AI CFO that answers from your own books
An AI CFO answers finance questions about your company in plain English, using your own books, bank and payroll data. Budgeter.ai replies with runway, ARR, break-even and cash needed, shows every figure it used, and turns the answer into a scenario. It does not sign off accounts or give investment advice.
Read-only connections. Encrypted data. Cancel anytime.
Runway falls from 14.2 to 11.8 months. Monthly burn rises by $71K once all four are on payroll in February, including a 22 percent benefits load. The account executives add about $38K of new ARR per quarter after a 4 month ramp, so break-even moves from June 2028 to March 2028.
| Figure | Now | With hires |
|---|---|---|
| Runway | 14.2 mo | 11.8 mo |
| Net burn, Feb | $204K | $275K |
| ARR, Dec next year | $3.10M | $3.48M |
| Cash needed for 18 months | $0.82M | $1.61M |
Sources: Xero ledger to Sep 30, bank feed, payroll, CRM pipeline. Assumes salaries from your headcount plan.
Example figures inside the product interface.
What the AI CFO does well
Most finance questions in a growing company are not hard, they are slow. Someone has to find the right account, check the payroll export, open the forecast, change two assumptions and read off the result. The AI CFO does that loop in seconds because it already has your ledger, bank balance, payroll and forecast in one model.
It is strongest on questions with a clear numeric answer. What happens to runway if a large customer churns. Why marketing ran over plan last month. How much cash we need to reach break-even. Which vendors grew fastest this year. The reply is a short paragraph, a small table and a list of sources.
Because every answer is built on the same forecast you use for budgeting and forecasting, a good answer does not stay in the chat. You can save it as a scenario, compare it with your base case, or apply it so the forecast moves.
What it does not do
- It does not invent numbers If an account is not connected or a month is not closed, the answer says what is missing instead of filling the gap.
- It does not sign off your accounts Closing the books, tax filings and statutory accounts stay with your accountant.
- It does not replace an auditor It reads your books as they are. It does not test controls or certify anything.
- It does not give investment advice It can show what a bridge round does to runway. Whether to take it is your decision, with your advisers.
- It does not change your ledger All connections are read-only. Nothing is posted back to QuickBooks or Xero.
Example questions and answers
A few typical questions and the kind of answer you get back. Each one shows the number before and after the change.
Question
What if our largest customer does not renew in March?
ARR falls from 2.40 to 2.19 million dollars. Runway goes from 16.5 to 14.9 months because the lost revenue is partly offset by lower hosting cost. Break-even moves out by five months, to November 2028.
Question
Why was software spend 31 percent over budget in August?
Three annual renewals were paid in August instead of being spread across the year. They total 18,400 dollars. Excluding them, software spend was 2 percent under budget. Suggest phasing annual contracts in the budget.
Question
How much cash do we need to reach break-even with 6 months of buffer?
On the current forecast you reach break-even in month 19. Cumulative burn until then is 3.1 million dollars and six months of buffer at the last burn rate adds 0.9 million, so the total is 4.0 million against 2.6 million in the bank.
Question
Can we afford a 5 percent pay rise from January?
Payroll rises by 14,200 dollars a month. Runway drops from 21.0 to 19.6 months and the operating margin for next year goes from 4.1 to 1.8 percent. The budget stays positive in every month except February.
Forecasts and scenarios are estimates based on your data and assumptions, not financial, investment, tax or accounting advice.
How to start using the AI CFO
The AI CFO is useful from the first day, because it works on a model built from your history rather than on an empty chat.
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01
Connect your sources
Link QuickBooks Online or Xero, plus your bank feed, payroll, CRM or Stripe revenue data, all with read-only access.
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02
Let the forecast build
Budgeter drafts your budget and forecast from your history, so the AI CFO has a model to reason from, not just a ledger.
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03
Ask in plain English
Type a question such as what happens to runway if we hire four people in January. No formulas and no special syntax.
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04
Check the figures and decide
Each answer lists the numbers and assumptions it used. Save it as a scenario or apply it to the forecast if you agree.
