Summer is more than a change in season. For finance leaders, it is a critical window. H1 is behind you, the assumptions in your annual plan have been tested by reality, and the decisions you make in the coming weeks will define whether the second half of the year is one you look back on with confidence or regret. Here are the five things every CFO should be doing right now.
1. Close out H1 with a clear-eyed view of the year
The half-year mark is not just a reporting milestone. It is the most important opportunity of the year to take stock honestly and reset direction.
Before you close the books on H1, go beyond the numbers. Pull apart actuals against your original budget and your spring reforecast. Where has performance diverged, and why? Which assumptions have held up and which have not? Resist the temptation to smooth over the gaps with optimistic H2 projections. That path leads to the September surprises that no board wants.
A strong H1 close is not just about accuracy. It is about credibility. The CFO who arrives at the board with a clear, honest narrative about where the business stands, including the uncomfortable parts is the CFO who builds the trust needed to lead through the months ahead.
Use the close as an opportunity to rebuild your H2 scenarios from first principles. What does a base case actually look like given current trading momentum? What are the two or three variables that could push performance materially above or below it? And what management actions are pre-planned for each outcome? A scenario without a response plan is just a number.
2. Reforecast for H2 with the rigour you applied to the budget
The annual budget was built six or eight months ago in a different environment. Much of what was assumed then is no longer true. Interest rates, input costs, customer behaviour, hiring markets, all of these have moved. A CFO who is still managing against January’s plan in July is not managing at all.
Summer is the window to conduct a full, rigorous reforecast. That means going back to your commercial and operational leaders, interrogating the pipeline with fresh eyes, reviewing headcount against plans, and pressure-testing every significant revenue assumption with real data.
If your FP&A tools make this process slow and painful, if it involves exporting data, rebuilding spreadsheets, and chasing colleagues for inputs, that friction is costing you something far more valuable than time. It is costing you the quality and timeliness of decisions. Modern planning platforms allow finance teams to reforecast continuously, not as a periodic event. If you are not there yet, the summer is the right moment to ask why.
Be equally rigorous about cost. Review every material line on the P&L and ask whether H2 commitments are still the right ones given what you now know.
3. Get ahead of cash and capital before Q3 pressure builds
Liquidity rarely becomes a crisis overnight. It becomes a crisis because the signals were visible and nobody acted on them. Summer is when the signals are easiest to read and the options are still open.
Review your working capital position with discipline. Debtor days, creditor terms, inventory, small improvements in cash conversion efficiency can release meaningful liquidity that gives you optionality in the autumn. If you have customers who are habitually slow to pay, now is the time to address it rather than carrying the exposure into a potentially tougher Q4.
Assess your covenant headroom and banking relationships. If you anticipate tighter conditions in H2, open those conversations now. Lenders respond very differently to a well-prepared CFO who gets ahead of issues than to one who arrives under pressure in October.
Also revisit your capital allocation decisions. Are all approved projects still strategically aligned and on track to deliver the returns that justified the investment? Summer is an excellent time to pause, reassess, and reallocate capital away from lower-priority activities towards the initiatives most likely to create value in the year ahead. If your financial modelling cannot quickly stress-test those investment cases, that is another gap worth closing before the autumn.
4. Invest in your team while the pace allows it
The summer period, when the relentless rhythm of month-end, board packs and budget cycles eases slightly, is the best window of the year to invest in your finance team’s capability. Most CFOs know this and most CFOs deprioritise it anyway. Do not make that mistake again this year.
Identify the skill gaps that have become apparent in H1. Whether in FP&A, data analytics, business partnering, or technology literacy, put structured development plans in place before the pace picks up again in September.
The modern finance function requires skills that were not on the hiring specification five years ago. Data fluency, the ability to work effectively with AI-powered tools, and the capacity to translate financial complexity into strategic insight for non-finance colleagues are now fundamental. If your team is not actively building these capabilities, the gap will widen.
Consider also whether your Jedox training and technology onboarding is keeping pace with the tools your team is expected to use. Capability gaps in your planning systems are often the hidden reason why forecasts take longer, insights are shallower, and month-end closes drag on unnecessarily. Summer is the time to fix that.
5. Use the quieter months to raise your strategic game
The CFO role has moved well beyond financial stewardship. The most effective finance leaders today are genuine strategic co-pilots that shape the direction of the business, not just measuring it. Summer is the moment to reflect honestly on whether you are operating at that level, and to do the things that the rest of the year rarely allows time for.
Have deeper, less transactional conversations with your CEO and leadership team. Probe the strategic assumptions behind the long-range plan. Challenge where the business is allocating its best resources. Explore the decisions that are likely to matter most in 2027 and beyond, and ensure finance is developing the analytical capability to support them.
Invest time in your board relationships. A CFO who communicates proactively between formal meetings, keeps board members informed of material developments, and arrives at every session with a clear narrative and a point of view commands far more influence than one who shows up with a deck full of slides and no direction.
Use this window to build the management reporting infrastructure that will enable better decisions in H2 and beyond. Redesign your monthly pack to focus on decisions rather than data. Establish a more disciplined process for evaluating capital allocation choices. Build the forecasting and scenario capability that allows you to respond to change in days, not weeks.
The best CFOs do not simply report on what has happened. They shape what happens next. Summer is when that work begins in earnest.
The common thread running through all five of these priorities is the same one that ran through spring: proactivity. The CFOs who look back on this year as a strong one will be those who used the summer window to get ahead of the challenges ahead rather than waiting for those challenges to find them. The window is open. Use it well.