The management meetings—the two-hour session that appears on our clients’ calendars every single month without fail—is one of the most important parts of our external CFO engagement.

We’ll be the first to acknowledge that one of the biggest gripes of modern work is the amount of meetings. One study indicates that time spent in meetings has increased by 50% since the 90s.¹ Another suggests that since the pandemic, the amount of meetings in a standard work week has increased threefold.²

And while ‘could have been an email’ meetings are a major modern work problem, our monthly management meetings couldn’t be further from this definition. In fact, one could argue that this is a textbook example of a meeting that must exist. These sessions are critical for nurturing the financial health of your company. They empower strategic decision-making, are a checkpoint for performance evaluation, and touchpoint to identify any shifts that may influence the next month’s forecast. Simply put, these essential sessions are key in keeping your financial strategy on track, month after month.

So, what can you expect from a monthly management meeting with your external CFO? In this article, we down the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of these touchpoints.

Who attends?

These meetings bring together those who are chiefly focused on your business’s financial performance. From our firm’s side, this will be your external CFO—Mark McLean or myself. Joining us will be a senior accountant from our team. We do this to provide you and your team with an additional point of contact—someone who knows your business and financials inside and out so that you’ll always have multiple experts you can turn to.

These meetings also require your key financial decision makers to attend. Typically, this will be the business owner or the CEO, but not always. Who you need to have in the room depends on the size and structure of your business. For example, one of our clients has an incredibly capable and financially skilled senior management team, so this is the team who attends our monthlies, rather than the CEO personally.

Other scenarios may require extra attendees:

  • Departmental heads: If a key agenda item concerns a specific department (e.g. marketing or legal), we may invite the relevant manager along.
  • Financiers: If your business requires a significant level of funding and you have active relationships with banks or funders, they may be invited to gain oversight on performance and ability to service any loans.

When and where do these take place?

When we first set you up with our external CFO engagement, we’ll establish a timetable that outlines your meeting dates and times going forward. Although it can feel like a big adjustment initially, most clients quickly find their rhythm within a month or two.

As often as possible, we’ll conduct these meetings onsite at your office. Firm-wide, we believe in good old-fashioned service, which means getting out to our clients’ locations—even if that means travelling long distances.

What happens in these meetings?

Before the meeting

Providing the required data

Mid-month, every month, your accounting team will be tasked with providing the required financial data to our team. We support your team with a set procedure for this, so it doesn’t take them long to get comfortable with the cadence and have the process running like clockwork.

Sharing the detail

We will send you a full financial report. Depending on the size of your organisation—this report can span from a dozen pages to 200.

Setting the agenda

Along with the report, we share key focus topics to guide our discussion. This saves you from drowning in the detail of the full financial report and highlights the key areas of focus, which we’ll be discussing in our monthly.

At the meeting

With the agenda set, the topics we discuss typically fall into the following categories:

Key findings and performance

We review budget variance, overall financial performance, cashflow position, and how these stack up against targets. By comparing actual results to projections, we can quickly see if we’re veering off track and decide on necessary next steps.

Forecasting and forward planning

We look at the factors that might affect upcoming forecasts. For example, if sales are performing below target or a new market opportunity is identified, we’ll discuss whether the forward forecast needs to be adjusted. The meeting opens the floor for stakeholders to share updates, concerns, and ideas, which allows us to make real-time adjustments to our forecasting models.

Exploring opportunities

If a client is tracking well and wants to explore growth or a potential acquisition, we incorporate these scenarios into our models for further analysis at subsequent meetings or board sessions. Having those numbers on the table is the clearest way to understand whether such opportunities are viable and make good financial sense for your business.

How to get the most out of these meetings

Make the time

Be present at each monthly meeting. We’ll always set clear dates and share all information in advance.

Be prepared

Read and digest the summary and agenda items beforehand. This sets the stage for proactive and productive discussion.

Be ready to take action

We send minutes after each meeting, often highlighting action items. These may be tasks for our team, but they may also be for you. Over the years, what I’ve found is that it’s the people who own their action items that achieve their objectives and grow healthy, thriving businesses. Our clients know this well. For many, the accountability that comes with our external CFO engagement is a key part of why they choose to come onboard.

Why these meetings are so important

They instil financial discipline

Setting a monthly schedule where data is consistently provided, analysed and acted upon helps build a disciplined financial culture. This structure means that every decision is informed by reliable, up-to-date information.

They become a framework for decision-making

Having a clear, data-driven framework removes guesswork when evaluating projects and investments. It might mean deciding only to proceed with opportunities that meet a specific return on investment—or, at the very least, clarifying what it means if you move forward outside those parameters.

They provide peace of mind

Many businesses—especially those transitioning between generations—worry about big unknowns, like fluctuations in commodity prices or the cost of expansion. Monthly meetings and financial modelling help your team see exactly where things stand. Knowing with better clarity how different scenarios may play out can make all the difference when it comes to sleeping well at night.

For example, we’re currently working with a family business in the process of transitioning from an 80-year-old founder to the next generation. They planned to invest heavily in growth but were concerned about price fluctuations and mounting debt. Through monthly meetings, we tested both best- and worst-case scenarios, showing exactly how changes in commodity pricing would affect cash flow and loan servicing. With this clarity, the new owner felt confident pushing ahead—knowing exactly where the risks lay and how we’d navigate them, should they arise.

They bring an independent perspective

With an external CFO, you gain independent, unbiased input. Internal teams can sometimes miss issues because they’re too close to day-to-day operations, or they may hesitate to raise sensitive topics with colleagues. The independence of an external CFO means our perspective is clear—unclouded by hyperfocus or internal pressures.

One of the most valuable meetings you’ll have in your diary—if not the most valuable—our monthly management meetings see to it that the most important conversations are happening and that they’re leading to real, measurable outcomes for you and your business.

Want to learn more about our external CFO service? Get in touch with Jason Krenske and our business insights teams to help make your management meetings more meaningful.

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