A CFO’s Guide to Leadership in 2026: One System, One Team, One Strategy

How do you spend your days? For many finance leaders, the answer shifts by the hour. Forecasting in the morning. Putting out fires at lunch. Reviewing spend at the end of the day. And when your time is split across disconnected systems and scattered data, every task takes longer than it should.

This article brings together insights from CFOs, IT leaders, and HR leaders, along with SAP Concur research and resources, to help you simplify how you work in 2026 so that you can move faster, plan with more clarity, and support your team in doing their best work every day.

What to Pay Attention to in 2026

CFOs are entering the year with more pressure to deliver accuracy and alignment. Economic uncertainty is still present, but the bigger shift is the pace at which expectations are changing around forecasting, data quality, AI, and cross functional work.

According to SAP Concur 2026 trends research:

• Forecasting agility is a top priority for finance leaders
• Many teams still struggle with slow visibility and manual processes
• Cross functional decision-making is rising in importance

The good news? The influence of finance continues to grow, with 57% of finance leaders* now saying they play an active role in shaping strategy across their organization.

For more on where today’s top finance leaders are placing their attention, see Travel and Expense Trends to Watch in 2026.

Make 2026 the Year You Bring Your Systems Together

Most finance teams are not struggling with a lack of information. They are struggling with information that lives in too many places. Budgeting in one tool. Reporting in another. Travel and expense in separate workflows.

And the impact is real, with only 19% of CFOs having full confidence in their finance data.*

This is where a fully connected spend management platform can help by:

• Reducing time spent reconciling data
• Improving accuracy across travel, expense, and AP workflows
• Keeping departments companywide compliant with spend policies

A connected system also leads to the measurable ROI promised by advances in AI. When AI can draw from consistent data, it becomes essential for spotting trends, improving compliance, and speeding up decisions.

If you want a clear way to evaluate where your current setup may be slowing you down, the IDC Travel and Expense Maturity Model is a useful benchmark.

Build Forecasting Confidence with Smarter Budgeting

Forecasting has always been a balancing act between what happened before and what’s coming next, but in 2026 the forward view matters more than ever. Costs are moving fast. Markets are unpredictable. Finance teams need real-time visibility into spend.

Many teams feel the strain because they’re still working with budgeting and forecasting tools that can’t keep pace.

Common challenges include:

• Budgets that update too slowly
• Travel and expense data that arrives after decisions are made
• Forecasts built on last month’s information
• Manual corrections that take too much time

A connected system helps by feeding travel and expense data directly into your budgeting tools. You can catch overruns earlier, stay closer to targets, and help teams plan with more confidence.

To make the move from managing lagging indicators to acting on what’s happening right now, get our guide on Strategy for Smarter Budgeting and Forecasting.

Turn Your Travel and Expense Workflow into a Connected Insights Engine

Travel and expense is one of the largest controllable spend categories in most organizations. It’s also one of the hardest to manage when systems don’t talk to each other.

SAP Concur brings travel, expense, and invoice data into one connected workflow so teams can work from a single, consistent source of truth. With processes tied together, you get clearer visibility and fewer gaps between what employees spend and what finance needs to see.

From there, AI steps in earlier in the travel and expense process, right at the point where employees make spending decisions.

By removing manual work, strengthening compliance, and surfacing actionable insights, SAP Concur’s connected AI-powered platform helps finance teams operate with greater speed and efficiency.

For a look at how AI is already changing travel and expense, see AI at Work: The Future of Travel and Expense Is Already Here.

Collaboration with IT and HR Is No Longer Optional

Finance can’t advance AI, improve forecasting, or mitigate tech-based risks without IT. And it can’t improve workforce planning or employee experience without HR. The reality is that growth, efficiency, and resilience now depend on these three functions working in sync.

The good news? HR and IT leaders are ready to partner. Recent research shows that 100% of HR and IT leaders want to work more closely with their CFO. They understand how closely their own priorities tie into financial strategy.

Of course, collaboration isn’t always simple. Clashing priorities, limited transparency, and siloed processes often slow teams down. Finance tends to take a cautious view. HR tends to focus on possibility. IT sees the technical constraints and opportunities. When those perspectives aren’t aligned, the organization feels it.
 

As Julie Schwendimann, VP of Global Shared Services Operations at Stanley Black & Decker, puts it:

“Finance leaders are central to all growth through financial strategy and risk. But sustainable growth isn’t just up to them. It’s a shared mandate across all functions. We all bring something different to the table.”
 

For CFOs, the next step is simple: open the door wider. Bring HR and IT into the conversation earlier. Share goals and constraints clearly. Create joint success metrics. The more aligned these three functions are, the faster the organization can move.

Our Breaking Silos ebook shares best practices around how finance, HR, and IT can move forward together.

Bringing It All Together: Your 2026 Finance Resolution

So how do you want to spend your days in 2026? Chasing information or shaping smarter decisions?

This is your opportunity to simplify spend management systems, align your teams, and strengthen the way your organization plans and operates.

See what’s possible when you spend your day with the fully connected, AI-powered spend management platform from SAP Concur.

* CFO Insights Series, The top 5 trends for finance leaders in 2026, SAP Concur