The quality of an answer depends on the data behind it. With only the ledger connected, the AI CFO can explain past spend and runway. Add payroll and it can price hires with real salaries and benefits. Add CRM and Stripe revenue data and it can reason about pipeline, expansion and churn, which is where scenario planning becomes much more precise.
On Growth and above, the AI CFO also makes cut and hiring recommendations. It looks at variance by department and vendor, flags spend that grew faster than revenue, and suggests where a hire could be delayed with the smallest effect on growth. The recommendation is a starting point for your leadership meeting, not an instruction.
Question limits per plan
Every paid plan includes the AI CFO. Limits are counted as usage in the billing period, and there is a daily cap so one long session cannot use the whole month.
A founder who checks runway and a few variances each week fits comfortably in 100 questions. A finance team that runs the monthly review and board preparation through the chat usually needs Growth or Scale. Full plan details are on the pricing page.
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| Plan | Price, yearly per month | Questions per month | Daily cap | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small Business | $74 | 100 | 15 | Answers only |
| Growth | $299 | 600 | 60 | Cut and hiring recommendations |
| Scale | $999 | 2,500 | 200 | Cut and hiring recommendations |
| Enterprise | $2,499 | 8,000 | 600 | Priority processing |
Monthly billing is $149, $599, $1,999 and $4,999. Yearly billing saves 50 percent.
AI CFO vs fractional CFO vs no CFO
Three ways a company between 5 and 500 people gets finance answers. Each has a place.
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| No CFO, founder and spreadsheet | Fractional CFO | Budgeter AI CFO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | Founder time, often evenings | $3,000 to $10,000 a month | From $74 a month billed yearly |
| Speed of an answer | Hours to days | Next scheduled call or a few days | Seconds, any time |
| Uses live actuals | Only after a manual update | Depends on the reporting setup | Yes, synced read-only |
| Shows the figures behind an answer | Only if you built it that way | Usually in a spreadsheet | Always, with sources |
| Judgment, negotiation, investor relations | Founder | Yes, a core strength | No |
| Signs off accounts or advises on investments | No | Depends on qualifications | No |
The honest summary is that an AI CFO replaces the analysis, not the person. It is the right tool when the questions are frequent and numeric. A fractional CFO is the right person when the questions are rare and consequential, such as how to structure a round or whether to enter a new market.
Many companies use both. The AI CFO handles the weekly questions and keeps the model current, and the fractional CFO spends billed hours on judgment instead of on spreadsheets. For startups that have neither yet, our page on FP&A software for startups explains what to set up first.
Questions about the AI CFO
Read how we handle your data on the security page. Integrations are read-only and data is encrypted at rest and in transit.
What is an AI CFO?
An AI CFO is software that answers finance questions about your company in plain language, using your own accounting, bank and payroll data. In Budgeter it reads your connected books and forecast and replies with figures such as runway, ARR, break-even month and cash needed.
Can an AI CFO replace a human CFO?
No. It handles the routine analysis a finance lead does every week, such as explaining a variance or testing a hiring plan. It does not sign off accounts, negotiate with investors, carry legal responsibility or take judgment calls on strategy. Those stay with people.
Where do the answers come from?
From the data you connect and the forecast built on it. Every answer shows the figures and assumptions behind it, so you can trace each number back to an account, a payroll line or a forecast month. If the data is missing, it says so rather than guessing.
How many questions can we ask?
Small Business includes 100 questions a month, Growth 600, Scale 2,500 and Enterprise 8,000, with a daily cap of 15, 60, 200 and 600. Usage is counted per billing period, so deleting a chat does not give questions back.
Is our financial data used to train AI models?
No. Your data is encrypted at rest and in transit, connections are read-only, and your data is never used to train public models. You can export or delete it at any time.
Does the AI CFO give investment or tax advice?
No. Answers are estimates based on your data and assumptions. They are not financial, investment, tax or accounting advice. For those decisions use a qualified adviser, ideally with the numbers from Budgeter in hand.
Related planning modules
Ask your first runway question
Start with the free runway demo from a few numbers, then connect your books so the AI CFO can answer from your real data.
Forecasts and scenarios are estimates based on your data and assumptions, not financial, investment, tax or accounting advice.