Right after tax season ended came something that companies were much happier to do the paperwork on: tariff refunds.

On April 20, importers could start filing for IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariff refunds, and many of them leapt at the chance. Small and large importers alike have used the new Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal on the US Customs and Border Protection’s centralized system for processing imports and exports (called ACE, or Automated Commercial Environment).

Still more businesses have plans to file soon. There’s been “a lot of excitement and a lot of inquiries coming our way” about the refunds, Lisa Bradford, consulting coordinator at UHY, told CFO Brew. For CFOs whose companies are planning to file, there are some crucial things to know.

Don’t let it “phase” you. Right now, the CAPE refund program is in Phase 1, and not all claims are eligible. During this phase, companies can file for a refund only for entries (cargo shipments on which duties are assessed) that haven’t yet been liquidated (undergone CPB’s final tally of what’s owed), or have only been liquidated within the past 80 calendar days, Gisele Belotto, trade and customs principal and managed services leader at KPMG, said during an April 21 webinar. Companies can’t file yet for entries that have certain complications, such as those that are in reconciliation, under protest, or under Post Summary Correction review.

Keep reading.—CV

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is taking a closer look at two issues that’ve been in the headlines a lot recently: data centers and private credit. (And who says accounting is just for the nerds?)

FASB, the body charged with setting GAAP standards, announced that its chair, Rich Jones, added a research project “to monitor current trends and emerging issues and solicit stakeholder feedback” on topics including “data infrastructure investments and non-traditional lending.” In English: FASB is monitoring accounting issues around data center projects and private credit.

This is an initial research phase, and staffers will eventually present information to the FASB board to “determine whether to add items to the FASB technical agenda,” according to a news release. The release didn’t give a timeline for when that may happen.

More data center data: As CFO Dive recently reported, FASB’s announcement “comes as accounting treatment related to the way big tech firms are financing data center projects is drawing scrutiny.”

Keep reading.—AZ

As AI tools proliferate, the long-standing economics of enterprise software companies—specifically the per-seat model—will inevitably shift. The rise of agentic systems has threatened to compress workflows, streamline the labor needed to execute tasks and, ultimately, cut down on those revenue-generating licenses. This fear came to the fore during February’s “SaaS-pocalypse,” a seismic market event that—while perhaps knee-jerk—wiped out billions of dollars in market value for the great and good of SaaS.

Three main alternatives to the classic seat-based model have emerged: usage-based pricing, outcome-based pricing, and some hybrid of all of the above. In an era of growing ROI concerns, this transition is a big topic of conversation: So are companies moving en masse from seat-based pricing to these alternative offerings?

The great rotation. According to SaaS management platform CloudNuro, over 45% of SaaS companies moved toward outcome-based pricing or hybrid models in 2024, noting the trend accelerated in 2025.

In the last few years, companies like Microsoft, ServiceNow, and HubSpot have jumped on a pricing bandwagon predicated on delivering tangible results: It’s a move that some experts think is beneficial both for client and vendor.

Keep reading on Revenue Brew.—LI

Skip the noise and cut to the jobs that matter. CollabWORK curates openings from top employers and shares them directly in trusted spaces like CFO Brew—click here to see the full list for readers like you.

• Sr. Internal Auditor at FREEMAN
• Chief Financial Officer at Alturas Analytics, Inc.
• Vice President, Tax at CyrusOne
• Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer – Office of the President at Carnegie Mellon University
• Accountant at City of North Kansas City