Early in my finance career, I believed what many leaders do: the CFO’s job was to safeguard the numbers. Keep the books clean, close the month, and report the results. That was the job.
As the CFO of a national B2B facility services franchisor, I’ve come to see the role through a very different lens. Finance is a communication tool, and in a franchise model, that distinction matters. If you’re leading finance in a franchise system today, your role is not just to report performance. It is to make performance usable for strategic planning and operator-level decision-making.
A franchise network presents a different financial challenge than a single enterprise. You are not just managing one profit and loss statement. You are helping support the financial health of dozens of owner-operators running their businesses under your brand.
Most franchisees come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and have a strong focus on customers, growth, and community impact. While they may not have formal training in EBITDA, gross margin, or working capital, those metrics are essential to understanding business performance.
With the right CFO guidance, franchisees can use financial insights to make more informed decisions. Actionable data supports both stability and long-term growth.
Financial Transparency in Franchising
Financial transparency means more than access. It means clarity.
Every franchisee should have clear, consistent visibility into their performance and how it compares across the network. Benchmarking is not new, but the standard has evolved. It is no longer enough to track revenue alone. Leading operators need deeper insight into gross margin, labor efficiency, client retention, and the drivers behind better results.
The true value comes from moving beyond historical monthly reporting to understanding the “why” behind the numbers and how to plan accordingly. This is where the CFO plays an important role as a translator, connecting financial accuracy to operational action. When data is clearly interpreted, it becomes a deliberate lens for more confident decision-making.
This shift is driven by both technology and culture. Customized dashboards, standardized reporting, and clean data channels are table stakes. Technology is needed to surface the right data at the right level: simple enough for operators and rigorous enough for investors.
A strong organizational culture positions finance teams not only as stewards of reporting but also as valued partners to the business. That creates the opportunity to deliver insights that go beyond standard reporting. Operators are better equipped to make informed decisions and drive stronger outcomes.
With this level of clarity, operators price more confidently, hire more strategically, and invest more deliberately. That is true value creation.
The CFO as Strategic Partner
Being a strategic partner means being willing to discuss what is necessary. A franchisee with strong top-line growth but deteriorating margins needs more than a headline revenue story. A market lagging behind peers needs a clear conversation, not a quiet omission.
The CFO who offers only good news is not practicing finance. Over time, that approach erodes trust, decision quality, and outcomes.
A CFO’s highest value is an honest view of the current business, paired with context and action. Accurate reporting shared early is almost always easier to solve than issues discovered late.
Building a Finance Team for the Future
The CFO of 2026 leads a different kind of finance team.
FP&A goes beyond variance analysis to scenario modeling, benchmarking, and proactive guidance. Controllers design financial systems that scale. Accounting teams build the operational intelligence franchise owners use every day.
The forward-looking team is curious, communicative, and grounded in one belief: finance serves the business, not the other way around. They ask why, not just what. They think about the operator across the table, not just the spreadsheet in front of them.
That mindset, what I call a service orientation in finance, is hard to teach and easy to lose. Protecting it is one of the most important responsibilities of finance leadership.
When onboarding new leaders, the message needs to be clear: we are not here simply to protect the numbers; we are here to make them useful throughout the organization. Numbers by themselves are not the outcome. They are the language for enabling and advancing the team’s best decisions.
What This Means in Practice
Simply stated, the numbers are the language. Understanding them and communicating them correctly creates value.
Finance must move beyond reporting.
If your reporting does not influence decisions, it is only noise.
Transparency requires translation.
If your data is not translated into clear actions, it is underutilized.
Franchise models are won at the unit level.
Your focus cannot be enterprise metrics only; it must include operator-level economics.
Hard conversations should be shared early.
Delayed conversations compound risk.
Benchmarking is a superpower.
Operators do not need perfection; they need context.
The winning finance team teaches, guides, and partners.
Build teams that create understanding, confidence, and successful partnerships.
Leading CFOs do not just report numbers. They serve as translators between finance and the franchise field. Their role is to convert financial data into clear, actionable guidance that operators can use to make better decisions on pricing, talent, and daily execution. When financial transparency is strategically translated, it becomes a driver of franchisee success and more sustainable growth. If finance is not contributing to how operators run and improve their businesses, it is not fulfilling its role; it is becoming a cost center.
Molly Schaar CFO Bio
Franchising Magazine (November 2026)
Molly Schaar is Chief Financial Officer at City Wide Facility Solutions, where she leads the company’s financial strategy. With more than 20 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate finance, financial planning & analysis, and operational strategy, Molly brings a growth-oriented perspective to leadership. Her experience in service-based and franchise-oriented businesses gives her a unique perspective on the financial and operational dynamics of supporting franchisees while scaling a national organization. A longtime athlete and marathoner, Molly inspires others to grow, collaborate, and achieve their goals.