Spreadsheet Trenches.

Short reads about how finance work actually happens — not how the deck claimed it would. What the meeting was really about. What the spreadsheet was really doing. What the people who quietly run the function were quietly running.

By the editors of I am the CFO, Babies. Filed from the trenches. No bylines unless requested. About this column →

JavaScript is off. The reading pieces are still here:

№ 001 — How budget meetings actually work.

№ 002 — The reconciliation that saved Q3.

№ 003 — A short defense of the four-tab model.

About this column

Spreadsheet Trenches is where we write down how the work actually went — the version that never makes the board deck. Each piece starts from something we've seen happen in a real finance function: a meeting that wasn't about what it said, a model quietly holding the whole quarter together, a "quick fix" that outlived three CFOs.

We don't name companies and we don't name people. The point isn't the gossip — it's the pattern. If you've run the close, sat in the reforecast, or defended a tab you built at 11pm, you'll recognize the terrain. That's the whole idea.

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