The Role of CFO Services: Empowering Businesses with Financial Leadership

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are becoming increasingly common in small and mid-size organizations worldwide. The rise in demand for professional CFO services is due to business owners planning strategically to succeed for the long term. The cost of hiring an in-house or fractional CFO is now generally viewed as an investment in expertise rather than just a necessary business expense.

What is a CFO?

As the highest-ranking financial professional in an organization, the CFO is responsible for the company's fiscal health. Their day-to-day duties include:

• Building the best finance and accounting team.
• Keeping revenues and expenses in balance.
• Overseeing financial planning & analysis functions.
• Obtaining funding.
• Making mergers and acquisitions recommendations and working with department heads to analyze financial data and budgets.

Additional responsibilities may include providing evidence of report accuracy and consulting and collaborating with the CEO and top leadership on business strategy. Their expertise, fiscal insights and industry knowledge also enable the CFO to make strategic move recommendations on everything that affects your business success.

What Does a CFO Do?

Within an organization, the CFO oversees all financial activities. They're also responsible for the finance and accounting teams, maximizing revenue and maintaining stable cash flow. The CEO and C-suite peers rely on the CFO in a strategic advisory capacity to help them make good financial decisions.

To attain a broad view of an organization's financial health, CFO professionals use their business acumen and leadership skills. While overseeing your bookkeeping and accounting teams, the CFO will generate timely financial reports specific to your business needs. Complex data and numbers will be converted into performance advice that is easy to consume, enabling you to evaluate investment prospects and make the best decisions for the organization.

CFO services also provide predictions of potential outcomes, and performance-based financial forecasting and modeling based on internal and external factors that may affect revenue and expenses.

Additionally, it's the CFO's job to attest that the organization's financial statements are accurate and complete.

The Benefits of CFO Services

A CFO service is a third-party company that offers financial advice and management tailored to your business niche.

Engaging a CFO service is significantly cheaper than paying employment costs. You can decide how many hours of expert financial advice a week you want to pay for.

Your CFO will evaluate the organization's financial systems to improve budgeting and forecasting efficiency and create better reporting.

Suppose your business is moving into a growth phase. In that case, you can add more hours to the existing CFO service contract and benefit from the CFO's business growth experience.

As CFOs tend to wear many business hats, the service may additionally include managing system and data integration, evaluating new technologies and assessing cyber security risks. You won't lose key finance contacts if you need to scale back the service.

When to Hire CFO Services

When the organization's CEO and financial team can no longer adequately evaluate the business's fiscal standing, inform business strategy, assess cash flow or forecast future financial needs, it's time to consider hiring CFO services.

When you partner with an outsourced CFO service that can expertly handle your business finances, you'll have more time to focus on what you do best.