The mid-future is murky and it's September. Things aren’t much clearer than six months ago (inflation rates, interest rates, tariffs, consumer sentiment, the AI takeover) but this is the time of year to put together the 2026 strategy. For this cycle, that means you need to plan for uncertainty. This applies to every industry from biotech to SaaS to manufacturing to non-profits.

Nowadays, it's a bit easier than when I was budgeting for a team of two thousand using hand-transferred USB sticks during a country’s political revolution. Or mashing things together with Excel data connectors that broke 50% of the time during a 25% unhedged currency devaluation with inventory expiring in three months. Or even in the strange days of COVID and post-COVID, when an excitement for tools led to five different “sources of truth.” But, the fundamentals remain the same. 

You need to provide strong guidance to the team to get everyone on the same page. This means giving top-down directions that have clear backup options when things invariably change next year. Too many times, teams get stuck on trying to project the future or come to an agreement on what “2026 looks like.” That is much less critical than planning for the different things that *could* happen so you are ready for anything.  Now, AI will help you with some of this, but it's up to you to make the decisions.

And, let’s face it, expectations have changed from when I started budgeting. Teams now expect: drill-downs, immediate responses, dynamic updates, and remote-first budgeting. This means tools or budget structures that enable: driver-based budgeting, drill-down capabilities, top-down and bottom-up integration.

So, here is your 2026 update for how to strongly lead the budgeting process quickly using the strength of tools at your disposal. We will follow with detailed articles on practical tips on using a hybrid budget model, AI tools, next-level reporting, inventory and balance sheet modeling, before ending with a CFO guide for assumptions to make in 2026. If you are interested in going back to basics, check out our budgeting from top-to-bottom guide.

If you do this well, you can allay the fears of your team and turn dealing with the future into a competitive advantage. And yes, your company isn’t alone. 84% of executives are feeling highly uncertain about the near future.

Let’s get to work.

1. Start the process with strong top-down guidance

You have the data. You can provide direction for the objective goals and future environment. So start the budget process by leaning into top-down guidance to give everyone the same view of the field. To do so:

• Set the scene with data. We talk a lot about a single source of truth; tie your operational data to your financial data and provide a summary of last year and the upcoming year.

• Sit down with the CEO. You and she need to be aligned on what you think the future is so you can give guidance for next year.

• Provide a sample budget to the team. Take from your past budget and assumptions, then extend out in detail for the team. Of course, they will be able to use their own numbers, but this gives the team an anchor and target.

• Embrace scenarios. We will talk about rolling forecasts in a minute. But you should provide different scenarios for next year to limit the potential options. This gives a range for your uncertainty.

You don’t want to make future assumptions a political issue. Just set the macro picture for next year that you and the CEO believe in, and have everyone keep that in mind while budgeting. If it’s wrong, it’s easy to switch to a different scenario rather than reanalyze a hundred different variations of the future and rebudget.

Tip: The first budget serves as a strong anchor, so ensure that you have a clear rationale for any assumptions.

2. Clarify and publish your macro-economic assumptions

You need to be particularly clear about how a changing macro climate impacts the company and what assumptions people should be using. These drivers depend on the type of company. To do so:

• Clearly define external impacts on drivers. Specify whether tariffs, funding changes, or consumer sentiment are expected to shift. And if so, explain the impact you expect these will have on the budgeting team’s key drivers from the get-go.

• Ensure people understand the assumptions. Spend time detailing why you believe in these assumptions. This isn’t a debate. It just gives more context.

• List out the risks. Lay out the risks that could happen but you are not currently budgeting for (you will then bundle those into scenarios.)

• Establish a time horizon. Make it clear for how long these predictions are expected to last for the team and when they will be updated.

You can be wrong. In fact, you’ll probably be wrong. But the key is moving quickly and adjusting. That matters far more than trying to perfectly predict what EU or US tariff rates will be 12 months from now.

Tip: Don’t aim for perfect foresight. Aim for a clear, well-communicated starting point that allows for rapid adjustments when the macro environment shifts.

3. Fully lean into focusing on the short-term

Focus on what you can control better. That means a focus on the short term (one to two quarters). This means not spending too much time on your 5-year exit. This is the time to focus on rolling budgets and systematizing decision-making. The highlights:

• Use rolling forecasts throughout the year. We’ve talked a lot about rolling budgets. This is the perfect time to implement them by establishing that you will run an update process in a couple quarters.

• Enable driver-based updates. Build your model so it can flex quickly with operational changes. So, longer shipping times, tariffs, new taxes, and so on.

• Communicate clearly. By saying, “We are focused on next quarter. We still want the full-year view, but that’s less critical,” you’ll reduce stress across the process.

• Be conservative. Everyone is dealing with uncertainty. Use this to downshift your budgets now with a reason, then ideally capture the upside in the new year. You don’t want to go ambitious and then start missing your targets immediately which will raise the question, “Why didn’t you foresee this?”

• Keep a kill/invest list. Capture ideas that you don’t have the budget for now, or projects that aren’t critical, so you can act on them quickly if conditions improve. This includes new products, trials, and expansion initiatives.

