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DMS Strategic Financial Advisory Reclaims More Than 800 Hours a Year with Claude
How a fractional CFO practice turned months-long planning, forecasting, and reconciliation work into hours, with Endsight’s guidance on making Claude a repeatable part of the finance function. 3 months → 2 days To build an annual operating plan for a multi-unit CPG business 400+ hrs/yr Of CFO time removed from supply and demand run-out modeling 75 min → 3 min Daily cash reconciliation, run every morning as a saved skill 800+ hrs/yr Reclaimed across two recurring workflows alone Key Takeaways at a Glance Client: DMS Strategic Fina
How a fractional CFO practice turned months-long planning, forecasting, and reconciliation work into hours, with Endsight’s guidance on making Claude a repeatable part of the finance function. 3 months → 2 days To build an annual operating plan for a multi-unit CPG business 400+ hrs/yr Of CFO time removed from supply and demand run-out modeling 75 min → 3 min Daily cash reconciliation, run every morning as a saved skill 800+ hrs/yr Reclaimed across two recurring workflows alone Key Takeaways at a Glance Client: DMS Strategic Financial Advisory, a fractional CFO practice serving wine, golf, defense, and technology services companies. Problem: Annual planning, supply and demand run-out modeling, and daily reconciliation were rebuilt by hand from exports out of several systems, consuming months and hundreds of hours a year. Solution: Claude, working natively in Excel, with recurring analyses saved as reusable skills. Endsight introduced the approach, ran the working sessions on the run-out model, and taught the skills workflow. Results: Annual operating plan from three months to about 16 hours; 400+ hours a year removed from run-out modeling; daily cash reconciliation from 75 minutes to 3; executive what-if scenarios answered in the meeting. Why it worked: The method captures an expert’s judgment as a repeatable procedure, so every subsequent run takes minutes and the same framework carries to the next company. Overview DMS Strategic Financial Advisory provides fractional CFO and project finance services to a portfolio of companies: a multi-unit consumer packaged goods business in the wine industry, an operator of community golf courses, a defense firm, and a managed technology services provider. Founder David Smith does the strategic work a full-time CFO would do, plus the operational projects other CFOs do not have time for. Challenges The heaviest of that work was periodic and manual. An annual operating plan for the CPG business, which sells through several distinct channels, took one to three months of gathering departmental inputs, loading them into a planning system, and reconciling twenty spreadsheets whenever an assumption changed. Supply and demand run-out modeling across thousands of SKUs consumed 400 to 500 hours a year of his own time, and more of an assistant’s, with every new sales scenario forcing a rebuild. A daily cash reconciliation for the golf business took an hour and fifteen minutes every morning. And a multi-year cleanup of that company’s books, after several accountants had passed through them, looked like a job only an outside accounting firm could take on. “This is what every winery struggles with. Their supply and demand.” David Smith, Founder and Fractional CFO, DMS Strategic Financial Advisory Solution and Implementation David’s use of Claude began with Endsight. After watching Endsight’s leadership work through their own executive workflow in Claude, and seeing Endsight automate a payroll accrual reconciliation with it, he decided to try the same approach on his own finance work. Endsight’s AI & Automation team then worked with him in a series of sessions on his supply and demand run-out model: watching the process end to end, having Claude turn weeks of chat iteration into a saved skill with deterministic spreadsheet logic, and teaching him how to save, update, and reuse skills so the work becomes repeatable. From there the method was his own. Pull the source data out of the systems where it lives, whether a general ledger, a planning tool, an inventory report, or a bank export. Give it to Claude with a plain-English description of the analysis. Iterate until the output ties out. Save the procedure as a skill so the next run takes minutes instead of days. Because Claude works natively in Excel, the deliverables are the same workbooks the executives already use, now with features David could describe but had never known how to build, such as a toggle between best-case, worst-case, and most-likely demand plans. Results The 2027 annual operating plan for the CPG business, normally a three-month effort, was built bottom-up from general ledger data in about 16 hours. More important is what happens after the first draft. When an executive asks what closing a facility or removing a business unit would do to the numbers, David now models the scenario during the meeting rather than a week later. In one thirty-minute budget review, three such scenarios were run and resolved on the spot. A five-year financial model built from ten years of history, the kind of work behind a valuation, is now a one-day project instead of four weeks. The supply and demand run-out