More than half of finance leaders say their organizations have missed a time-sensitive strategic opportunity because financial information arrived too late, according to a new Intuit survey shared exclusively with CFO.com.
The findings highlight how fragmented data and manual work continue to hinder decision-making across the middle market.
The survey of 2,000 CFOs, controllers and vice presidents of finance at U.S. businesses with at least $2.5 million in annual revenue found that more than half (57%) of respondents missed a time-sensitive strategic action during the past six months because financial visibility arrived too late.
At the same time, less than a fifth (14%) said they had used same-day financial data the last time they made a major business decision. In comparison, just 50% said they are highly confident their financial insights can support their organization's current strategic plan.
The findings reiterate the notion that CFOs are under increasing pressure to provide faster strategic guidance even as many organizations continue to rely on things like disconnected systems, manual processes and incomplete information.
The single source of truth debate
Many of the finance leaders surveyed by Intuit said the biggest challenge starts with the quality and accessibility of business information.
In a 2024 interview with CFO.com, Intuit CFO Sandeep Aujla said the company had evolved from being "a source of truth for our clients' books" to "a source of truth for their business." The tech giant’s recent survey found midmarket companies are more challenged by these efforts, as 70% of finance leaders said they still lack a single source of truth for critical business data.
The divide becomes even more apparent among businesses that have scaled successfully.
According to the survey, 80% of companies that reported strong revenue growth year-over-year have a single source of truth for critical business data. The report named this group “hyper-performers” and said just 33% of everyone else — a group the survey dubs “steady operators” — has the same access to data.
Intuit's report also argues that a single source of truth allows finance leaders to respond more quickly to business questions because teams are no longer rebuilding analyses each time executives need updated information.
Whether the single source of truth even exists has been a hotly contested debate in finance, with global research and advisory firm Gartner being one of the loudest for the contrary. Alex Bant, Gartner’s chief of research for CFOs and group VP, said in a 2025 interview with CFO.com that organizations should strive for a "sufficient version of the truth," arguing that a perfect single source of truth is "almost impossible" to achieve.
"We call it a 'sufficient version of the truth.' Aiming for that allows us to hit the 80% mark and move forward with large technology purchases without everything being perfect," Bant said.
Intuit's findings align with additional comments Aujla shared with CFO.com in his 2024 interview, when he said the company's finance technology investments were focused on "freeing up people's time so they can spend less time on day-to-day tasks and more time coming up with ways or ideas to accelerate the business."
Manual work remains a growth constraint
The survey also found that finance organizations continue to devote much of their week to routine work instead of higher-value strategic activities.
Respondents said finance teams spend just over half (51%) of their time on manual work, with 43% saying that workload will limit their organization's ability to scale over the next 12 months. The report goes on to suggest those repetitive processes are becoming a constraint on growth as finance teams are asked to deliver faster insights with limited resources.
AI has yet to meaningfully close that gap for most organizations. Over three-quarters (77%) of respondents said AI remains in testing mode or is not being used at all in day-to-day finance operations.
