CFO Role Brief

The financial decision-maker view of SuiteCentral 2.0: a small, capped pilot with a transparent ROI model and a hard go/no-go gate at day 90.

Who this is for

The CFO of Squire — the executive who must approve the pilot budget. Not named in the corpus; the CLAUDE.md operating manual identifies the approving leadership as “Jonyce Bullock (CEO of Squire & Company), Reuben Cook (President of Squire Technology), plus the CFO / CTO / COO who must approve any pilot.”

This brief is structured as a pre-meeting cheat sheet, not a finance memo. It exists to give the CFO the three numbers and the three things to ask for.

Decision frame (the three numbers)

	Value	Source
Pilot ask	$50,000–$75,000	10-role-brief-cfo, 01-executive-summary
3-year ROI range (modeled)	25%–157%	10-role-brief-cfo, 01-executive-summary
Payback signal	~6 months in model assumptions	10-role-brief-cfo

The pilot ask and ROI range are now confirmed across two independent sources in the corpus. The payback signal is single-source so far.

What the CFO should validate (the three asks)

Before approval:

1. Pilot cost is capped before any scale decision. The $50–75K is the entire commitment — there is no automatic escalation. Whatever happens inside the pilot, the financial exposure stops at the pilot envelope.
2. Scenario inputs are adjustable and transparent. The ROI model is parameterized, not a fixed projection — the CFO (or finance) can stress-test assumptions. The interactive tool is presumably 04-ROI-CALCULATOR.md in the notebook (not yet ingested).
3. The day-90 gate includes both economics and adoption proof. The pilot does not end with a vibes-based decision. At day 90, the go/no-go is gated on (a) the economics actually showing up against the model and (b) demonstrated user adoption, not just IT acceptance.

Why this framing works for a CFO

• It respects the CFO’s job: protect the firm’s downside before chasing upside.
• It avoids the two failure modes of a typical software pitch:
  • No “trust us” asks. Every number is tied to a model the CFO can poke at.
  • No open-ended commitments. The capped pilot envelope means the worst case is “we spent $75K and learned.” That’s a bounded loss, not a strategic mistake.
• The 25–157% three-year ROI band is wide enough to be honest. A claim of “157% guaranteed” would be a red flag. The range signals scenario sensitivity, not overconfidence.

What the CFO should ask for (open questions in the corpus)

• The ROI calculator itself. What are the input parameters? Which assumptions move the answer the most? — flag 04-ROI-CALCULATOR.md for ingest.
• The day-30 and day-60 gate criteria. This brief only specifies the day-90 gate — but the 90 pilot structure implies earlier gates exist. Likely in 13-PILOT-30-60-90.md (not yet ingested) and partially in the COO brief.
• The breakdown behind 25–157%. Best case / base case / worst case. Not in this source.
• The payback model assumptions. What gets us to ~6 months? Front-loaded operational savings? License consolidation? Not in this source.

Cross-role context

The CFO brief is one of three role briefs in the executive package — see also CTO brief and COO brief. In the live demo flow they appear as a parallel choice in step 6 of Path B (the leadership review path) — each reviewer reads the brief that matches their job rather than reading all three. See Path B for the full sequence.

The three briefs do divide the decision concerns cleanly: the CFO worries about cost, the CTO worries about correctness, and the COO worries about throughput. For one specific case — a reader who must reconcile all three perspectives, like the CEO of Squire & Company — see The Three-Role Decision Frame for the cross-role reconciliation view.

Sources

• 10-role-brief-cfo — primary source, all six claims
• 01-executive-summary — claims 12 (pilot ask) and 13 (ROI range), independently confirmed
• 15-start-here-async-standalone — confirms the role briefs appear as step 6 of Path B as a parallel choice (corrected the original “read together” framing)
• 13-pilot-30-60-90 — second-source for day-90 gate criteria; provides four Gate Metrics including “Economics: trend within approved ROI range” which sharpens the CFO’s day-90 economics ask