MSPs make IT simple.
Discover leading Managed IT Service Providers across USA, Canada & the United Kingdom.
- 100s of leading MSPs
- Find a MSP near you
- Latest IT news for SMBs
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.
Read full post on endsight.net
MSPdb™ News
Kevin Goodman on the Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast: Why Regional Data Centers Still Have an Edge
Episode 207 of the Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast features an interview with Kevin Goodman, Managing Director at BlueBridge Networks. Host Joshua Feinberg, CEO of DCSMI, sits down with Kevin to explore how regional infrastructure providers remain competitive amidst massive technological shifts. From the rise of high-density AI workloads to nationwide power grid bottlenecks and multi-year
Episode 207 of the Data Center Go-to-Market Podcast features an interview with Kevin Goodman, Managing Director at BlueBridge Networks. Host Joshua Feinberg, CEO of DCSMI, sits down with Kevin to explore how regional infrastructure providers remain competitive amidst massive technological shifts. From the rise of high-density AI workloads to nationwide power grid bottlenecks and multi-year
Read full post on bluebridgenetworks.com
Cyber Insurance Claims: What to Prepare Before You Need Your Policy
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and this month IT Weapons is focused on a question many Canadian organizations only ask after an incident: what does it take to use your cyber insurance when you need it? We brought together a claims leader from Trisura, a security awareness specialist from Beauceron Security and our own Manager of Compliance to examine it from three angles. Their conclusions point to three practices: understand the claims process in advance, treat your people as part of your defence, and keep your controls current between renewals. This post summarizes what they share
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and this month IT Weapons is focused on a question many Canadian organizations only ask after an incident: what does it take to use your cyber insurance when you need it? We brought together a claims leader from Trisura, a security awareness specialist from Beauceron Security and our own Manager of Compliance to examine it from three angles. Their conclusions point to three practices: understand the claims process in advance, treat your people as part of your defence, and keep your controls current between renewals. This post summarizes what they shared and the steps you can take now.
Read full post on itweapons.ca
Netrio Named to the CRN® AI Innovators List for 2026
Netrio Recognized on the CRN® AI Innovators List for 2026 Company spotlighted for AI Advisory practice helping mid-market enterprises build
Netrio Recognized on the CRN® AI Innovators List for 2026 Company spotlighted for AI Advisory practice helping mid-market enterprises build
Read full post on netrio.com
Best Managed IT Services in New Braunfels, TX (2026)
Uprite Services, which publishes this page, scores highest among managed IT providers serving New Braunfels ... Learn More
Uprite Services, which publishes this page, scores highest among managed IT providers serving New Braunfels ... Learn More
Read full post on uprite.com
Cyber insurance compliance doesn’t end when your policy is approved
Your cyber insurance application was approved. The paperwork is filed, your premiums are paid, and your business is covered for another year. But six months later, is your IT environment still the same one you described to your insurer? Maybe you’ve hired three new employees, introduced a cloud platform, changed how your team accesses company...
Your cyber insurance application was approved. The paperwork is filed, your premiums are paid, and your business is covered for another year. But six months later, is your IT environment still the same one you described to your insurer? Maybe you’ve hired three new employees, introduced a cloud platform, changed how your team accesses company...
Read full post on daxtech.ca
Retention Is Not Backup What Business Leaders Need to Know
Retention Is Not Backup: What Business Leaders Need to Know Once leadership recognizes Microsoft 365 information as a critical business asset, the next question becomes straightforward:
Retention Is Not Backup: What Business Leaders Need to Know Once leadership recognizes Microsoft 365 information as a critical business asset, the next question becomes straightforward:
Read full post on oxen.tech
Deletion requests now reach data you bought: California SB 923 hits January 1
Direct Answer: Starting January 1, 2027, SB 923 extends the CCPA right to delete to personal information a business collected from or about a consumer, including records bought from data brokers or added by enrichment vendors. You bought a contact list two years ago. A marketing vendor appended phone numbers and job titles to your
Direct Answer: Starting January 1, 2027, SB 923 extends the CCPA right to delete to personal information a business collected from or about a consumer, including records bought from data brokers or added by enrichment vendors. You bought a contact list two years ago. A marketing vendor appended phone numbers and job titles to your
Read full post on adaptiveis.net
What You Need to Know About Your Business IT Risk
Acronyms like EDR, MDR, and MFA often confuse business owners. Too many tech providers use complicated jargon to justify high fees while leaving you in the dark. That’s not how we operate. Your business deserves clear facts about technology risks and real solutions that protect your operations without hiding behind complex terminology.
Acronyms like EDR, MDR, and MFA often confuse business owners. Too many tech providers use complicated jargon to justify high fees while leaving you in the dark. That’s not how we operate. Your business deserves clear facts about technology risks and real solutions that protect your operations without hiding behind complex terminology.
Read full post on coretechllc.com
Cyber Insurance Questionnaires: How to Answer Honestly and Pass
Most cyber insurance questionnaires assume controls that plenty of small businesses only partly have. Here's what the underwriter is asking behind each question, and how I'd answer honestly when the true answer is partly.
Most cyber insurance questionnaires assume controls that plenty of small businesses only partly have. Here's what the underwriter is asking behind each question, and how I'd answer honestly when the true answer is partly.
Read full post on techdynamix.com
Cybersecurity for Houston Healthcare Businesses
Cybersecurity for Houston Healthcare Businesses is essential for protecting patient information, maintaining reliable IT systems, and reducing the risk of costly cyberattacks. From medical practices and dental clinics to diagnostic centers, healthcare organizations in Houston, Texas, rely on digital systems to manage patient records, schedule appointments, process billing, and coordinate daily operations. However, these systems
Cybersecurity for Houston Healthcare Businesses is essential for protecting patient information, maintaining reliable IT systems, and reducing the risk of costly cyberattacks. From medical practices and dental clinics to diagnostic centers, healthcare organizations in Houston, Texas, rely on digital systems to manage patient records, schedule appointments, process billing, and coordinate daily operations. However, these systems
Read full post on cobait.com
Just Added to MSPdb™
MSP Jobs
All Jobs
MSP Marketplace
View All
Popular MSPs
View All
