Before Accepting Bitcoin as Payment…

There aren’t many fans of Bitcoin among corporate treasurers. As one financial technology executive told us in April, “I don’t have a positive view of an unregulated currency being used by corporate treasury departments. … Although there was a small argument made for the [foreign exchange] effici...

By Vincent Ryan • June 5, 2014

Finance Staffers Earn Larger Pay Increases

Corporate finance professionals at all job levels received pay increases in 2013, but staff-level employees earned the greatest hikes in pay, according to a new report by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP).Overall, financial professionals reported a 3.8 percent average gain in thei...

By Vincent Ryan • June 2, 2014

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from CFO.com

From CPA licensure changes to undergoing a digital transformation, these are the most popular stories CFOs are reading. 

By CFO.com staff

Good-Bye CFO, Hello Business Leader

Now in just his second month as an ex-CFO, Sean Stack nonetheless is experiencing a vague sense of déjà vu.Stack: “It’s extremely fun and challenging, having an impact on a lot more people day to day.” In April, Stack left his role running finance at Aleris, a $5 billion aluminum-products maker a...

By David McCann • May 30, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 30

Real estate investment trust Ashford Hospitality Trust has promoted senior vice president of finance Deric Eubanks to the dual posts of CFO and treasurer. He replaces David Kimichik, who will retire on June 13.Peter Kellogg has been named to the top finance spot at biopharmaceutical firm Celgene,...

By Joan Urdang • May 30, 2014

Standard Setters Issue Final Revenue Recognition Rule

After more than a decade of deliberation, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued a final standard this morning on the recognition of revenue from contracts with customers.  For CFOs working for companies in the software, tele...

By David Katz • May 28, 2014

CFOs Cash In Big with MBAs from Elite Schools

If you’re a CFO or a wannabe with primarily an accounting background, you probably know you could make more money by adding an MBA to your educational mix. But here is something you may not know: you’ll earn substantially more only if the degree is from an elite school.2013 MBA graduates of Montr...

By David McCann • May 28, 2014

No Time for Budgets

Has any corporate financial tool come in for as much scorn as the annual budget — and has any tool so richly deserved it? CFOs, managers, consultants, academics: all have long pointed out the flaws in both the budgeting process — the politics involved, the sandbagging — and the final product, whi...

By Edward Teach • May 27, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending July 25

Debra Wichser has been named to the top finance spot at network TVGN, a partnership between CBS and Lionsgate. Previously, she was vice president, corporate development, at CBS.Ascena Retail Group, which comprises such brands as Lane Bryant and Dressbarn, has announced that finance chief Dirk Mon...

By David McCann • May 25, 2014

How to Talk to Activist Investors

As the returns of activist investors have soared, so have their popularity, and their impact on public companies. That, in turn, has forced CFOs to keep a weather eye on their movements, and ponder how they will respond when an activist investor comes calling.Activist hedge funds have been the to...

By Keith Button • May 23, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 23

Eastman Kodak has selected John McMullen to lead the finance function, effective June 15. He succeeds Rebecca Roof, who has been interim CFO since September 2012. McMullen’s former posts include senior vice president of finance and corporate treasurer at Hewlett-Packard, CFO of HP’s imaging and p...

By Joan Urdang • May 23, 2014

The CFO as Risk Manager — and Vice Versa

How much does the job of CFO involve risk management? That’s a question that can yield as many answers as there are finance chiefs, risk managers and companies. For CFOs of small to mid-size firms, it may well involve the direct purchasing of insurance or the supervision of an insurance broker. A...

By David Katz • May 20, 2014

U.S. Health-Cost Hikes Slow Down Again This Year

The rate of increase in costs of employer-sponsored health-care plans is continuing to moderate this year in the United States, according to research released today by Buck Consultants. But it’s a different story abroad, as evidenced by another report issued today by Towers Watson.The moderation ...

