Most finance teams confuse scenario and sensitivity analysis or skip them entirely. Here's how each one works and when to use them properly.

The Rule of 40 is simple: revenue growth rate plus EBITDA margin should hit at least 40%. Most finance teams treat it as a report card. Here's why you should be running it forward, before the budget is locked, not after the quarter closes.

Q1 2026 M&A hit $813B in deal value. Record number. But mid-market deal volume actually declined. The bottleneck isn't interest, it's valuation gaps. And most of those gaps trace back to the financial model sitting in the data room. In 85% of deals, the buyer's QoE report cuts the asking price. Not because the business isn't worth it. Because the seller couldn't prove it was. Four things I'd want in any model before a buyer sees it.

The average effective U.S. tariff rate went from 2.5% to roughly 14% in four years. Most middle market CFOs still treat tariffs as a line-item surcharge instead of a scenario variable. Here's how to build three tariff scenarios into a rolling forecast and stress-test gross margin before the next rate change hits.