Unleashing Full Potential of Your SaaS Company | Fractional FP&A and BI Data Science Consultant | Tech-Savvy Finance Leader | Data Ninja | Reporting Analytics FP&A | SaaS, FMCG & Logistics | Finance - Power BI - Tableau

If you're an ambitious founder, you probably:

→ Want to improve financial models

→ Struggle with optimizing your finance tech stack

→ Lack the time to enhance your financial strategies

→ Want to implement new financial software but don’t know how

→ Aim to prepare for successful fundraising rounds but need guidance

→ Seek to optimize your financial reporting but don’t know where to start

You might relate to all 7 of these points.

Or, You might just be struggling with 1.

Why does that matter?

Well, having a robust financial strategy is essential for growth.

And there's still a massive opportunity to maximize your revenue through specialized financial practices.

Don't believe me?

Here are 5 things that my employers have said my expertise helped them do:

1. To create awareness for potential investors and partners

2. To attract investment by optimizing their financial structures

3. To communicate their growth potential better to stakeholders

4. To streamline operations by implementing various financial software

5. To stand out from competitors through financial insights and strategy

Implementing these strategies can boost your revenue, growth, and financial performance.
But you don't have time for that…

You're too busy doing other stuff like,

I don't know, scaling your company.

So what happens now?
I'll take over your financial strategy for you.

I have helped dozens of companies in:

― Preparing them for fundraising rounds,
― Optimizing their finance tech stacks,
― Enhancing their financial models,
― And more.

And no, I don't mean providing:

→ Generic financial advice
→ One-size-fits-all strategies
→ Pointless number crunching

I mean ACTUAL tailored financial solutions.

Created by a real fractional CFO.

Who leverages industry insights, proven frameworks, and your company's unique needs to drive real growth.

So, which path you'll want to go:

A - Sit and do nothing, leaving your financial strategies to chance.

Or

B - Sit and do nothing while I optimize your financial strategy, prepare you for fundraising, and help you skyrocket your revenue.

I know you're shouting B inside you.

Let's map out strategies to streamline your financial operations and identify new avenues for growth and investment.

📌 Drop me a DM "Growth" or
📌 Click the link in my Featured Section

Here are 7 Excel "sins" everyone should avoid.

Ask any financial analyst → I won’t forgive these!

1. Relying only on VLOOKUP when there is XLOOKUP
2. Forgetting MATCH for relative positions
3. Ignoring INDEX for dynamic references
4. Not using XLOOKUP’s wildcard feature
5. Not understanding OFFSET for ranges
6. Underusing CHOOSE for conditions
7. Overcomplicating simple LOOKUPs

7 ways to do it right:

1. Combine INDEX + MATCH for advanced searches
2. Leverage XLOOKUP wildcards for patterns
3. Learn MATCH for position-based lookups
4. CHOOSE to build decision-based logic
5. Use OFFSET for dynamic ranges
6. Simplify with LOOKUP for arrays
7. Master XLOOKUP for flexibility

Bonus: Combine these for next-level reports.

Hope you see the power of these tools now!
(Repost this further ♻️)

P.S. Tag a colleague who needs this reminder!

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Helping tech founders make smarter financial decisions (and scale like Usercentrics to €100M ARR) | Fractional CFO & FP&A Advisor

I've analysed hundreds of finance roles across SaaS teams...

This is absolutely everything you need to know for 2026:

Unfortunately for us all, job titles did not get any clearer...
And the finance "game" is still confusing as ever.

That's why I spent time mapping the real skill profiles.

So this year can be your best one yet in finance.

I'm still seeing the same old mistakes:

People chasing titles,
Over-indexing on Excel,
And staying in roles that don't build the right skills...

If you want real growth, you need to know the new rules.

Hiring managers want more clarity and capability than ever before.

Here’s what will actually win in 2026:

1. CFO vs Controller
❌ Same job, different company.
✅ Different jobs, different skill weightings.

2. Accounting skills
❌ Only accountants need accounting.
✅ Every senior finance role needs accounting literacy.

3. Financial modeling
❌ Only FP&A does modeling.
✅ CFOs and Analysts live or die by modeling.

4. Reporting
❌ Reporting is “basic”.
✅ Reporting is what builds trust in finance.

(And trust is the currency of leadership...)

5. Strategic planning
❌ Strategy is just vision.
✅ Strategy is numbers + narrative + decisions.

6. Risk management
❌ Risk is for auditors.
✅ Risk is for anyone responsible for cash and outcomes.

7. Business acumen
❌ You learn it “later”.
✅ You learn it by owning real decisions early.

8. Communication
❌ Soft skill.
✅ The skill that gets you promoted.

9. Leadership
❌ Only managers lead.
✅ Leadership starts before you have the title.

10. Picking your path
❌ Follow the ladder.
✅ Follow the skill profile you want to become.

11. The truth about careers
Shock horror, nothing's changed here.
Titles are still misleading.

It's possible to grow a finance career quickly.

