CFO AI Action Plan: Modernizing Finance for 2026 and Beyond

By TED ROSE, ROSE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS

Artificial Intelligence and automation aren’t optional anymore—they’re essential for every company’s business model. Financial Operations need to keep up with business model changes. The challenge is knowing where to start and how to scale without distracting from your company's core operations. I've outlined a practical, phased plan to help CFOs and finance leaders move from exploration to execution.

1. Focus on Core Competencies


Before deploying AI and automation, define what makes your company different. AI and automation should strengthen, not distract from, your core business model. Start by asking:

  • What repetitive, manual financial workflows are slowing us down our core business?
  • What would we gain if those processes were automated and real-time?
  • How can data from across the business better inform strategic decisions?

The goal isn’t more AI—it’s better clarity. Use automation to free up time for leadership to focus on growth, innovation, and client experience.

2. Streamline Financial Operations


AI and automation create value only when data readiness and controls are in place. CFOs should prioritize these projects:

  • Clean, reconciled data from ERP, payroll, and CRM systems
  • Automated reporting tied directly to data sources (no manual re-keying)
  • Documented approval flows and access controls for all finance automations
  • Regular back-testing and error logs to verify data accuracy

Key Point: There are many different types of AI. Make sure you are using the correct AI for the specific task in the process (i.e. do the math upstream and let Generative AI explain, not calculate).


3. Build a Secure, Compliant AI Foundation


Adopt AI safely with guardrails that make experimentation repeatable and auditable.

  • Use only paid/enterprise AI platforms with data encryption and audit logs
  • Keep all training off and prevent sensitive data (PII/PHI/PCI) from being exposed
  • Require human oversight for all external communications, reports, and filings
  • Keep human's in the loop to review transaction coding and processing - machine learning will help to reduce this over time, but LLM's alone won't get you to 99% accuracy.

AI success isn’t just technical—it’s cultural. Trust in the data starts with transparency. Make sure people understand and can audit the output.


4. Empower People, Not Just Systems


Automation changes job descriptions, not just workflows. The finance function must evolve from data-pullers to data translators—professionals who connect analytics to strategy.

  • Upskill teams in data interpretation, not just analysis
  • Create cross-functional rotations for business understanding
  • Reward curiosity and continuous learning, not just output

Finance is becoming the bridge between data, decisions, and direction.


5. Partner for Scale with FaaS


CFOs don’t have to go it alone. That’s where Finance-as-a-Service (FaaS) comes in.

FaaS allows CFOs to stay focused on their core business while leveraging scalable expertise in:

  • Finance system modernization and automation setup and maintenance
  • Data warehouse and dashboard integration and management
  • Transaction readiness and audit-ready reporting
  • Continuous improvement and operational efficiency

At ROSE, we partner with CFOs to modernize their back office—bringing together automation, analytics, and accounting under one unified financial infrastructure.

Our mission: to eliminate financial roadblocks so leadership can execute strategy with confidence.


6. Partner for Scale with FaaS


AI isn’t a one-time project—it’s a performance discipline.

  • Run routine roadmap sessions to evaluate automation ROI
  • Update data governance and access rules periodically
  • Publish lessons learned internally to drive adoption
  • Celebrate wins that free people from low-value work

The finance organization that learns fastest will lead the future.

Groups like the CFO Alliance are sharing real feedback from CFO's implementing AI and automation, but its clear that we are still in the early trial and error phase.


Bottom Line


CFOs are now the architects of automation and interpreters of intelligence. With the right partners and platforms, they can transform finance from a reporting function into an integrated real-time decision engine.

Rose Financial Solutions and FaaS stands ready to help CFOs modernize financial operations—securely, strategically, and continuously—so they can focus on what truly matters: building the future for their stakeholders. Connect with us to discover how: www.rosefinancial.com

In 1994 Ted Rose founded Rose Financial Solutions (ROSE), the Premier U.S. Based Finance and Accounting Outsourcing Firm. In 2010, the Blackbook of Outsourcing named ROSE the #1 FAO firm in the world based on client satisfaction. As the president and CEO of ROSE, he provides executives with financial clarity. Ted has also acted as the CFO for a number of growth companies and assisted with various rounds of financing and M&A transactions.

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By Ted Rose • September 1, 2026
Single-source approach brings contract administration, project controls and billing, indirect rate management, and DCAA/GovCon audit readiness under one operating model NORTH BETHESDA, MD — September 1, 2026 — ROSE Financial Solutions (“ROSE”) today announced the launch of its GovCon Financial Advisory solution , an integrated offering designed to help government contractors manage critical financial and contract administration functions as they grow. The solution brings contract administration, project controls and billing, indirect rate management, and DCAA/GovCon audit readiness under one relationship, backed by 30 years of GovCon experience and supported by the company's Easby platform. ROSE will demonstrate how government contractors can evaluate their financial readiness during its September 18 webinar, “ Are You Ready for Your Next Government Contract? ” The session will feature Ted Rose, Kimberly Kuchman, and Wally Angel and will explore the financial and operational capabilities contractors should evaluate as they prepare for larger and more complex government contracts. In government contracting, compliance is not a business preference. It is a condition of holding the contract. Indirect rate management, DCAA-compliant timekeeping, incurred cost submissions, and audit readiness are the price of doing the work. Yet in most contractors, the functions that carry that compliance live in separate hands. Contract administration sits with one person, project controls and billing with another, the accounting system with a third. The cost of that fragmentation is rarely the software. It is the gaps between the pieces: the reconciliation work, the indirect rate surprises, the audit scramble when the pieces do not line up. ROSE now closes those gaps with one source. The GovCon Financial Advisory solution includes: Contract administration Project controls and billing Indirect rate management and modeling DCAA/GovCon audit readiness All of it is supported by Easby , ROSE's enterprise-grade, AI-enabled platform. Easby is an agentic AI control layer that sits above your accounting system and enforces the workflows that keep a GovCon compliant and scalable. It integrates with the accounting systems GovCon finance teams already run, including QuickBooks Online, PROCAS, Unanet, and Deltek Costpoint. Your accounting software remains your system of record. Easby has followed a 20-year path of proven automation: rules-based workflow since 2005, machine learning since 2014, generative AI in 2025, and agentic AI in 2026 , added to workflows that already work rather than built from scratch. The solution is designed to meet a contractor where it is, from a company's first federal contract through significant scale. It produces structured financial intelligence and improves financial infrastructure maturity as the business grows, at 30 to 60 percent less cost than building the same capability internally. "In government contracting, compliance is not a project you finish. It is a posture you operate in," said Ted Rose, Founder and CEO of ROSE Financial Solutions. "For 30 years our GovCon clients haven’t worried about failing an audit, and that record comes from infrastructure, not luck. What we are giving contractors now is a single source for work that used to be spread across separate people, separate tools, and separate budget line. That is how you scale a GovCon without your finance function becoming the constraint that slows you down." About ROSE Financial Solutions ROSE Financial Solutions is a Finance as a Service (FaaS) firm that builds and operates financial infrastructure for growing organizations, including founder-led companies, government contractors, nonprofits, and project-based professional services firms. ROSE's proprietary platform, Easby, is an agentic AI operating and intelligence layer built on Appian. Learn more at rosefinancial.com .
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