20 Questions a CFO Should Be Able to Ask Their Data Without Waiting for an Analyst
A finance lead's questions are usually small and urgent: who owes us money, what happened to margin, why did spend jump. The answers sit in Tally, a database or a spreadsheet, and getting them often means waiting for someone else. These twenty questions are the ones worth being able to ask directly, with the definitions that most often make Indian finance numbers disagree.
Trinetro Labs · Published 2 October 2026 · 2 min read
Cash
- What is our cash position today, by account?
- What came in and went out last week?
- What is the cash balance trend over the last six months?
- What large payments are due in the next 30 days?
Receivables
- Which customers have invoices outstanding for more than 60 days?
- What is total receivable, by customer, highest first?
- How has the average collection period changed over the last four quarters?
- Which customers always pay late?
Payables and spend
- Which vendors are we due to pay this week?
- Which expense heads grew fastest this quarter?
- What did we spend with our top 10 vendors this financial year?
- Which expenses are new this quarter?
Profit and margin
- What was profit and loss for the last financial year?
- What is gross margin by product line, and how has it moved?
- Which customers or products are the least profitable?
- How do actuals compare with budget, line by line?
Reconciliation and control
- Do collections in the payment gateway match invoices raised?
- Which entries were posted after month end?
- Which vouchers have unusually large amounts compared with their ledger average?
- Does the sales figure in the books match the sales figure in the sales database?
Definition traps that are specific to India
| Term | What differs | Decide once |
|---|---|---|
| Year | Calendar year or April to March financial year | Always say "financial year" and mean April to March |
| Revenue | Including or excluding GST | State which; most reports mean excluding GST |
| Quarter | Q1 starts in April for the financial year | Which calendar a "quarter" follows |
| Outstanding | By invoice date or by due date | Which date ageing starts from |
Asking them directly
Trinetro connects to Tally ERP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Excel and more, and answers questions like these in plain English. Each answer carries a reasoning trace so an accountant can verify it, and definitions you confirm once are remembered for the team. For a Tally-first walkthrough, read Tally data analysis in plain English.
Frequently asked questions
What data should a CFO monitor every week?
Cash position, receivables ageing, payables due, spend by head and margin trends. The questions above cover each of those.
How do I get answers from Tally without exporting to Excel?
Connect Tally to a tool that reads it as a data source and lets you ask in plain English. See the Tally data analysis guide for examples.
Why do two finance reports show different revenue?
Most often because one includes GST and the other does not, they use different date fields, or they cover different periods. Agree one definition and use it everywhere.
Can a tool check that sales in the books match sales in the database?
If both are connected, a question that spans the two sources can compare them. Trinetro supports questions across more than one source.