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Why your Money Out is as important as your Money In

Growth comes from money in, but long-term stability depends on how deliberately leaders control every decision that sends money out.

By Dan Schonfeld

5 min read •

Feb 10, 2026

One of a business’s biggest priorities is bringing money in. Revenue fuels growth, validates the product, and keeps the business moving forward. But far fewer companies apply the same level of strategic thinking to money leaving the business.

When we talk about “Money Out,” we’re not just talking about accounts payable or processing invoices. We’re talking about the broader discipline of governing how money leaves a business - from the moment a spending decision is made, through approvals and commitments, to the point where cash actually leaves the bank. Accounts Payable plays an important role in that process, but it represents only one stage in a much larger financial lifecycle.

In many organizations, Money Out still sits quietly in the background - treated as an operational process rather than a leadership responsibility. Yet history shows that strong revenue alone isn’t enough to sustain a business if spending decisions lack oversight.

When Money Out goes wrong

In 2018, WeWork was climbing high. Revenue was growing fast, the company was expanding into new cities every month, and its valuation had hit $47 billion. On the surface, it looked like one of the great startup success stories of the decade. But underneath, something was badly broken.

The company was burning through nearly $2 billion a year - spending on long-term leases, extravagant office build-outs, private jets, and lavish company events, all while founder Adam Neumann had near-total control over where the money went. Nobody was asking whether the spending matched the strategy, or even whether it made sense at all.

When WeWork filed to go public in 2019, investors finally got a clear look at the financials. What they saw wasn't a fast-growing business - it was a spending machine with no path to profitability and no real controls in place. The IPO fell apart. The valuation collapsed to under $8 billion. Thousands of employees were let go.

WeWork didn't fail because it couldn't generate revenue. It failed because nobody was governing what went out.

Money In steals the headlines while Money Out secures survival

When businesses talk about financial performance, the spotlight usually falls on money in - revenue, sales growth, customer acquisition, and top-line numbers.

But there’s another side of the equation that’s just as critical, and often far less visible: money out.

Traditionally, businesses have treated spending as an operational process handled inside finance. But modern organizations are starting to see Money Out as a governance challenge - not just an accounting task.

If we look at cash flow, we recognize that the money flowing into a business gets the most attention. And it’s simple: revenue is exciting. It validates what you do - acting as tangible proof that your product works and your market exists.

Spending, on the other hand, feels more like an operational to-do. Less glamorous. Sometimes even uncomfortable to scrutinize.

But here’s what some businesses learn too late: You can’t out-earn poor cost control.

When a business has strong revenue but weak oversight on spending, it’s exposed to:

Budget overruns
Cash-flow shortages
Approval bottlenecks
Compliance risks
Last-minute financial surprises

In short, while the money coming into your business fuels growth, the way money out is managed determines whether that growth is sustainable.

The hidden risk of uncontrolled spending

Here's how it happens: in the early stages of a business, financial decision-making are relatively simple, requiring the involvement of just a few individuals.

But as that company scales, spending becomes more complex - and more decentralised.

New tools are implemented. New vendors are brought in. Teams multiply and expand. And with this growth comes more purchasing decisions, more vendor commitments, more subscriptions, more invoices - and more approvals across the business

What happens at this stage is that those workflows from the early days become unfit for purpose and start to fall apart. The manual approval processes, email chains, and spreadsheet trackers simply don't scale. Without the right processes, the Money Out function starts to break. Invoices getting approved after they're already overdue, budget owners who have no idea what's been spent, finance teams playing email tag instead of doing actual financial work, and employees genuinely confused about who's allowed to approve what.

At this point, the business is at risk - not just of overspending, but of losing control. These outdated processes create friction, slow decisions, and pull finance teams away from higher-value work like forecasting, analysis, and strategic planning.

Regardless of how mature the business is, modern finance teams need systems that automate approvals, enforce policies without micromanagement, integrate with accounting platforms and give instant visibility across the organization. It may sound like a tall order - but it’s totally achievable with certain tools.

When the outgoing spend governance is under control, the team can shift from firefighting to forward-thinking.

Money Out is a leadership issue

So, how do you pull your finance function out of this kind of rut? Building a system that gives you visibility before you need damage control is a good start. A strong Money Out approach isn’t just about processing payments efficiently - it’s about making intentional spending decisions before finance ever receives an invoice.

When you have the right systems in place, you can see what's been committed versus what's actually gone out the door. Budgets have clear owners. Cash flow becomes predictable. And your team isn’t blindsided at the end of every month.

When leaders are able to see where money is going before it leaves the bank, they don’t need to slow the business down - they can support it confidently.

How a company spends money says everything about how mature it is as an organization. When you have clear approval processes, real accountability, and full transparency around spending, you're sending three important signals: you take cash seriously, you trust your team within a framework that makes sense, and you're thinking beyond the next quarter.

Investors get excited about revenue, but what keeps them confident is watching you manage costs as if the business depends on it - because it does!

What should a good Money Out process look like?

A strong Money Out process doesn’t begin when an invoice arrives - it starts at the moment someone decides to spend and continues long after payment is made.

It should include five key stages:

Initation

Someone identifies a need or commits the business to a cost — whether that’s a purchase request, a new subscription, a payroll cycle or a contractual obligation.

Approval

The right stakeholders review the decision based on policy, budget and business priorities.

Execution

Funds are released at the appropriate time - to employees, suppliers, landlords or tax authorities.

Recording

The transaction is captured accurately in financial systems and aligned with budgets and reporting.

Accountability

A complete record shows who approved what, when and why, creating transparency and audit readiness.

When this works well, finance teams gain visibility into commitments before cash leaves the account - not just after invoices arrive.

The goal isn’t to slow spending down. It’s to create guardrails that allow businesses to move faster with confidence, knowing that every outgoing decision is intentional and controlled.

The bottom line

Companies that take spending seriously - and build it into their strategy as early as possible - are the ones that can actually scale when the opportunity comes. They're also the ones still standing when markets shift or money gets tight.

There's a line that gets thrown around in business circles: "Revenue is just activity. Profit is stability. Governance is sustainability." WeWork had the revenue story down. What it didn't have was control over spending.

And here's what I've seen time and again: the companies that implode aren't the ones that can't make money - they're the ones that have no idea how they're spending it.