Enterprise AI adoption in finance has hit 59%. Fewer than 12% of small businesses use AI in any function. The gap between enterprise sophistication and SMB reality is where opportunity lives — and where most advice ends.
Enterprise AI adoption vs. SMBs under 50 employees
OECD / Gartner 2025
of AI finance projects fail to reach production
FinTellect AI / RAND
addressable market for AI-enabled FP&A services
MarketsandMarkets
The SMB AI finance market has a structural problem that no vendor, Big 4 firm, or enterprise advisor is solving.
Enterprise AI FP&A tools cost $15,000–$100,000+ per year. QuickBooks costs $17/month. There is no credible, affordable AI-native option for companies under $10M in revenue — and no independent guide to the tools that do exist.
Every "Top 10 AI FP&A Tools" article is written by a vendor with a product to sell. Every Big 4 AI-in-finance report targets Fortune 500. Independent, practitioner-led, vendor-neutral guidance for SMBs simply does not exist.
Fractional CFOs understand finance but not AI. AI consultants understand models but not FP&A. The intersection — someone who can bridge AI capability to financial strategy for a $20M company — is essentially vacant.
A structured engagement ladder from initial diagnostic to embedded strategic partnership. Every step is designed to generate measurable ROI before the next begins.
Assess your current stack, data quality, and AI readiness. Delivers a scored gap analysis and prioritized roadmap.
The right starting point. Identifies exactly what to fix before investing in any tool.
Tool selection, configuration, workflow design, and dashboard creation tailored to your finance function.
Core implementation. Each engagement generates real case study data.
Monthly retainer for model tuning, team training, and ongoing optimization as your business evolves.
Recurring partnership. Deepens the relationship and ROI over time.
Strategic leadership plus hands-on execution, 10–20 hours per week, as your embedded AI finance partner.
Highest-value engagement. For companies ready to fully transform their finance function.
Why this matters
"Finance professionals who learn AI have a structural advantage over AI professionals who learn finance. Domain expertise is harder to fake."
Built on 12+ years of senior strategic finance experience — advising, building, and operating finance functions across high-growth companies. Vendor-neutral by design.
About the practice →Five content pillars covering every dimension of AI adoption in SMB finance. Evidence-based. Practitioner-written. No vendor sponsorship.
What SMBs actually need before buying any AI tool. Data infrastructure, chart of accounts, process documentation.
Independent, practitioner-tested tool comparisons. The only reviews not written by a vendor.
Step-by-step implementation guides for first-time CFOs and fractional CFOs modernizing finance with AI.
Evidence over hype. Quantified benchmarks, failure rates, and realistic ROI projections for companies under $50M.
EU AI Act, data privacy, and compliance frameworks translated into SMB-actionable guidance.
Browse every article, guide, and research piece in one place.
The failure rate for AI finance projects is well-documented. The causes are rarely the AI itself. Here is an honest post-mortem on what actually goes wrong, and the specific practices that separate successful implementations from expensive lessons.
Read →The first AI FP&A maturity model built specifically for companies under $100M revenue. Find out which level you're at, what it costs to move up, and what the ROI looks like at each stage.
Read →Most AI finance implementations fail before the software is ever purchased. Here is the honest checklist that tells you whether your data is ready — and what to fix first.
Read →A fixed-scope engagement that tells you exactly where you stand, what's blocking AI adoption, and the prioritized steps to move forward. No commitment beyond the audit.
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