The finance value chain playbook

If you've read a16z's "You Need a New CFO", you've seen where finance is heading. The harder question is what that looks like in your own team - with your ERP, your close and your data as they are today.

This playbook breaks the finance value chain into 20 workflows across three layers: data creation, the data foundation, and data understanding & action. For every workflow you get the same four answers, so you can decide where an agent makes sense and what it needs before you build anything.

What's inside

• The finance value chain on one page, with an honest 1-3 maturity score for each of the 20 workflows
• Every workflow, agent by agent: how it works, what the agent does, what it needs to perform well and which guardrails it must have
• The data foundation explained - finance data, operational data, business context and legal documents - plus a five-point readiness checklist
• Five rules that apply to every finance agent
• A worksheet to score your own chain and pick your first two workflows

Who it's for

CFOs, finance directors and controllers at growing and PE-backed companies who want AI across finance, not just a chat window - and want to know where to start.

Built from incro's client work in 2026. If you'd like to score your chain together, the last page shows how to reach us.