By David McCann • May 15, 2014

The Rising Strategic Risks of Cyber Attacks

More and more business value and personal information worldwide are rapidly migrating into digital form on open and globally interconnected technology platforms. As that happens, the risks from cyber attacks become increasingly daunting. Criminals pursue financial gain through fraud and identity ...

By Wolf Richter, Tucker Bailey, and Andrea Del Miglio • May 15, 2014

Little Green Men Make the List of ‘Extreme’ Risk Factors

You probably won’t be happy to hear that the list of risk factors in your financial filings is missing some whoppers that would severely cripple or kill your business. If you think you’ve thought of everything, think again.For instance, have you considered what could happen to your cash flow if E...

By David McCann • May 12, 2014

Who Are Your Neighbors in the Cloud?

The availability of large pools of very low cost storage and connectivity in “public clouds” — particularly at Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure — has attracted a lot of attention, and plenty of small and medium-size businesses are thinking about moving there or have ...

By John Parkinson • May 12, 2014

CFOs Are Eager to Be Consultants

For CFOs who may not be ready to stop working upon retirement, consulting is an enticing option, according to a recent survey from Robert Half Management Resources. Among 2,100 financial executives interviewed, three in four said they find the prospect of consulting either somewhat attractive (58...

By David McCann • May 9, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 9

Online real-estate marketplace Auction.com has appointed Tim Morse to lead the finance function. Previously, he was CFO and interim CEO at Yahoo, CFO and general manager of business development at GE Plastics and CFO of Altera.Steven Sterin, outgoing CFO at Celanese Celanese has named Chris Jense...

By Joan Urdang • May 9, 2014

The 15-Minute 401(k) Plan Review

Kurt Winiecki The law that governs 401(k) plans (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) is hundreds of pages long and written by Congress. Given that most CFOs won’t be referring to the actual statute anytime soon, below is a list of eight essential criteria plan sponsors can use to...

By Kurt Winiecki • May 8, 2014

No Company Too Small to Pursue Finance Operations Excellence

Size equals scale equals efficiency, right? Yes, but there are very few structural reasons why companies with less than $3 billion in revenue should be at any disadvantage when it comes to optimizing their performance in transactional finance for cost, quality and cycle time.While costs for large...

By Lynne Schneider, Tom Willman, and Srinivasa Rao Dabbera • May 8, 2014

Pay Reward for Job Hopping Inches Up

Compensation increases for senior executives who changed jobs last year averaged 17 percent, reports Salveson Stetson Group. It was the fourth straight year of hikes above 16 percent among executives placed by the recruiter. The 2012 figure was 16.5 percent.That level of increase is well above th...

By David McCann • May 7, 2014

How Can a CFO Get Timely, Clean Financial Data?

Improving workflows is challenging when most critical information comes from other parts of the business, far beyond the CFO’s line of sight. Finance and accounting organizations that are divided up by competency or business unit can rarely coordinate effectively across entire accounting processe...

By John A. Kahler • May 5, 2014

Brocade CFO Fights Off ‘Inertia’ in Company Transformation

If you know of Brocade Communications Systems, the first thing that comes to mind may be that it’s a multibillion-dollar vendor of networking hardware for data centers. Less positively, you might also recall that the company’s former CEO, Gregory Reyes, was the first U.S. executive sent to prison...

By David McCann • April 29, 2014

Harder to Recognize

In December 2002, five months after he became chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, Robert Herz told a conference of auditors that FASB had set a “very ambitious” deadline for issuing a sweeping new standard that would govern how companies report revenues. The board had establishe...

By David Katz • April 28, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending April 25

Marc Costantini has been named to the top finance spot at The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. He takes over from Robert Broatch, who is retiring after 12 years in the post. Costantini joins the company from Manulife Financial, where he was executive vice president of corporate develop...

By Joan Urdang • April 25, 2014

MLB Video Game May Not Be a Hit

Here’s an interesting question for a strategic-minded CFO: When is the right time to enter an existing product market with your own contender?All kinds of considerations might play into answering that. Those certainly include the health of that market and what your competition will look like. For...

By David McCann • April 24, 2014