model, once a 400-to-500-hour annual burden, now runs a single product in minutes and the whole portfolio on demand, with a saved skill that updates the full model whenever new inventory or demand numbers arrive. David estimates the change is worth about half a headcount across himself and his assistant. The daily cash reconciliation dropped from 75 minutes to 3 minutes. Run every morning as a skill, that is roughly 438 hours a year returned on one routine task. The bank-to-ledger cleanup that would have gone to an outside firm is now an iterative project he works month by month. It has also already surfaced process problems in other places the business did not know it had including an unintended discount created by a price ceiling on a subscription club. “I’m not a computer programmer. But I now am an Excel computer programmer, because I ask it in English to do something I know can be done in Excel, and it does it in a minute.” David Smith, Founder and Fractional CFO, DMS Strategic Financial Advisory The same frameworks are being carried to other companies in the portfolio, and the operating plan model will be re-run monthly as actuals post, so the time savings compound rather than repeat once. Conclusion None of this required custom software or a data platform project. It required a finance leader willing to describe his work in plain English, a partner to show him how to make the result repeatable, and a model capable of handling the volume of data a real business produces. The frameworks DMS built are now standing assets, re-run monthly and carried from one company to the next, and the time they return goes back into the strategic work a CFO is actually hired for. About DMS Strategic Financial Advisory DMS Strategic Financial Advisory provides fractional CFO services and project-based finance work to companies that need executive-level financial leadership without a full-time hire. Founded four years ago by David Smith, the practice serves clients in consumer packaged goods, hospitality, defense, and technology services, covering planning, forecasting, valuation, reconciliation, and the operational finance projects in-house teams do not have time to take on. About Endsight Endsight is a Napa-based managed service provider and Claude Partner Network member serving small and mid-sized businesses in Northern California and beyond. Our AI & Automation practice helps clients choose a platform, deploy it as a governed business system, train their teams, and then build the skills, connectors, and automations that turn general-purpose AI into leverage on the work that matters most.
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How to Know If Your Small or Mid-Sized Business Is Ready for AI
3 Key Takeaways It’s hard to ignore AI solutions when it’s coming at you from every direction: vendor pitches, industry headlines, competitors who may or may not be ahead of you with adoption. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re wondering whether your business should be doing more with it. But before you…
3 Key Takeaways It’s hard to ignore AI solutions when it’s coming at you from every direction: vendor pitches, industry headlines, competitors who may or may not be ahead of you with adoption. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re wondering whether your business should be doing more with it. But before you…
Read full post on intrust-it.com
Your data already lives in the cloud. So why does it need a backup?
Ask most people what “backup” means and they’ll describe an external hard drive in a desk drawer, or something they pay a monthly fee for: their data is sent off somewhere and never thought about again. Fair enough! But most small businesses don’t keep their important stuff on one computer anymore. It lives in the
Ask most people what “backup” means and they’ll describe an external hard drive in a desk drawer, or something they pay a monthly fee for: their data is sent off somewhere and never thought about again. Fair enough! But most small businesses don’t keep their important stuff on one computer anymore. It lives in the
Read full post on newmindgroup.com
Rapid Response: How a Local Managed Service Provider Minimizes Costly Downtime
Quick answer: A local managed service provider reduces business downtime by responding quickly to IT threats and monitoring your network around the clock. More importantly, proactive monitoring helps prevent issues from occurring in the first place, keeping your team productive and your systems secure. Your server goes down at 9 a.m. on a Monday. Emails
Quick answer: A local managed service provider reduces business downtime by responding quickly to IT threats and monitoring your network around the clock. More importantly, proactive monitoring helps prevent issues from occurring in the first place, keeping your team productive and your systems secure. Your server goes down at 9 a.m. on a Monday. Emails
Read full post on totalit.com
How Often Should A Business Review Its Cybersecurity Strategy?
Learn how often to review your cybersecurity strategy and how business changes, employee risks, threats, and compliance affect security planning.
Learn how often to review your cybersecurity strategy and how business changes, employee risks, threats, and compliance affect security planning.
