5 Financial Resolutions Every PE-Backed PortCo Should Make in 2026
It's that time of year again. The time when we all promise to hit the gym, eat better, and finally organize that garage.
For PE-backed portfolio companies, January brings its own set of promises: tighter margins, faster growth targets, and the ever-present question from investors: "So, what's the plan?"
Here's the thing about New Year's resolutions—they fail when they're vague. "Get in shape" doesn't work. "Run a 5K by March" does. The same principle applies to your financial operations.
So let's skip the generic "improve our financials" platitudes and get specific. Here are five financial resolutions that actually move the needle—and more importantly, that you can actually keep.
Resolution #1: Stop Treating Monthly Close Like a Marathon
The Problem:
If your monthly close takes three weeks, you're not managing your business... you're writing its obituary. By the time you know what happened in October, Thanksgiving is around the corner and October's problems have metastasized.
The Reality Check:
Your investors are making decisions in real-time. Your board wants to see November's numbers in early December, not Christmas Eve. And your leadership team needs to pivot based on actual performance, not six-week-old data that's already stale.
The Resolution:
Close your books within 10 business days. Period.
How to Keep It:
This isn't about working faster—it's about working smarter. Start with a close calendar that maps every task, dependency, and deadline. Identify your bottlenecks (spoiler: it's usually manual journal entries, bank reconciliations, or chasing down expense reports). Then systematize them.
If you're still manually entering data, stop. If you're waiting until month-end to start reconciling, don't. If you don't have a documented close process, you're running on institutional knowledge that walks out the door when Karen from accounting retires.
The 10-day close isn't aspirational, it's operational discipline. And it's the foundation for everything else on this list.
Resolution #2: Make Your Board Deck Actually Useful
The Problem:
Be honest: how much time do you spend building board decks versus interpreting them? If your CFO is a PowerPoint artist instead of a strategic advisor, something's broken.
The Reality Check:
Your board deck should tell a story, not just report data. "Revenue was $4.2M this quarter" is a fact. "Revenue grew 18% despite a 22% churn spike in our legacy customer segment, offset by our new enterprise wins" is insight.
Investors don't just want to know what happened... they want to know why it happened and what you're doing about it.
The Resolution:
Transform your board reporting from compliance exercise to strategic tool. Every slide should answer a question your investors are already asking or create conviction in your plan.
How to Keep It:
Start by auditing your last three board decks. Which slides generated discussion? Which ones got glossed over? Which questions kept coming up that weren't addressed?
Then rebuild your template around the narrative: Where are we? How did we get here? What's working? What's not? What's the plan? Your financials should support the story, not be the story.
And for the love of EBITDA, stop burying the lead. If you missed your plan, say it on slide 3, not slide 47. Your board can handle bad news; what they can't handle is surprises.
Resolution #3: Fix Your Cash Flow Forecasting (Before Your Investors Ask)
The Problem:
Cash is oxygen. You can have a beautiful P&L and still suffocate. Yet somehow, most portfolio companies treat cash forecasting like a box to check instead of a tool to wield.
The Reality Check:
Your investors are already modeling your cash. When they ask "How's liquidity?" they're not making small talk—they're stress-testing their portfolio. If your answer is "Let me get back to you," you've already failed the test.
The Resolution:
Build a 13-week cash flow forecast that you update weekly. Not monthly. Weekly.
How to Keep It:
Start with the basics: cash in, cash out, ending balance. Map every dollar that's coming in (and when) and every dollar going out (and when). Include payroll, vendor payments, debt service, capex, tax payments—everything.
Then pressure-test it. What if your largest customer pays 30 days late? What if that big contract slips to next quarter? What if you need to hire three people ahead of schedule?
This isn't paranoia—it's planning. And the companies that survive unexpected turbulence are the ones who saw it coming and had options ready.
The bonus? When your PE sponsor asks about liquidity, you can send them the forecast in real-time. That's the kind of operational maturity that builds confidence.
