course, means closing the books as quickly as possible and producing reports and commentaries on the year just past. The January rush to open a host of new purchase orders and create budget tracking for new products also sucks up a lot of time. But if, amid all these competing demands, we can also carve out time to set up better processes for the future, we’ll position ourselves for success in the year to come – and beyond. 

What does this preparation process look like in practice? It looks like taking the time to build or revamp data dashboards, pausing for breath to set better KPIs for the business, and automating as many of your reporting functions as possible. 

Despite the busyness, January is the perfect time for these strategic initiatives. If we can set up the correct dashboards now (yes, even AI-powered dashboards), then the business will have the right insights all year long. If we can set smarter KPIs, our teams will be running in the right direction right from the start. And if we can truly automate reporting, we should have more time for strategising rather than number-crunching the next time January rolls around. Ideally, these initiatives should not be a “one-shot” but something you can use repeatedly, year after year.

As Spendesk’s CFO, I live this tension myself. I’m in the middle of writing my report on 2025 for the executive committee, but I’m also forcing myself to set up goals and processes so that the business can succeed in 2026. 

A time to pause

Beyond these goals, the start of the year is also a great time to take stock. As you’re rolling forward your documentation, ask if you’re really recording the most relevant facts around the business’s performance. If your time seems to disappear into routine tasks, ask whether some tasks can be cut or automated. If you’re producing reports, are they even being read by stakeholders, or should they be revamped? 

To tackle that last point, I like to conduct an “unread report” audit. I tour the office to ask stakeholders which reports they actually read and which bypass their inboxes to languish in their archive folders. Last year, for example, I was sad to discover the variance analysis that my team spent time producing each week was being almost totally ignored – but realising the audience was indifferent allowed me to flip my priorities and reallocate that time to something else. 

Over the years, I’ve also developed a strong preference for memo format: one that’s sharp, concise and direct, rather than a baggy set of PowerPoint slides. January is often the best moment to create AI-assisted templates for recurring communications, such as monthly OPEX reviews with stakeholders. 

Technology, including AI, can help with all of this. 

Many people in the finance function can be inherently conservative in adopting new technology. After all, when you’re responsible for the numbers, you don’t want any errors to creep in. But my own experience of becoming an enthusiastic early adopter has been nothing but positive. 

In my daily work life, I’ve been using AI agents for at least 18 months to tackle tasks like drafting the commentary that will accompany the annual results. At first, it was admittedly a little unreliable, but I find my agent improves all the time as I train it. Each time we produce a report, the AI-written first draft gets better, and the level of revision needed from me gets lighter. I now just need to check the text and add any “cherry on the cake” insights the AI might have missed. I estimate my commentary-writing AI agent saved me more than 20 hours last year. 

Reports and commentaries like these are so important because I always say the finance function is primarily one of communication. When the finance team has clear lines of communication with peers in, say, the people team or the revenue team, then everything goes well for the wider business. When we occasionally find ourselves speaking in different languages, things get more difficult. 

Winning the year

This year, I want all of us finance professionals to be bolder. Investing two weeks in the first quarter to look ahead will save us many multiples of that time over years to come. 

I’ve always called this process of year-ahead planning and target-setting “re-baselining” – but my colleagues in marketing tell me this isn’t the catchiest name. I’ve been experimenting with a few different names, and my favourite so far is “winning the year”. What do you think?

After all, when done right, January can be the month in which we win the entire year.