How CFOs Can Optimize Cash Flow: 4 Steps

CFOs have always served as mission-critical liaisons between different units within a business, conduits to sponsors of private equity-backed businesses, and overseers of efforts to scale business growth. They plan for and measure success while holding people accountable for achieving that succes...

By Junaid Samnani and Sanjay Purohit • June 6, 2023

How AI Will Transform the Ability to Collect Business Debt

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds tremendous promise for creditors who want to reduce the impact of bad debt on cash flow and profitability. Already, AI is helping B2C lenders predict which customers are likeliest to fall behind and design strategies to quickly resolve past-due amounts.  Because...

By Dean Kaplan • May 23, 2023

Want to Negotiate Better Deals? Research, Prepare, and Frame

Strong negotiation skills, once the fundamentals of commerce and the way business was done, had become a somewhat overlooked element in the workplace. But recently, as salary transparency pushes employees and companies to open up discussions about compensation, and CFOs look to keep the cost of p...

By Adam Zaki • May 12, 2023

Is Your Chart of Accounts Too Long? Metric of the Month

The chart of accounts (COA) is a listing of the general ledger account names and identification numbers arranged in the order in which they customarily appear in financial statements. It can also include a description of what should be included in each account. The COA is a key accounting tool us...

By Perry D. Wiggins • May 3, 2023

Best in Class CFOs Drive 6.6% Savings With Spend Management Tech: Weekly Stat

Profitability and cost control have been at the forefront of CFOs' priorities in 2023. And with it, decision-making around expenses, aided by technology, has become the finance chief's mandate. Growth inhibitors, including a looming recession, unstable banks, and even talent retention issues cont...

By Adam Zaki • May 3, 2023

CFO Leadership Conference East

Join us June 6-8 at the CFO Leadership Conference East. Register today to receive 15% off your ticket using code CFOCOM15.

By CFO Editorial Staff • May 2, 2023

5 Ways to Reduce Accounts Receivable Risks, Strengthen Cash Flow

The current business outlook is fraught with uncertainties that are causing sleepless nights for many CFOs. Recession worries, high-interest rates, and the struggle to maintain a stable, engaged workforce while controlling labor costs are just a few of the pain points noted by analysts in early Q...

By Dean Kaplan • April 18, 2023

68% of CFOs Still Expect Net Profits to Rise in 2023

The first quarter of 2023 introduced an expanding set of challenges for CFOs — bank insolvency issues, a determined Federal Reserve, and escalation of the war in Ukraine. But finance chiefs remain resilient in the face of a whirlwind of external forces on costs, talent, supply chains, and corpora...

By Adam Zaki • April 12, 2023

The Four-Day Workweek, March’s Job Numbers, and Reducing Cyber Risk: Trial Balance

With OPEC’s slashing of production, ChatGPT’s innovation being globally challenged, and the U.S. dollar’s struggle to remain the world’s reserve currency, March’s ending wasn’t very “lamb-like.” To evaluate Wall Street's reaction to all of the recent hurdles faced by the financial sector, senior ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • April 3, 2023

Emerging Cannabis Markets: Cloudy Regulations, High Potential

Cannabis markets, and the organizations that function within these markets, have respired with the same issues faced by many CFOs across the industry spectrum. Amid the myriad 2023 challenges, the cannabis industry has them all — supply chain, talent acquisition and retention, technology implemen...

By Adam Zaki • March 6, 2023

91% of CFOs Concerned with Hitting Sales Forecasts: Weekly Stat

Despite recent widespread agreement a recession would likely occur in 2023, CFOs have shown confidence in their companies' ability to bob and weave their way through a struggling economy. Despite this confidence, new data suggests that there are multiple financial, social, and technology-induced ...

By Adam Zaki • Feb. 15, 2023

4 Ways to Turn Your KPIs Into Strategic Assets

In the digital economy, businesses are finding new paths to success. That means the metrics used to measure and steer performance need to change too — but many companies are still wedded to old-school key performance indicators (KPIs) that don’t fully reflect the needs of today’s organizations.Me...

By Alka Tandan • Feb. 14, 2023

Small Company CFOs Gear Up for Heightened Spending

With odds improving that the economy will escape falling into a recession in 2023, small-company CFOs are all-in with plans to ramp up business spending this year.Even before financial firms lowered their expectations for a recessionary year — Goldman Sachs, for example, recently downgraded the l...

