A new survey conducted by Intuit and exclusively provided to CFO.com reveals that more than half of finance leaders say their organizations have missed time-sensitive strategic opportunities because financial information arrives too late. This finding highlights how data fragmentation and manual processes continue to hinder decision-making in the mid-market.

The survey covered 2,000 CFOs, controllers, and vice presidents of finance at U.S. companies with annual revenue of at least $2.5 million. Results show that 57% of respondents missed a time-sensitive strategic action in the past six months due to delayed financial visibility. Meanwhile, only 14% of respondents used same-day financial data in their most recent major business decision. In contrast, only 50% of respondents expressed high confidence that their financial insights support their organization's current strategic plans.

These findings reinforce that CFOs face growing pressure to provide faster strategic guidance, even as many organizations still operate with fragmented systems, manual processes, and incomplete information.

The Battle for a Single Source of Truth

Many finance leaders in the Intuit survey say the biggest challenges begin with the quality and accessibility of business information. In a 2024 interview with CFO.com, Intuit CFO Sandeep Aujla said the company has evolved from being the "source of truth for customers' books" to the "source of truth for their business." The tech giant's latest survey finds that mid-market companies face more challenges in these efforts, with 70% of finance leaders saying they still lack a single source of truth for key business data.

This gap is more pronounced among successfully scaling businesses. The survey shows that among companies with strong year-over-year revenue growth, 80% have a single source of truth for key business data. The report calls this group "high performers," while only 33% of others—what the survey calls "steady operators"—have the same data access.

The Intuit report also notes that a single source of truth enables finance leaders to respond more quickly to business questions, as teams don't need to rebuild analyses every time executives need updated information. However, there has been fierce debate in the finance community about whether a single source of truth truly exists, with global research and advisory firm Gartner being one of the loudest voices against it. Alex Bant, Gartner's chief of research for finance and group vice president, told CFO.com in a 2025 interview that organizations should strive for a "good enough version of the truth," arguing that a perfect single source of truth is "nearly impossible" to achieve.

"We call it the 'good enough version of the truth.' Aiming for that, we can achieve 80% accuracy and move forward with large technology purchases without needing everything to be perfect." —Alex Bant, Gartner

Intuit's findings align with supplementary comments Aujla shared in the 2024 interview, when he said the company's finance technology investments focus on "freeing up people's time so they spend less on day-to-day tasks and more time thinking about ways or ideas to accelerate the business."

Manual Work Remains a Growth Constraint

The survey also finds that finance organizations continue to spend much of their week on routine work rather than higher-value strategic activities. Respondents say finance teams spend slightly more than half (51%) of their time on manual work, with 43% saying this workload will limit their organization's ability to expand over the next 12 months. The report further notes that as finance teams are asked to deliver faster insights with limited resources, these repetitive processes are becoming a constraint on growth.

For most organizations, artificial intelligence has not yet effectively bridged this gap. More than three-quarters (77%) of respondents say AI is still in the pilot phase or not used at all in day-to-day finance operations.