The top 1% finance operators get promoted every 12–18 months.

But you need to know what to build.

That's why I created this visual skill map.

It's your rulebook to understand finance roles in 2026.

To get access, simply:

• Like this post ✅
• Share it with your network ♻️
• Follow me for more SaaS finance frameworks 🧠

♻️ Repost to help others navigate finance careers in 2026.
Follow Alex Stojanovic, MSc. for more finance growth strategies like this.

I should be selling this.

But I’m handing over a Headcount & Compensation Planning model for free.

This isn’t just another spreadsheet. It includes:

→ Department-level views for Finance, Sales, Eng & HR
→ Charts to visualize comp & hiring trends over time
→ Salary, Bonus, Commission & Benefits by month
→ Auto headcount logic for current + future hires
→ Taxes, benefits, FTEs, and SUI by state

And yep, I’m giving it away.

It will help you:

→ Plan comp & hiring across 12+ months
→ Avoid overhiring and cash flow surprises
→ Build investor-ready people forecasts in hours
→ Forecast bonuses, taxes, and benefits by region
→ Align headcount with budget and hiring roadmap

Want instant access?

💬 Comment “HIRING MODEL” below
📩 Connect + DM me

I’ll send you the direct link.

Stop building compensation plans from scratch.

Start planning it the right way.

Drop “HIRING MODEL” below to get it.

♻️ Repost if you find it useful!

Excel just leveled up your finance toolkit.

(and it's a game-changer for finance pros)

Why does this matter for your financial strategy?

1. Accurate Financial Models
   
No more guesswork:

↳ Master cash flow forecasting
↳ Precisely calculate returns
↳ Quickly identify errors

➠ Weekly checks ensure accuracy and reliability.

2. Enhanced Decision-Making
   
Easily identify what formulas drive value:

↳ Calculate ROI clearly
↳ Quickly assess investment returns
↳ Project accurate payment schedules

➠ Example: I'm doubling down on XIRR and XNPV formulas for investment analysis.

3. The New Excel Playbook
   
This is your strategic advantage:

↳ Automate routine calculations
↳ Enhance clarity and accuracy
↳ Prioritize critical functions

➠ Pro Tip: Master 1-2 critical formulas per week.

Excel mastery isn't quantity. It’s precision for strategic clarity.

The formula is clear:

Targeted formula mastery
• Strategic financial clarity = Enhanced professional value

This is just the start.

More insights coming as I master new formulas.

P.S. Tag a colleague who needs this Excel upgrade 👇🏾

P.S.S. I'm incredibly excited about this.

90% of broken board meetings have the same root cause.
 
Not bad data. Not missing slides.
 
A missing operating structure around the data that already exists.
 
Picture this: Series B company, 15 months of runway on the books, heading into a quarterly review.
 
An investor asks: "What's driving the CAC increase in the enterprise segment?"
 
Sales pulls up one number.
Finance has a different one.
RevOps has a third — blended across segments, not separated.
 
40 minutes later, the board agrees to "align on definitions before the next meeting."
 
One follow-up task. Zero decisions.
 
I've seen this play out repeatedly.
And it's almost always caused by the same 4 missing things:
 
1. No written definitions — what's included, excluded, how edge cases work
2. No clear ownership — data owner vs. decision owner are different roles
3. Wrong cadence — reviewing burn monthly when you need it weekly
4. No decision rules — pre-written triggers: if runway drops below 6 months → X happens within Y days
 
The worst case: nothing changes and your board deck is slightly more organized.
 
The best case: your next meeting ends with 3 decisions made and 1 follow-up — instead of 3 follow-up items and a promise to "align next time."
 
I wrote the full breakdown. It covers:
 
→ The 4-part system for decision-ready metrics
→ The 8 metrics that break the most board meetings (CAC, NRR, runway, MRR, LTV, churn, pipeline, headcount)
→ The 3 traps founders keep falling into
→ A free board reporting template
 
I'm giving it away.
 
💬 Comment “BOARD” below
📩 Connect + DM me “BOARD”

I’ll send you the direct link.
 
♻️ Repost if this hit — someone on your feed is walking into this exact board meeting next week.

I should be selling this.

But I’m giving away a 20-question Finance Automation Scorecard for free.

This isn’t just another checklist. It includes:

→ Diagnostic across AP, spend management, approvals & controls
→ Operational bottlenecks slowing your finance team down
→ Process gaps across close, reconciliation & reporting
→ Automation breakdown across your finance stack
→ Clear priority map showing what to fix first

And yep, I’m giving it away.

