Chapter 5 — Time

When the past no longer holds

There is a scene I've seen repeat itself in many organizations. The monthly meeting starts. The numbers are there. The reporting is ready. Around the table, the executive committee flips through the presentation. Then, at one point, the CEO pulls out a printed sheet. It isn't today's. It's last month's. The gesture is simple. Almost mechanical. He takes a number from last month. Revenue. EBITDA. A variance versus budget. He mentally adds the performance of the month that just went by. And he checks whether the result shown this month works out. Last month, YTD EBITDA was at one million euros. This month, we're announcing another 200,000 euros. YTD should be at 1.2 million. But it isn't. Sometimes, the gap is small. Sometimes, it's more visible. But it's there. The same exercise repeats on the variances. Last month, YTD was at +€100k versus budget. This month, we're announcing additional outperformance. And yet, YTD stays unchanged. The question comes. It is rarely aggressive. Often calmly phrased. "Why doesn't the math add up?" And very quickly, a discomfort sets in. Because no one likes it when the past changes.

Why we reason over time

After these meetings, I always take a moment to step back. I remind myself why, despite everything, we reason this way. Comparing periods is essential. The month alone says nothing. It has to be put into perspective. MoM shows momentum. YTD smooths out one-off effects. The comparison to budget gives a reference point. The forecast projects a trajectory. Without these readings over time, the number stays raw. Isolated. Hard to use. Time is what turns a one-off performance into steering. It lets you tell a story. Understand whether a trend is confirming or reversing. I have never seen a finance team stack periods up for intellectual comfort. We do it because it's the only way to give meaning to the numbers. Because the business reasons over the long run, not at a single point in time. Time is a reading tool. A necessary framework.

What time gradually shifts

But as the periods accumulate, something changes. Each month brings its share of corrections. Entries that arrived late. Reclassifications. Cut-off adjustments. Changes in perimeter. Assumptions that evolve. Taken individually, each of these movements is legitimate. Necessary, even. But collectively, they have a subtle effect. The past is no longer entirely stable. A YTD is no longer just the sum of the months previously displayed. It becomes a permanent recomposition. A number recalculated in light of new information. It isn't visible right away. The totals stay consistent. The explanations exist. But the intuitive link weakens. What was true last month is no longer quite true this month. Without anyone having decided to question it.

Freezing the past… and shifting the problem

Faced with this tension, many organizations make a rational decision: freeze the past. Closed periods no longer move. Published numbers stay intact. This calms the comparisons. The math "adds up." Continuity is preserved. But it doesn't remove the errors. Or the omissions. Or the necessary corrections. The only difference is where they show up. Adjustments that would have changed the past now hit the current period. A late invoice. A forgotten accrual. A late reclassification. The performance of the month ends up loaded with corrections that don't really belong to it. And finance is faced with an uncomfortable choice. Either it explains these effects. It provides context. It points out that the month is "polluted" by the past. The reading is fair. But the performance becomes hard to read. And credibility erodes. Or it doesn't talk about them. It protects the apparent stability. But it feeds the business with a degraded reading. In both cases, something is lost.

The fatigue of justification

Over time, this situation becomes heavy. Every month requires additional explanations. Every number calls for a note. Every variance asks for context. The debate is no longer just about performance. It's about how to read it. The operational teams hesitate. They ask whether the number is "net of exceptional effects." Whether it is "comparable." Whether they should wait for the following month. Finance, meanwhile, spends more and more time justifying. Less analyzing. Less shedding light. The numbers aren't wrong. But their meaning becomes negotiated. And the more time passes, the more this negotiation becomes the norm.

Which past are we talking about?

The problem isn't time. It is its silent accumulation. The numbers keep coming out. The reports stay structured. The processes hold. But the implicit continuity, the one everyone expects without putting it into words, cracks. The question is no longer just "is the number correct?" It becomes: "which past are we still talking about when we look at this number?" And as long as this question stays implicit, it keeps weighing on every decision.