CASH OPTIMIZATION

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The overwhelming amount of, well, things that can happen nowadays is complicating how CFOs manage their cash. One could say, the simulation is glitching.

In business consultancy Protiviti’s 2026 Global Finance Trends Survey of 902 finance executives in Q2, cash management was a high priority; 78% of respondents said it was a top focus over the prior three months amid a volatile economic environment.

It’s not that conducting a cash forecast has gotten more difficult, West Monroe Managing Director and Partner of Finance Transformation Connor Augustyn told us; “it’s more of the information that’s feeding those cash forecasts itself.”

“I don’t think it’s necessarily because CFOs have suddenly become concerned that they’re going to run out of cash at all; I don’t think that’s a problem. I think the range of potential outcomes that impact cash has started to widen,” Augustyn told CFO Brew.

As an example, Augustyn cited AI “token costs, and the variability that I may now have to pay an invoice unexpectedly of $150,000 that nobody knew about. You have uncertainty also around demand, macroeconomic things like tariffs and input costs, customer payment behaviors, interest rate changes—all of these things ultimately flow through to cash.” The question that CFOs are asking is “not simply, ‘How much cash do I have today and when is the cash going to run out?’ It’s ‘How quickly could that position change?’” Augustyn said.

Further complicating your cash flow model is not the answer, Augustyn says.—DL

      

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CAPITAL RAISING

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It’s been nearly 20 years since Toffer Grant founded business expense management fintech PEX, and the company has been through several different iterations. Starting as a prepaid card provider in 2007, PEX has now evolved into a larger payments, credit, spend management, and automation software platform.

Earlier this year, even amid the investment squeeze in the SaaS industry, PEX secured $160 million in a debt and equity funding round led by Bluff Point Associates.

Part of the capital infusion will go toward “a serious investment in AI, the kind that takes the manual grind—matching receipts, coding expenses, reconciling accounts, ordering cards, managing card balances—off people’s plates,” Grant wrote in the blog post announcing the deal.

But “the credit piece, through Clear Haven Capital Management, is the lion’s share of the round,” Grant told CFO Brew. The facility will accelerate the growth of PEX’s charge card program.

PEX had “a sustainable business,” Grant continued, but shifts in credit underwriting and advancements in technology in the last two decades “opened up the opportunity for us to get into credit.” A credit version of PEX’s card has allowed PEX to generate new growth, which Grant said “always attracts investors.”

“We’ve been a very lean and serious operation,” PEX’s CEO said.—DL

      

JOBS MARKET

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics’s (BLS) August jobs report delivered an unexpectedly positive signal for the job market, as employers reported far higher than expected job gains of 162,000, and labor force participation rose after falling for eight months straight. While August’s jobs data was largely positive, there was one area that wasn’t so bright for workers: wages.

In-waged. Average hourly earnings in August rose just 3.1% over the prior 12 months to $37.75, the BLS reported in its latest employment situation data, released on Friday. With annual wage growth in July also declining to 3.2% from 3.4% in June, this summer marks the lowest annual average wage growth since mid-2021, when the US was emerging from the Covid-19 recession and on its way to the “Great Resignation,” which prompted a two-year marathon of job hopping-related pay raises. Wages have also continued to lag behind inflation, which was up 3.4% over the last 12 months in July, and is currently projected to be about the same for August and September.

As labor turnover has cooled in the past few years, so has wage growth. Economic anxiety has also put pressure on employers to cut budgets, impacting compensation increases and hiring plans. Now, as hiring and quits have stagnated in recent months, workers have faced even fewer opportunities for increased pay: “Slowing nominal wage growth suggests workers don’t have the leverage to bid up their wages. Even with low unemployment, the depressed hires rate means workers aren’t finding new jobs to raise their wages,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote on Bluesky.

With wage growth falling behind inflation, workers’ wallets are feeling the pain.

A stagnant labor market has relieved the pressure on employers to increase wages, HR Brew reports.—PM

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $100. That’s the price that Brent crude oil hit this week, the first time it reached that level since July. (The Guardian)

Quote: “I’m the house now…And you can bet against me if you want.”—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s dare to FX traders about the US’s strategy to buy back bonds and support the yen (CNBC)

Read: Pro football, the largest sport by dollars wagered, is back. One expert calls it a “do-or-die” season for prediction markets, which the NFL has declined to partner with. (Barron’s)

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