It will help you:

→ Speed up your month-end close and reporting cycle
→ Focus on the one system or process you should fix first
→ Find hidden process bottlenecks across AP and approvals
→ Strengthen financial controls before they become problems
→ Identify where your finance “automation” is actually breaking

Want instant access?

💬 Comment “SCORECARD” below
📩 Connect + DM me

I’ll send you the direct link.

Stop guessing where finance operations are breaking.

Start fixing the right problem first.

Drop “SCORECARD” below to get it.

♻️ Repost if you find it useful!

I’ve worked with 50+ founders.

Most of them think FP&A = reporting.

That’s why they plateau.

Here’s what I show them instead:

FP&A is how you:

→ Predict cash risk
→ Model GTM scenarios
→ Align hiring to growth
→ Translate strategy into numbers

I created this cheat sheet for founders who:

• Are scaling from Seed to Series B
• Need real visibility on margins and burn
• Want to stop guessing at financial strategy

Inside the FP&A system:

→ Strategic planning meets resource allocation
→ Dashboards become decision tools
→ Metrics actually mean something

FP&A is the blueprint for smarter scaling.
Not a spreadsheet. A strategy.

Want to break through your plateau?

Comment “CHEATSHEET” and I’ll send it.

You don’t need to be a CFO to make sense of your numbers. Here’s how to break it down.

Most founders see a balance sheet and walk away.

You:

→ Glance at assets and liabilities
→ Skim equity
→ Move on to the next thing

But every balance sheet tells a story. A story about how your company grows, survives, and creates value.

When I started working with SaaS companies, I was lost...
Deferred revenue?
Capitalized commissions?

My head spun. (True story.)

But I kept digging.

I learned:

→ Cash and receivables show how well you collect and manage money
→ Liabilities like accrued expenses reveal hidden risks and future payments
→ Equity explains what’s left for shareholders and how value is built

The trick? Don’t get stuck in the weeds.

Focus on three things:

1. Assets: What you own and what brings in cash
2. Liabilities: What you owe and where risk hides
3. Equity: The real value you create for owners

It’s not about memorizing every line.

It’s about reading what the numbers mean.

Once I cracked this, every balance sheet became a map. I could see if a company was ready to scale, needed funding, or was hiding a cash crunch.

You can do this too.

You don’t need a finance degree-just the right approach.

Want to see how a balance sheet unlocks your financial story?

Start here: thestartupfinance.com

PS. What’s the one thing you struggle with when reading a balance sheet?

Don’t be the finance leader who gets caught running your company on broken data.

Instead, steal 1 of these 8 finance workflows:

This is where you should start with finance:
Mastering the flow of inputs.

Forecasting basic numbers will get you basic decisions.
Honestly, it is a misuse of insanely valuable finance.

My clients and I have learned this deeply as a system.

The results are amazing:

Cleaner closes and fewer surprises.

Forecasts that actually match reality.

Therefore, better decisions made faster.

These are the 8 workflow loops I use to run SaaS finance:

1️⃣ Billing → Revenue Reality
Billing systems define the truth of cash and revenue timing.

2️⃣ CRM → Demand & Volume Forecast
Pipeline quality is what makes your forecast believable.

3️⃣ HRIS → Headcount Planning
Headcount is your biggest cost lever. Plan it properly.

4️⃣ Sales → Retention & Expansion
Your best growth comes from what you already sold.

5️⃣ Marketing → CAC & Efficiency
Spend without attribution is just hope with invoices.

6️⃣ Recruiting → Hiring Timing
Hiring delays break budgets more than bad spreadsheets do.

7️⃣ ERP → Accounting Close
If the close is messy, every dashboard is fiction.

8️⃣ Procurement → Vendor Spend Control
Vendor sprawl quietly destroys margins.

Finance is the single biggest source of leverage in a SaaS company.
But you can't get any of it without mastering the cycle.

If you spend 1-2 hours tweaking dashboards per week...
I know you have time to build these workflow loops.

My content shares frameworks like this, every single week.

There is always something you can apply the exact same day.

Follow me now and save this image for later.

Which workflow loop will you fix first?
Let me know how it goes in the comments.

♻️ Repost to help your network run finance like a system.
And follow Alex Stojanovic, MSc. for more SaaS finance frameworks.

Maybe nobody in your company has ever run a proper close.
 
Nobody in most SaaS startups has.
 
They never closed the books in 5 days.  Nobody built a repeatable month-end process.
 
The finance function wasn’t designed.  It just… happened.
 
From when the company was small, the path was always laid out:
 
“Just keep the invoices moving, pay the bills, and update the spreadsheet.”
 
That was the plan.  And everyone I meet in early-stage SaaS followed it.
 
So when you say “we need a real month-end close,” sometimes you don’t have anyone internally who understands.
 
They’re not being lazy or careless.
 