Read full post on sysgen.ca
Insurance Is Not a Security Strategy
Insurance Is Not a Security Strategy Many organizations purchase cyber insurance believing it provides comprehensive protection against cyber risk. While insurance can play an important role in financial recovery, it was never intended to prevent incidents, stop attackers, or replace sound cybersecurity practices. This distinction is becoming increasingly important as cyber threats continue to evolve and insurance carriers raise expectations for policyholders. Insurance can help transfer certain financial risks. Cybersecurity helps reduce the likelihood and impact of those risks occurrin
Insurance Is Not a Security Strategy Many organizations purchase cyber insurance believing it provides comprehensive protection against cyber risk. While insurance can play an important role in financial recovery, it was never intended to prevent incidents, stop attackers, or replace sound cybersecurity practices. This distinction is becoming increasingly important as cyber threats continue to evolve and insurance carriers raise expectations for policyholders. Insurance can help transfer certain financial risks. Cybersecurity helps reduce the likelihood and impact of those risks occurring in the first place. Organizations that understand the difference are often better positioned to improve both their resilience and their insurability. Understanding Risk Transfer Cyber insurance is fundamentally a risk transfer mechanism. Organizations pay premiums to help offset specific financial losses associated with covered cyber incidents. Depending on policy terms, coverage may assist with: Incident response costs Legal expenses Digital forensics Business interruption losses Notification requirements Public relations support Recovery activities The value of cyber insurance becomes clear after a significant incident occurs. However, insurance is designed to help an organization recover. It is not designed to prevent attacks from happening. That responsibility belongs to the organization's cybersecurity program. What Insurance Cannot Do Many executives mistakenly assume cyber insurance provides protection equivalent to cybersecurity controls. It does not. Cyber insurance cannot: Stop phishing attacks Prevent ransomware infections Patch vulnerabilities Detect malicious activity Train employees Secure endpoints Manage privileged accounts Respond to incidents In short, insurance addresses financial consequences. Cybersecurity addresses operational risk. Organizations that rely exclusively on insurance while neglecting cybersecurity often discover significant gaps in protection. Why Insurers Are Demanding More Insurance carriers have experienced years of increasing cyber-related claims. As ransomware attacks, business email compromise incidents, and data breaches continue to impact organizations, insurers have responded by strengthening underwriting requirements. Today's carriers increasingly expect organizations to demonstrate: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Vulnerability management Endpoint protection Security awareness training Incident response planning Governance and oversight This shift reflects a growing realization throughout the insurance market: Organizations with mature cybersecurity programs generally represent lower risk. As a result, cyber insurance and cybersecurity have become increasingly interconnected. Cybersecurity as a Business Strategy The most successful organizations treat cybersecurity as a business initiative rather than an IT project. Executive leadership plays a critical role in determining: Security priorities Budget allocations Organizational accountability Risk tolerance Compliance expectations Governance structures These decisions influence both security outcomes and insurance readiness. Cybersecurity maturity is often the result of leadership commitment rather than technology alone. Risk Reduction Versus Risk Transfer Organizations should think about cyber resilience through two complementary lenses: Risk Reduction Risk reduction focuses on preventing incidents and minimizing exposure. Examples include: Security awareness training Vulnerability remediation Zero Trust initiatives Endpoint security Security monitoring Risk Transfer Risk transfer focuses on reducing financial impact when incidents occur. Examples include: Cyber insurance Contractual protections Vendor risk management agreements Both approaches are important. Neither replaces the other. The strongest organizations balance both. The Executive Advantage Executives who understand the relationship between cybersecurity and cyber insurance can make more informed business decisions. They can: Prioritize investments more effectively Improve organizational resilience Strengthen insurer confidence Reduce operational risk Enhance business continuity Most importantly, they can position their organizations for long-term success in an increasingly complex threat landscape. Join OXEN's Executive Webinar Cyber insurance and cybersecurity should work together to strengthen organizational resilience. Join OXEN Technology and The Agency Insurance for an executive discussion focused on helping organizations understand modern insurance requirements, cybersecurity expectations, and practical readiness strategies. Register Today Learn how effective cybersecurity programs improve both business resilience and insurability while helping leaders make smarter risk management decisions.
Read full post on oxen.tech
5 Compliance Essentials for Small Business Website Maintenance Plans
Five compliance focused tasks, daily backups, weekly patching and tested restores to secure your small business website maintenance plan.
Five compliance focused tasks, daily backups, weekly patching and tested restores to secure your small business website maintenance plan.
Read full post on mytekrescue.com
Choosing Naples IT Support for Your Business
Choosing Naples IT support means looking beyond break-fix help. Compare response standards, security, pricing, and local accountability for your business.
Choosing Naples IT support means looking beyond break-fix help. Compare response standards, security, pricing, and local accountability for your business.
Read full post on priscanova.com
Construction Company Technology Planning Guide
Use this construction company technology planning guide to reduce jobsite downtime, secure project data, control costs, and plan technology investments.
Use this construction company technology planning guide to reduce jobsite downtime, secure project data, control costs, and plan technology investments.
Read full post on rj-pro.net
How to Build a Human Firewall: Cybersecurity Starts from Within
You can invest tens of thousands of dollars into next-generation hardware, endpoint detection, and state-of-the-art encryption. But if an employee with valid login credentials clicks a malicious link or hands their password to a disguised threat actor, all of that expensive technology can be bypassed in seconds. Cybercriminals know that hacking a secure server is… Read More »How to Build a Human Firewall: Cybersecurity Starts from Within
You can invest tens of thousands of dollars into next-generation hardware, endpoint detection, and state-of-the-art encryption. But if an employee with valid login credentials clicks a malicious link or hands their password to a disguised threat actor, all of that expensive technology can be bypassed in seconds. Cybercriminals know that hacking a secure server is… Read More »How to Build a Human Firewall: Cybersecurity Starts from Within
Read full post on ktconnections.com
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