CFO Plan Review
A skeptical CFO's verdict on one spend plan: recomputed numbers, runway before and after, conditions for yes, and what changes the call.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
Doubling your sales team is a significant investment and there are several factors to evaluate. You'd want to look at your current cash position, your monthly burn rate, and how quickly new sales reps become productive. The cost of hiring, training, and ramping new salespeople is substantial. You should also consider whether you have enough customers in your pipeline to support more outbound activity. What's your current monthly recurring revenue and cash runway?
CFO ANALYSIS: Sales team expansion feasibility (sample numbers) CURRENT STATE: 8 sales reps, 18-month cash runway ($1.2M cash, $67k monthly burn). New hire fully-loaded cost: $95k per year (salary + benefits + commission buffer). Current CAC payback: 8 months. Average deal size: $24k ARR. SCENARIO MODELING: Doubly headcount (+8 reps) = +$760k annual cost. Phased approach is safer: Month 1-2: Hire 4 reps (add $380k/year) = cash runway drops to 14.2 months (acceptable). Month 3-4: Hire remaining 4 = +$760k = 12.1 months runway (threshold: keep above 12). BOTTOMARS REALITY CHECK: Ramp risk: Standard B2B sales ramp is 3-4 months to 50% productivity. New reps won't generate revenue for month 1-2 (training, deal pipeline). Month 3-6 they hit 60-80% productivity. At 6 months, break-even on ramp cost requires closing 2-3 extra deals per new rep per month beyond existing bookings. PRODUCTION MATH: Existing 8 reps close $28k MRR monthly ($3.36M pipeline). Add 8 reps at 65% maturity by month 6: +$18k MRR. Payoff in month 8-9. Risk: if maturity drops to 40% (common in downturns), payoff extends to month 14. Runway insufficient. TRIP WIRES: Don't expand if CAC payback exceeds 10 months. Don't expand if pipeline density drops below 3-month coverage. Don't expand if churn ticks above 8%. CLEAR-TO-PROCEED: Yes, but PHASED. Hire 4 in April, measure to June metrics (won rate, ramp velocity). Decide on final 4 by July. This preserves runway flexibility. NOTE: This analysis is illustrative. Verify with actual financial models and board-approved spending authority.
About this skill
Before a spend plan reaches the board, get the review a numerate, skeptical CFO would give it. Every number is recomputed from its inputs and moved to the month cash actually leaves.
What it does
- Recomputes CAC, payback, and fully loaded headcount cost and shows where the plan differs
- Shows runway before and after as months and a calendar date, plus the lowest cash point
- Uses your historical ramp and conversion, not the plan's hopes
- Flags financing dependence, covenant risk, and irreversible commitments
- Writes stage gates so the plan can be approved in tranches
What you get
A verdict tied to a number, a recomputed-numbers table, ranked risks, conditions for yes, and what evidence would change the verdict.
Best for
Founders, finance leads, and department heads pressure-testing a hiring plan, marketing budget, lease, or big vendor contract.
SKILL.md preview
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name: cfo-review
description: Critique one specific plan that commits money - a hiring wave, new channel budget, office lease, big vendor contract, price change, or fundraise - through a CFO's lens and return a verdict (approve, approve with conditions, rework, reject), the recomputed numbers, the specific financial risks, and what would change the verdict. Use when the user says "review this plan from a CFO's perspective", "would a CFO sign off on this?", "poke holes in our hiring plan numbers", "can we afford this?", "sanity-check this budget request", or pastes a plan, memo, or spreadsheet and asks "does this math hold up?".
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# CFO Plan Review
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