Don’t focus on year-end. Don’t focus on three years out. Focus the team on next quarter and their assumptions and build out from there

Tip: Anchor any 1+ year forecast in high-level percentages and drivers, while keeping the one-year budget detailed with line items and driver levers.

4. Build out real scenarios

The point of a great scenario is to define how you will respond to a particular set of circumstances. This isn’t about 5% down, etc. You need to be able to pull the trigger when a supply shock happens, consumer demand decreases, etc. To do so:

• Define three simple scenarios. These should be the classic base, bull, and bear cases as they apply to your key drivers.

• Make it clear what operational changes they warrant. So, if demand slows by X% in this region, we will do Y in another region.

• Go into the details. Go ahead and play out the scenarios in conversation with the relevant business leaders most impacted. This can both assure the leader and give you further insights into changes.

• Publish the scenarios within the executive group. You want to lock in the scenarios so that you have clear triggers and actions based on results.

Building great scenarios allows you to be prepared for any uncertainty. But if you don’t get into the details, then it’s simply being reactive, and forecasting misses aren’t operationally helpful in the least.

Tip: When looking through additional scenarios, go ahead and enact any changes that are low risk now to improve your baseline plan.

5. Make the tools easy for people

Hopefully, you’re not dealing with USB sticks anymore. But expectations around tools and insights are higher than ever, and that’s a good thing. Even if your tech stack isn’t perfect, you should make sure you provide:

• Budgets next to actuals. Layer past actuals directly alongside budgets and tie them to key operational metrics. This ensures people see the connections (HR and headcount, price changes and demand, project funding).

• AI where it’s good. We will focus more on this in our 2026 AI budget article, but for now, lean into AI’s strengths. So AI for summarizing data, highlighting anomalies, and exploring hypotheses. Just don’t set the expectation that it will do the budgeting for you.

• Continuity. Now is not the time for a major update to all your templates, especially if you are new. Modify your existing templates to make them better but give people something they recognize. That way, people focus on the actual process rather than the formatting.

• Drilldowns. Give stakeholders the ability to click in and understand the details. Without this, conversations stay too high-level and don’t resolve real questions.

• Centralized syncing. Do this however you can. Whether that's through Excel connectors, Google Sheet import ranges, or an FP&A tool. You need to make sure everyone is dealing with up-to-date data.

People absorb information differently. The key is ensuring they understand what they are budgeting for and what it depends on. Giving consistent tools in uncertainty provides comfort.

Tip: Tools should remove friction, not add to it. Simplicity, clarity, and accessibility always beat complexity.

6. Fully embrace asynchronous processes

A lot of teams are fully remote, and nearly all are hybrid. That means you need to run the budgeting process with minimal face-to-face interaction while ensuring that nobody is waiting on anyone else needlessly.

• Set up clear workflows. You need to make sure that the workflow is established, and everyone knows their place in the process to decrease hold-ups.

• Be clear about timelines. You can’t just remind people in the office anymore. Everyone needs to know the deadlines and where they fit into the chain of dependencies.

• Centralize the relevant documents. Collect all relevant strategy documents, budgets, and guidance in one place. Don’t force people to dig through the company knowledge base (or worse, outdated files) to find answers.

• Ensure clear notes and tag owners. The easiest way to understand a budget is to read the notes next to the line items. Require this, review it, and hold people accountable.

• Check documents before meetings. Require budget submissions in advance and lock the file upon presentation. This prevents people from bluffing their way through discussions and keeps meetings focused.

These sound basic, but remote and hybrid work have fundamentally changed how budgeting gets done. What used to be solved in the hallway now needs structure, clarity, and discipline.

Tip: Assume no one is “just going to know” what’s happening. Over-communicate timelines, assumptions, and expectations. It’s the only way asynchronous budgeting works.

7. Focus on your value chain

When it comes to where you, the CFO, spend your time during the budgeting process, the priority is clear: focus heavily on the key drivers of your business and how they could be impacted by uncertainty. This means:

• Focusing on the balance sheet. More than usual, dig into how the balance sheet is converting into cash and identify hidden risks or potential write-offs. If you have already built a ‘straw man budget’ you won’t need to wait for the income statement to be finalized before running this analysis.

• Dive into your supply chain. Know what you have, where it is, and what the risks are. Build contingency plans so you can act quickly if disruptions occur. Theoretically, this should be built into what you have been doing, but if not, never too late to fully embrace being a 10x CFO.

• Consider currency hedges. Isolate your operations from volatility by hedging exposure, even if it costs slightly more than usual. It’s about risk reduction, not margin optimization.

• Insurance and defense. Cybersecurity risks are accelerating with the rise of AI. Make sure you’re covered: either insured (despite rising costs) or backed by a strong technology response plan.

Of course, you’ll oversee the full budgeting process. But if you want the strongest ROI on your own time, this is where to focus your energy.

Tip: Ask yourself: “What’s the one risk in our value chain that could derail our plan the fastest?” Spend your time there first.

In conclusion

Provide strong guidance. Focus on the short term. Give your team familiarity. And then spend your energy on the areas most likely to be impacted by external factors. This will give your company a competitive advantage in any scenario.