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

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

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 Krishnan Raghunathan • 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

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

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

Putting Value at the Center of Your Strategic Plan

How far would you get driving your car, but by looking only in the rear-view mirror? That’s what managing a business without a strategic plan amounts to. As a CFO of a midsize company, it’s easy to put planning aside while you confront everyday issues and challenges. Yet when it comes to moving f...

By Reed Phillips and Charles Slack • Oct. 25, 2022

Unlocking New Value For Your Company

We believe the single most important piece of information a CFO can have about their business is its current value. Those who understand what the company is worth, and why, have a clear advantage over competitors when it comes to unlocking new value moving forward. And we believe that conducting ...

By Reed Phillips and Charles Slack • Oct. 20, 2022

Finding the Multiples Essential to Determining Your Company’s Value

Multiples and valuations go together like meals and recipes. Just as a good meal requires an accurate recipe, you can’t build a credible valuation without using the right multiples. CFOs know multiples are the centerpiece of every valuation methodology. That is also true for the method we created...

By Reed Phillips and Charlie Slack • Oct. 18, 2022

Supply Chain Pressures Keep Inventories High in Q2

Efficient handling of working capital frees up cash that can be used to replace the forms of capital getting more expensive as interest rates climb.The Hackett Group’s Working Capital Survey, updated for the second quarter of 2022, showed the 1,000 companies studied did fairly well at managing re...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 27, 2022

Inflation Reduction Act Burdens Small and Midsize Businesses: Opinion

The big corporate tax increase from Washington may be aimed at giants such as Amazon and Bank of America, but the regulatory burden will also fall significantly on many smaller companies with overseas operations. Businesses that have seen an unwanted boost in tax accounting costs since the 2017 T...

By Bill Henson • Sept. 14, 2022

Survey: 5 Top Challenges and Priorities CFOs Face in 2022

Whether it is technology, logistics, hiring, or inflation, the intricacies of today’s economic climate are impacting the daily lives of chief financial officers. In the wake of CFO’s recently published annual survey — CFO Insights on Inflation, Workforce Challenges, and Future Plans — we peel bac...

By Adam Zaki • Aug. 30, 2022

Managing Spend to Help Navigate a Recession

In the face of a likely post-pandemic recession, finance leaders are focused on maintaining day-to-day operations, identifying potential risks, growing the business where they can, and avoiding layoffs.During the Great Recession from 2008 to 2012, we helped hundreds of organizations accelerate bo...

By Brian Prantil and Jake Wojcik • Aug. 25, 2022

6 Steps to Implementing Late-Stage Lease Accounting Compliance

If you’re a private equity (PE) backed CFO, you have spent the last few years thinking (perhaps obsessing) about real estate. After the pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work, all of the money organizations spent on real estate and offices became questionable. Over two years into the pandem...

By Alex Bogopolsky • Aug. 8, 2022

FP&A: Making the Best of the Dog Days of Summer

When the star Sirius rises at dawn, or so the tradition goes, the summer doldrums and worse set in. However, we see it as a time of hidden possibility. In our experience, FP&A departments are chronically understaffed and have little need for busy work, summer or not. That said, July and Augus...

By Marwaan Karame and Kal Vadasz • July 27, 2022

1 out of 2 CFOs, CEOs to Cut Workforce, Talent Development Last: Weekly Stat

CFOs and CEOs, facing economic volatility and uncertainty in the second half of 2022 and beyond, are most likely to continue to invest in workforce and talent development, according to a recent Gartner survey. By contrast, merger and acquisition investment is most likely to face immediate reducti...

By Andy Burt • July 27, 2022

The Industries That Got Paid Faster: Working Capital Scorecard

Most chief financial officers would say building up cash on the balance sheet is important. But one way to do that — converting sales into cash faster — sometimes gets forgotten. One reason: over the past few years, low interest rates made using debt to boost liquidity less expensive. That result...

By Vincent Ryan • July 20, 2022

Rethinking the Value of 3 Common Financial Metrics

At a recent financial training session for railroading company CSX Corporation, CFO Sean Pelkey asked his teammates to list what they considered to be the three most important financial measures. The purpose was to consider both the merits and shortcomings of each measure and ultimately examine h...

By Gregory Milano • July 13, 2022

CFOs Hunt for More Cash: 2022 Working Capital Scorecard

When the cost of debt and equity rises, smart CFOs know they need to find capital in other places. So, they look for the nooks and crannies where excess cash may be hiding. That inevitably leads them to working capital — the funds regularly tied up in accounts receivable, accounts payable, and in...

By Vincent Ryan • July 13, 2022