By David McCann • Feb. 13, 2023

92% of CFOs Say They’re Fully Prepared for a Recession: Weekly Stat

Financial executives must make decisions that will prove to be pivotal over the next several quarters. But with much at stake, they appear to be confident in their ability to achieve their goals, regardless of what happens to the U.S. economy.In CFO’s most recent outlook survey, 51% of finance le...

By Adam Zaki • Feb. 8, 2023

Remote Meetings Up 60% Since 2020: Weekly Stat

Despite some organizations going as far as to tell employees to turn down meetings they find unbeneficial, executives and their employees seem to be in more virtual meetings than ever before. A recent analysis from the Harvard Business Review (HBR) that focused on remote work engagement found the...

By Adam Zaki • Jan. 4, 2023

2023 Outlook: 4 Priorities CFOs Must Consider

With several financial headwinds to confront, CFOs could be forgiven for wondering where to start in their efforts to guide their businesses through these tough times. Certainly, the most significant challenge facing many companies is inflation. Although many commentators believe price rises will...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 19, 2022

How Much Does It Cost to Process an Invoice? Metric of the Month

The total cost to invoice customers is an important key performance indicator that measures the efficiency of your sales and accounting teams and the health of the invoicing process. After reviewing cross-industry data on the cost of invoicing, we’ll explore three areas where you can look deeper ...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Dec. 7, 2022

49% of Finance Professionals Worry Cash Flow Data is Unreliable: Weekly Stat

Reliance on data is the foundation of any finance executive looking to create accurate forecasts and allocations. Yet a recent survey by Blackline found nearly half (49%) of executives have multiple issues with the accuracy of their data to counteract the things impacting their businesses, such a...

By Adam Zaki • Nov. 30, 2022

5 Accounting ‘Turnarounds’: How Manufacturing Fends Off Credit Squeeze

Manufacturers can’t afford to wait any longer. For two years, CFOs and controllers have managed supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages, and surging prices. Typically, these developments could require most manufacturers to raise prices to survive.In Q4 of 2022, there potentially is a looming re...

By David DeMuth • Nov. 15, 2022

Tech Investors Try to Keep Valuations From Crushing Portfolio Companies

Technology companies fueled by venture capital and private equity money have to find a more conservative financial path to success, said three prominent tech investors at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York on Thursday. That will require being much more mindful of cash flow, expense manageme...

By Vincent Ryan • Nov. 8, 2022

5 Strategic Steps to Improve Year-End Collections

Financial regulators in the U.S. are worried that inflation is feeding on itself. As we brace ourselves for more interest rate hikes, what are the implications for your business? Before we can answer this question, we need to look at the cumulative effect of the Fed’s latest actions to control sp...

By Dean Kaplan • Nov. 7, 2022

75% of CFOs Say Economic Disruption is 2023’s Biggest Challenge: Weekly Stat

As the consensus of economic trouble en route for 2023 grows, finance executives are compiling different strategies to prepare to do business in a new economic landscape. CFOs have a full plate of challenges in the upcoming year, including supply chain woes, ESG policies, adjusting their tactics ...

By Adam Zaki • Nov. 2, 2022

How CFOs Can Raise Financing During a Downturn

Fundraising in the best of times is difficult, but raising capital in a down market or recession often seems impossible. Despite venture “dry powder” being at record high levels, startups and rapidly growing companies seeking to scale their businesses in the near term should understand that ventu...

By Chris Roling • Nov. 1, 2022

6 Steps to Prepare for the Next Restructuring Wave

Many business leaders are grappling with questions about how to continue seeking growth while protecting against downside risks. In recent months, the latter seems to be getting greater attention.While no one knows for sure whether we are headed for a deep downturn and the next major restructurin...

By David G. Dragich • Oct. 31, 2022

Machine Learning Advances the Cash Forecast

“One of the most important things that treasury can do is to come up with a good cash forecast,” Bruce Lynn, managing partner of The Financial Executives Consulting Group (FECG), told CFO last April. Especially in the current economy. Treasurers would rather not over-borrow, under-invest, or be u...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 31, 2022