They just don’t have a frame of reference for what you’re describing.
 
I’ve found that to be a big advantage, actually.
 
The teams who grew up around “startup finance” usually inherited someone else’s chaos.
 
They work through a set of assumptions about what finance should look like.
 
How long a close takes.  How messy it’s supposed to feel.  How many errors are “normal.”
 
Maybe you don’t carry any of that baggage.
 
You get to start with a blank page.
 
You don’t have to live up to anyone else’s expectations about how painful month-end should be, or how late reporting needs to come out, or what “good finance” is supposed to look like.
 
The first finance leader in any company to do it properly has one thing nobody else has:
 
The freedom to build the close from absolute scratch.
 
You just have to be willing to figure it out without a map.
 
I write about this path every week for SaaS founders and operators.
 
How to build a lean, simple, repeatable finance function (especially when nobody around you has done it before).
 
If you want one post a week that feels like the finance mentor you're looking for, follow me here.
 
As a free bonus, save the checklist in this post and use it for your next close.
 
See you inside.

If you’re €5–50M ARR and you can’t explain ARR movement in 60 seconds…

You’re not in control.

Save this ARR bridge 👇

Starting ARR
• New ARR
• Expansion ARR
 – Contraction ARR
 – Churn ARR
 = Ending ARR

Now the part most teams miss:

1/ New ARR isn’t pipeline

Pipeline is hope.
Bookings is reality.

Do this instead:
 ↳ Track slippage weekly
 ↳ Separate “commit” from “upside”
 ↳ Model cycle length changes

2/ Expansion ARR isn’t “upsell”

Expansion is a system:
pricing, packaging, adoption, CS capacity.

Do this instead:
 ↳ Track expansion by segment
 ↳ Tie expansion to product adoption
 ↳ Separate price uplift from true usage uplift

3/ Churn ARR isn’t a single number

“Churn” hides everything.

Do this instead:
 ↳ Split logo churn vs churn ARR
 ↳ Split contraction vs churn
 ↳ Track churn reasons as leading indicators

4/ The bridge is a weekly operating tool

Not a month-end report.

Because at this stage:
small leaks become big problems quietly.

Master the bridge and you’ll stop having “surprise” quarter endings.

PS. If you want the ARR bridge template I use (with definitions + checks), tell me and I’ll share it.

I partnered with the team at BILL to get under the hood of 50+ finance operations.

What we found explains why "automation" projects keep failing.

The issue is not bad software or inexperienced teams.

The real culprit is something no one talks about.

The promise gap.

7 promises vendors make that still create chaos:

1. "𝗜𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗰𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴" → duplicates + manual cleanup every close
2. "𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗻𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆" → speed vs fraud vs rework tradeoff
3. "𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹" → policy is a PDF, enforcement is vibes
4. "𝗪𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸" → you just shifted it to exceptions
5. "𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱" → routing lives in people's heads
6. "𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲" → means "ask AP for a report"
7. "𝗥𝗢𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀" → no baseline = no proof

I kept hearing the same thing from Controllers and AP leads:

"We thought this would fix everything. Now we're just busier."

You don't have automation. You have manual work with extra steps.

Here's what actually works:

𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁.

I built a 20-question diagnostic that shows you exactly where your "automation" is breaking down.

AP, spend, approvals, controls, close.

Takes 5 minutes. Tells you what to fix first.

Want to know where your chaos is actually coming from?

— Comment SCORECARD and I'll send it —

The results might surprise you.

PS. What's the biggest automation promise you were sold that turned into more chaos?

BILL

Proven_Beats_Promises_W_1

I just analyzed 50+ AP workflows from companies doing $10M-$500M in revenue...

...plus 10,000+ invoices & 200+ hours of Controller interviews. 🤯

In about 90 days, I ended up with a complete AP Bottleneck Heatmap + Fix Playbook.

I can't believe how clear the patterns are.

Want it?

1) Comment HEATMAP
2) Come back to this post in 24 hours for the link

I'm still in shock, honestly.

It revealed things like:

➜ Where invoices actually die (not where you think)
➜ The #1 bottleneck that creates the most rework
➜ Which fixes reduce touches per invoice by 40%+
➜ The optimal approval SLA so nothing gets stuck

No more guessing.
No more chasing invoices.

I partnered with BILL to map this in 90 days.
Now I'm sharing the heatmap for FREE.

You'll see:

➜ Top 10 bottlenecks + symptoms + root causes
➜ "What to standardize" checklist
➜ Sample SLA targets (48 hrs approval, 24 hrs coding review, etc.)
➜ How we cross-referenced invoice cycle time with bottleneck location

The heatmap is ready to share.
Still can't believe how consistent these patterns are across 50+ companies.

Want it?

1) Comment HEATMAP
2) Come back to this post in 24 hours

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