Most Frequent Problems Outsourced CFO Solve

One of the first questions business owners need to ask before investing in an outsourced CFO – what is the problem we need to fix or the outcome we want to achieve?

Let’s give you a rundown on the most frequent problems an outsourced CFO can solve:

Reason #1: Your Business is Facing a Turnaround Situation

A turnaround situation is a fancy way of saying your business is in deep trouble, and you need help fast. This is not one of the most frequent problems outsourced CFO solves, but it is one of the most impactful. Our goal in this scenario is as quickly as possible to assess the situation and work very quickly to rectify the situation. The goal, transitioning to a healthy, thriving business.

Reason #2 Getting the Most Out of Your Finance Team

Whether you are running a one-person finance team with someone taking care of your bank records, your accounts payable, accounts receivable or you’ve got a seven-person strong finance team who manages everything from entering information to reporting information, you must ensure the business is getting the most out of your finance team. As a business owner, you must be consistently aware of the performance and return on investment of your finance team. An outsourced CFO can help in this goal by helping you train and strengthen your finance team to empower them to increase their return on investment and optimise work processes.

Reason #3 Getting the Most Out of Your ERP and Software System

You might ask, “why is this even included when an outsourced CFO neither sells the software service nor plays the role of IT provider?” Valid questions, except there are a lot of scenarios where you as a business owner have already exhausted efforts trying to solve ERP and software system issues with your software providers.

The problems may not lie with the software system itself. It has more to do with learning to use the system more effectively on a day-to-day basis. And an outsourced CFO can show you how to do it. The phrase we love to use is your software will most likely have six gears, we want to get it out of second!

Reason #4 Timely and Accurate Financial Reporting

This concern is like getting the most out of your finance team but taking a step further. For instance, you are waiting for your financial reporting, it’s the end of September, and you are just getting the reports for June. Would you think this is good? Late financial reporting is not good in any way. This may be an extreme example, but delayed financial reporting can spell doom for a business.

On the other hand, say you got your financial report for June only a week after the month ended. That is fast, right? But the report does not make sense to you. It is timely, but is it accurate? These two reporting scenarios highlight the need for the right blend of both speed and accuracy. This proper balance can be achieved with a solid system in place, and where accountability is clear for your finance team to deliver fast and accurate financial reports which naturally an outsourced CFO can help to achieve.

Reason #5 Focus and Strategy

There are times when you, as business owner, simply want to get clarity on the direction you are heading, and if you are getting the best performance from your business in comparison to your goals and the performance of others (eg benchmarking). You are always interested to know how you can benchmark the performance of your people, whether in comparison with the other business in your own industry, or those from similar industries.

Focus and strategy remain crucial even if you get the most out of your finance team. They may provide timely and accurate financial reporting, but what happens if they don’t know how to interpret the data or what data to report on?  That is a problem an outsourced CFO can solve. The outcome to this comes down to the heart of all your goals, as an outsourced CFO we want to help your business generate more cash, more profit, and more equity. Simply put, we want you to succeed.