Resolution #4: Automate What You're Still Doing Manually
The Problem:
If your accounting team is still manually keying in credit card transactions, reconciling bank accounts in Excel, or copy-pasting data between systems, you're not running a finance function, you're running a data entry department.
The Reality Check:
Manual processes don't just waste time... they introduce errors, create bottlenecks, and prevent scale. Every hour your controller spends on data entry is an hour they're not spending on analysis, planning, or strategy.
And here's the kicker: your investors are comparing you to other portfolio companies. The ones with automated workflows, integrated systems, and real-time dashboards are moving faster, reporting cleaner, and scaling smoother.
The Resolution:
Audit every manual process in your finance function. Then systematically eliminate them.
How to Keep It:
Start with your biggest time-wasters. Common culprits:
Manual bank reconciliations (should be automated)
Expense report processing (should be automated)
Invoice approvals (should be workflow-driven)
Intercompany eliminations (should be system-generated)
Management reporting (should be dashboard-driven)
You don't need to boil the ocean on January 2nd. Pick three processes to automate in Q1. Then three more in Q2. By year-end, your finance team should be spending 80% of their time on analysis and 20% on processing—not the other way around.
Modern accounting systems aren't expensive—they're investments. And the ROI comes in the form of speed, accuracy, and the ability to scale without doubling headcount.
Resolution #5: Hire the CFO Expertise You Need (Without the Full-Time Price Tag)
The Problem:
Most PE-backed companies in the $10M-$100M range face the same dilemma: they need CFO-level expertise but can't justify (or afford) a $300K+ executive hire. So they either promote a controller who's great at accounting but inexperienced in strategy, or they white-knuckle it with the team they have.
Neither option is optimal. And both create risk.
The Reality Check:
Your investors aren't comparing you to other companies your size—they're comparing you to where you need to be. That means investor-ready reporting, strategic financial planning, scenario modeling, and the ability to speak their language in board meetings.
A great controller can run your day-to-day operations. But when it's time to model an acquisition, negotiate a credit facility, or build a five-year plan, you need strategic finance expertise.
The Resolution:
Get the CFO-level guidance you need—when you need it—through fractional leadership.
How to Keep It:
The fractional model isn't about finding a cheaper option. It's about finding the right option. Instead of hiring one person to do everything (and compromising on either technical skills or strategic experience), you get specialized expertise deployed exactly where and when you need it.
Think of it like a pit crew. You don't need your tire specialist changing oil. You need each expert doing what they do best—fast, precise, and focused on performance.
Here's what fractional CFO support typically handles:
Monthly close oversight and quality assurance
Investor reporting and board deck preparation
Cash flow management and forecasting
Systems evaluation and optimization
Strategic financial planning and modeling
Banking relationships and covenant management
Transaction support (add-ons, exits, refinancing)
The math is simple: you get senior-level expertise for a fraction of the cost, deployed flexibly as your needs evolve. No recruiting cycles, no equity dilution, no "figuring it out as we go."
And perhaps most importantly: you get operational maturity that scales with your growth trajectory instead of lagging behind it.
The Resolution That Matters Most
Here's the truth about New Year's resolutions: most fail because they require superhuman willpower to maintain. The ones that succeed are built into systems that make the right choice the easy choice.
The same principle applies to your financial operations.
You can resolve to "do better" at financial reporting, but without the infrastructure, expertise, and processes to support it, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
The portfolio companies that outperform don't have better intentions—they have better systems. They close faster because they've automated the bottlenecks. They forecast better because they've built the discipline. They report better because they've invested in the structure.
So here's your real resolution for 2026: Stop treating your back office like a necessary evil and start treating it like the competitive advantage it can be.
Your financial operations should fuel growth, not slow it down. They should give you clarity, not confusion. They should help you move faster, not hold you back.
If you're ready to turn these resolutions into reality, let's talk about how Trackline Partners can help you build the financial infrastructure your growth demands.
Because the pit crew doesn't win the race—but they sure as hell make it possible.
Ready to accelerate? Contact Trackline Partners to discuss how fractional CFO services can power your next phase of growth.
