What Are You Expecting From 2026?
There’s a lot of optimism around business in 2026. It’s looking like a financial year that could knock our socks off.
We’re hearing it in conversations with business owners, CPAs, and advisors. On podcasts and LinkedIn feeds. We’re feeling the shift in energy at Oracle Profitability. This is shaping up to be a year focused on profit, growth, and expansion.
What stands out to us at this moment is who is feeling this momentum. Many of these businesses are not just getting started. They’re already operating at the million dollar level. Their books are reconciled for the year. Their reports are accurate. They’re releasing their budgets in the first week of January which indicates that these businesses not only know their stuff, they've been planning for what comes next. How about you? Do you know what you want from the year?
Building Your Roadmap
We just finished a year. How did it go? Did you accomplish everything you wanted? How do you know? When did you know that the year was a success?
We’ve got good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad. If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re behind the ball. Starting your budget planning on January 1st is kind of like starting a diet after an excessive holiday season. You’re reacting instead of planning.
Million dollar businesses don’t wait until the new year, or heaven forbid until tax season, to check in on their numbers or set goals. They know where they stand by the end of Q3 and are already planning for what comes next.
Now for the good news. One of the biggest differences we see in the success of a business is whether they are setting targets. In other words, do they know where they want to go, and are they taking strategic action to get there?
A business can hit the million dollar mark through a combination of luck and circumstance, but most only stay there or grow if they get really clear on why they do what they do and where they want to go next. (This is something we explore in our article on why purpose is the real driver of profit—because if you don’t know why you’re doing it, the target doesn’t mean much.)
Have you set your targets for the year, or are you simply moving forward and hoping it lands somewhere good?
If your business suddenly doubled this year, could your systems handle it?
What about your cash flow?
Could your team handle it?
Could you?
This is where many otherwise healthy businesses get caught. There’s a dangerous assumption that if the numbers look good, everything else will work itself out. We’ve written about this before in The Most Dangerous Myth in Business Finance—because “business as usual” often hides inefficiencies, outdated decisions, and blind spots that quietly erode profit. Growth has a way of exposing those gaps quickly.
This Is Your Moment (If You Choose It)
Wherever you landed with those questions, we want to challenge you to seize the moment. Not in a dramatic way, just a practical one.
Lots of businesses are going to move forward this year. Decisions will be made. Money will be spent. And opportunities will come and go whether you feel ready for them or not. What will make a difference for you this year is whether you are moving with intention or from reaction. We’re not necessarily telling you to set bigger goals. But we do believe that you need clearer ones. You need to know what you’re actually aiming for if you want to hit a target.
If you’re already doing the work of planning, budgeting, and setting targets, the next step isn’t doing more. It’s seeing your numbers more clearly so you make the next right decision for your business.
This is the work we do with our clients at Oracle Profitability. We help business owners understand what their numbers are actually supporting, where pressure is building, and how to make decisions with intention instead of reaction as the year unfolds.
If you want support thinking through your targets, your roadmap, and what your financials are really telling you, we invite you to book a free financial controller consultation with our team. Sometimes a single conversation is enough to bring clarity to what comes next.