Board meetings happen every quarter. The projections prep shouldn’t consume half your week.

But for most founders and CFOs, it does. You open the spreadsheet, realize three months of actual numbers need to be entered, discover that someone’s formula changes broke the summary tab, and spend two days getting the model back to a state where you trust it. Then you duplicate it three times for different scenarios, manually build comparison charts, and paste everything into slides at midnight before the meeting.

There’s a faster way.

The problem with the spreadsheet workflow

The traditional approach has three bottlenecks that compound each other.

Updating actuals takes too long. When your assumptions and calculations live in the same cells, entering new actual numbers means overwriting formulas. Then you need to re-project from the new starting point, which means rebuilding formulas in the cells ahead. This is where most of the time goes.

Creating scenarios means duplicating everything. Your board wants to see a base case, a conservative case, and what happens if the big enterprise deal lands. In a spreadsheet, that’s three separate copies of your model. If you find an error in one, you fix it three times. If you realize the headcount was wrong in the base, you propagate the fix manually.

Comparisons are manual. Even after you have three scenarios, comparing them requires building a separate summary sheet or presentation slide that pulls numbers from each copy. Change something in one scenario and the comparison is stale.

A better approach: maintain the base, scenario the questions

The key shift is separating two activities that spreadsheets force you to do simultaneously: keeping your base financial model current, and exploring specific questions for the board.

Keep your base model up to date between meetings. This means updating it monthly, not quarterly. When your assumptions are separate from calculations, a monthly update takes minutes. You adjust the revenue number to match actuals, update any hires that happened earlier or later than planned, and note any expense changes. The projections recalculate automatically.

If you do this monthly, your base model is always within a few weeks of current. No more two-day scramble before the board meeting.

Before each meeting, identify the 2-3 questions your board will ask. These are almost always some version of: What happens if growth accelerates or slows? What if we hire faster or slower? What if the big deal closes or doesn’t?

Then create a scenario for each question.

A concrete example

Your startup is at $45K MRR with a 12-person team. You’ve been in talks with a large enterprise customer about a $180K annual contract. Your board meeting is in two weeks. You know they’ll ask: what happens if the enterprise deal closes vs. doesn’t?

Here’s the workflow.

Step 1: Verify your base model is current. Open it, confirm last month’s revenue and expenses match actuals. Adjust if needed. Five minutes.

Step 2: Create a “deal closes” scenario. In Burncast, create a new scenario from your base. The only change: add a $15K/month revenue stream starting in Q2, with a 90-day ramp to full value. That’s one assumption change. Everything else — team costs, other revenue, expenses — stays linked to your base model.

Step 3: Create a “deal doesn’t close” scenario. Another scenario from the base. This time, reduce your Q2 revenue growth rate from 12% to 8% MoM to reflect the pipeline gap left by the missed deal. One assumption change.

Step 4: Compare. Pull up both scenarios alongside the base. With the deal, you reach cash-flow positive in month 14. Without it, month 19. The deal is worth five months of runway — that’s the number your board needs to see.

Total time: about 30 minutes.

What to actually present

Boards don’t want a single number. They want ranges and the assumptions behind them. Here’s what works.

Lead with the base case and your confidence level. “Our base projection shows 18 months of runway at current growth. We’re 80% confident in this because our pipeline supports the next two quarters of growth assumptions.”

Show scenarios as a range. “If the enterprise deal closes in Q2, runway extends to 22 months. If it doesn’t and growth slows to 8% MoM, runway is 15 months. Here’s the comparison.”

Highlight which assumptions drive the difference. Boards appreciate knowing that one variable — the enterprise deal — accounts for a 7-month swing in runway. That focuses the conversation on what matters.

Always have a conservative scenario ready. Even if nobody asks for it, having a “what if things go worse than expected” scenario shows the board you’ve stress-tested the plan. It builds trust.

Practical tips for ongoing readiness

Update your base model on the first Monday of each month. Put it on the calendar. When assumptions are separate from calculations, this takes 10-15 minutes. Enter actual revenue, confirm headcount, note any expense changes.

Keep a running list of board questions. After each meeting, jot down what the board asked that you weren’t prepared for. Build those into your default scenario set for next quarter.

Present scenarios, not forecasts. A single-point projection implies false precision. Three scenarios with clear assumptions invite the right conversation: “What do we do if we’re in the conservative case by Q3?” That’s the discussion your board actually wants to have.

The goal isn’t to eliminate board prep entirely. It’s to spend your time on the thinking — which scenarios matter, what questions to anticipate — instead of on spreadsheet mechanics. When updating and scenario-building take minutes instead of days, you get that time back.