84% of CFOs Still Build Budgets in Excel

Budget season is here again, and in most private equity portfolio companies, it still starts with a spreadsheet. A new benchmark from consulting firm Accordion found that 84% of PE-backed CFOs still build budgets in Excel, even as their sponsors push for budgeting automation and faster planning. The finding shows how finance leaders balance speed and control, and where AI in budgeting can help today.

CFOs Still Build Budgets in Excel Despite Finance Automation

Accordion ran the survey with Wakefield Research in September. It reached 100 CFOs at PE-backed companies with at least $50 million in annual revenue and 100 private equity operating partners at sponsor firms. The headline result: 84% of those CFOs still build the core Excel budget model with very little automation behind it.

Budgeting stands out because much of the rest of finance has already modernized. ERP, CPM, and EPM platforms now handle large parts of the close, consolidation, and reporting. Budgeting is the holdout. It is the piece of financial planning that still lives in workbooks passed back and forth between department heads, FP&A, and the CFO.

Why CFOs Still Use Excel for Budgeting

No single factor explains why companies still budget in Excel. Two reasons explain most of why CFOs use Excel for budgeting.

Excel for Finance Is Flexible and Familiar

Excel lets a finance team build almost any structure, change a driver in seconds, and test a scenario without filing a ticket with IT. Every analyst knows it, and every department head can open the template. When the budget cycle is already tight, few CFOs want to learn a new system in the middle of it.

Excel Financial Modeling Keeps Judgment in the CFO's Hands

CFO budgeting is about judgment as much as arithmetic. Someone has to decide which growth assumption to trust, which cost line to challenge, and which risk to raise before the sponsor does. In Excel financial modeling, that logic stays visible cell by cell, and the person accountable for the numbers controls it. For many PE-backed CFOs, that is the real answer to why finance teams still use Excel.

The Real Cost of Budgeting in Excel

That control comes at a price. PE-backed CFOs say it takes an average of 11 weeks to move the annual budget from kickoff to board-ready, which is most of a fiscal quarter. At companies that closed an add-on acquisition in the past 12 months, the timeline grows to 14 weeks because new entities must be folded into an already stretched model. And 67% say the model goes through five or more full revisions before it is final.

Where the Time Goes in Budgeting and Forecasting in Excel

CFOs broke the 11-week cycle into four buckets:

• Reconciling department inputs: 38%

• Reworking assumptions after sponsor feedback: 27%

• Formatting and rebuilding for the board presentation: 22%

• Strategic analysis: 13%

Together, the first three add up to 87% of the cycle. That time goes to chasing numbers, redoing the model, and reformatting slides. Only 13% goes to the strategic thinking that budgeting is meant to produce.

Most Late-Cycle Revisions Are Avoidable

The study also asked what triggers late-cycle revisions. The top cause, cited by 46% of CFOs, was a single late assumption change with little strategic impact. Department heads submitting numbers late came next at 31%. A real shift in the underlying business was the least common trigger at 23%. In other words, most of the rework in financial planning and budgeting in Excel could be caught earlier.

Budget Season Collides With Q4

Timing makes the problem worse. 98% of CFOs say the annual budget cycle competes directly with Q4 execution: closing out the year, hitting EBITDA targets, and finalizing the story for the board and sponsors. Every week spent rebuilding a workbook is a week taken from the quarter that decides whether the year lands.

AI vs Excel for Budgeting: PE Operating Partners Versus CFOs

PE Operating Partners Rank AI Budgeting as Top Priority

When private equity operating partners ranked the biggest AI opportunities inside portfolio company finance teams, budgeting came first:

• Budgeting: 74%

• Close-cycle acceleration: 68%

• Revenue and margin intelligence: 61%

• Board and investor reporting: 54%

• Risk and compliance monitoring: 47%

PE-Backed CFOs Resist Handing Budgeting to AI

CFOs see it differently. Asked where they would most resist letting AI run autonomously, 76% named forecasting and budgeting, the highest of any function measured. Board reporting followed at 64%, then vendor and AP management (52%), expense and T&E processing (41%), and close and consolidation (33%). The function sponsors most want automated is the one CFOs guard most closely.

AI Adoption Among CFOs Isn't Really the Issue

This resistance does not come from doubts about the technology. 89% of CFOs can name a specific decision they expect AI to make better than they do within five years. 45% say a significant share of their current value already rests on tasks AI can perform. What they are protecting is the judgment that budgeting still requires, and that judgment is not always visible to sponsors.

How AI Can Automate Budgeting Without Replacing the CFO

The useful question is not AI vs. Excel for budgeting. It is which parts of the process each should handle. The mechanical side of budgeting looks much more like close and consolidation, where automation is already accepted, than like strategy.

AI-Assisted Budget Reconciliation Delivers the Fastest Win

Reconciliation is the obvious place to start. A person reviewing department inputs under deadline usually checks each one against its own history. An AI-assisted process checks every data point against every other at once. That can catch, for example, a growth assumption that only works if a hiring plan doubles headcount nobody budgeted for.

The results are already showing up. Among CFOs who have piloted AI-assisted reconciliation on at least one part of the cycle, most say they got four to five weeks back, cutting the budget cycle to six to seven weeks. The report does not say exactly what share "most" represents. Even so, the gain came entirely from mechanical work, and nothing changed about how the final model was approved. For teams that keep their models in spreadsheets, AI-assisted budgeting in Excel is a practical first step: automating budget reconciliation frees up hours for analysis without forcing a platform change.

Automate the 87%, Keep the 13%

This is where sponsors and CFOs can meet. AI budgeting for CFOs should take on the 87% of the cycle spent on reconciliation, rework, and board formatting, and leave the 13% of strategic analysis exactly where it is. The CFO still makes the calls. The time saved goes to catching a cost line growing faster than planned, or a working capital swing that should have started a conversation two months earlier.

Why AI for Private Equity Finance Is a Value Creation Story

For sponsors, faster budgeting is also about valuation. 65% of sponsors are confident that AI-enabled forecasting and budgeting expands exit multiples, and 44% of buyers already ask about it during diligence. So far, only 9% of completed deals show a clear AI exit premium. That low figure mostly reflects how few exited companies were using AI-enabled budgeting in the first place. More consistent, cross-checked numbers matter more at exit than they used to, and the private equity CFOs who adopt now will be the first with results to prove it. For the private equity budgeting process, that makes AI a value creation lever as much as an efficiency play.

The Next Line Item: Budgeting for AI Itself

There is a related challenge. Across the broader market, 80% of CFOs plan to grow AI spend by more than 15% over the next two years. Yet most still budget for it by taking last year's number and adding a percentage, the same method used for a software renewal. Budgeting for PE-backed companies will soon have to account for AI as both a tool and a spending category that nobody has built a solid model for yet.

Excel Budgeting for CFOs Remains, but Manual Work Can Shrink

CFO budgeting in Excel will likely stay for a while because it offers flexibility, transparency, and control. What needs to change is the 11 weeks of manual effort around it. The CFOs already getting time back are not waiting for a perfect platform. They are testing how AI can automate budgeting's mechanical work and keeping every strategic call with the people who own the numbers. Judgment stays with the CFO, and the budget cycle gets shorter.