A CFO's month told as a story in eight chapters
A manufacturer's finance leaders read separate reports for sales, margin, cash, risk, assets and treasury. The CFO Storybook puts them in one place, as eight chapters that run from the headline down to the ledger.
From our own project and product work. Client names and identifying details are removed, and some figures are rounded.
The situation
A manufacturer's finance data sits in many places: the general ledger, customer and vendor ledgers, asset records, sales orders and treasury. Read as separate reports, it is hard to see the whole position, what drives profit, where cash is tied up and which exceptions need attention.
The eight chapters
| Chapter | What it shows |
|---|---|
| 1. Executive summary | Month, quarter and year to date revenue, EBITDA and profit growth, cash, net debt and key alerts |
| 2. Value chain and sales | Production stages and volumes, sales mix, open order backlog and product margins |
| 3. Margin story | How revenue becomes profit, step by step, with drill-down to cost centre and account |
| 4. Cash and working capital | Cash conversion, ageing of stock, receivables and payables, and small-supplier payments against the 45-day rule |
| 5. Ratios and valuation | Liquidity, leverage, return and debt service ratios |
| 6. Risk and anomaly | Credit-limit breaches, duplicate invoices, high discounts, tax variances, access conflicts and goods-receipt mismatches |
| 7. Assets and related parties | Asset blocks, additions, work in progress ageing, lease assets and related-party compliance |
| 8. Forex and loans | Currency exposure and cover, hedge maturities, borrowings and lender covenant checks |
How it is built
The data layer runs on SAP HANA or PostgreSQL, with a CSV or Excel fallback. A Python backend groups the accounts, works out the ratios and runs the exception rules. A React front end shows the results as headline cards, filters, trends, ageing bars, bridges and flows.
The figures trace back to SAP's ledger, customer, vendor, asset, sales order and currency tables.
What happened
The platform brings eight subject areas into one place, with drill-down from every headline and the exceptions next to the numbers they affect. We do not claim time or cost savings here; this work covered the platform, not a before-and-after study.
What changed
- One story, not twenty reports. Leaders move from the headline to the detail in one place.
- Exceptions beside the numbers. Risk is shown in the same view as performance.
- Traceable. Each figure leads back to its source table.
Products and services
See the CFO's view, forecasting and FP&A and cash and treasury. Vittora covers statements and planning.