Bill Canady argues the CFO should own Zero-Up budgeting, not strategy teams or consultants. Finance controls the general ledger and the budgeting cycle, so a finance-built model ties directly to actual accounts and becomes the official budget instead of getting overridden by routine adjustments.
Finance ownership is what makes it permanent instead of an initiative. Finance owns this, not strategy, not you. Now, this is important. I want to be empathetic about it, that this is because it determines where Zero Up survives contact with next year. Your CFO owns Zero Up, not the strategy group, not a consultant, not the CEO's office. 3 reasons, and they're all practical. One, finance owns a general ledger. Zero Up is a recut of your actual accounts. If the person building it doesn't control the source system, The numbers will not tie. And the first time a functional leader finds a variance between the Zero Up model and the monthly close, the entire exercise loses its authority and never gives it back. 2, finance owns the budgeting cycle. Who else? Zero Up has become the budget, not a study that informs the budget. If it lives in a strategy deck, October arrives and somebody adds 5% to last year because that's the process. And the process wins every single time.
