Metric of the Month
An ongoing series authored by Perry D. Wiggins, who is CFO, treasurer, and secretary for APQC, a nonprofit benchmarking and best practices research organization.
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How to measure productivity with revenue per employee: Metric of the Month
Revenue-generating support provided by outsourced workers can distort this important measurement of productivity.
By Perry D. Wiggins • July 10, 2024 -
Days sales outstanding: A critical lever for managing cash flow: Metric of the Month
Get cash more quickly by reducing the time between invoice processing and customer payment.
By Perry D. Wiggins • June 5, 2024 -
Manage days payable outstanding to improve cash flow: Metric of the Month
A high DPO can sabotage strategic supplier relationships and a too-low DPO constrains liquidity, CFO Perry Wiggins says.
By Perry D. Wiggins • May 8, 2024 -
Finance Team Collaboration Drives Lower Process Costs: Metric of the Month
Getting people to work together more effectively will help drive costs down sustainably.
By Perry D. Wiggins • April 3, 2024 -
3 CFO Strategies for Getting Paid Faster: Metric of the Month
Leading organizations use these three strategies to get faster payments from customers.
By Perry D. Wiggins • March 6, 2024 -
3 CFO Strategies for Better Annual Reporting Performance: Metric of the Month
Reporting work doesn’t stop with the completion of the annual close.
By Perry D. Wiggins • Feb. 7, 2024 -
Eliminate Billing Adjustment Bottlenecks: Metric of the Month
A lengthy cycle time for adjustments can cause ripple effects for key finance processes.
By Perry D. Wiggins • Nov. 15, 2023 -
A CFO’s metrics
An ongoing series on corporate finance authored by Perry D. Wiggins — CFO, treasurer, and secretary for APQC, a nonprofit benchmarking and best practices research organization.
By Perry D. Wiggins • Updated July 10, 2024 -
4 Tips for a Faster and More Effective Budgeting Process: Metric of the Month
These practices help organizations complete their budget quicker and with a better final product.
By Perry D. Wiggins • Sept. 6, 2023 -
Why a Smaller IT Headcount is Not Necessarily Better: Metric of the Month
Use this guidance to make well-informed, data-driven decisions about your IT workforce.
By Perry D. Wiggins • Aug. 2, 2023 -
3 Ways to Accelerate Travel Expense Approval and Reimbursement: Metric of the Month
Companies that reimburse employees more quickly save time and money, while reducing finance teams' and employees' frustrations.
By Perry D. Wiggins • July 5, 2023 -
3 Ways to Control Uncollectible Balances: Metric of the Month
Challenging and chaotic business environments teach us important lessons — if we are willing to learn them. For example, in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that humans crave social interaction, parents generally don’t make very good math teachers, and your household should always have an amp...
By Perry D. Wiggins • June 7, 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 -
How Many Learning Days Should You Offer Employees? Metric of the Month
There is a certain complacency that many organizations start to develop once employees move beyond their onboarding and initial probationary period. Now that these employees are settling into their roles, the thinking goes, they do not require further learning or training. This is not the right w...
By Perry D. Wiggins • April 5, 2023 -
Number of Finance FTEs Benchmarks AR Efficiency: Metric of the Month
Accounts receivable (AR) is one of the most critical and high-volume processes that organizations carry out. Delays in this process mean less working capital and liquidity, making AR one area where improving efficiency can pay off exponentially. One good way to measure the efficiency of your AR ...
By Perry D. Wiggins • March 1, 2023 -
5 Ways to Speed Up the Year-End Close: Metric of the Month
The annual close comes during one of the heaviest workloads of the year for accountants. Month-end, quarter-end, and year-end closing processes converge in a perfect storm that takes time and energy away from operations-supporting daily activities. However, the best accounting teams don’t wait un...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Feb. 8, 2023 -
Cycle Time for Short-Term Cash Forecasting: Metric of the Month
In moments of disruption — whether from a global pandemic, geopolitical conflict, a recession, or something else — the need to prepare an accurate short-term cash flow forecast becomes critical. The ability to create and adjust these forecasts quickly allows management to make better and more inf...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Jan. 3, 2023 -
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 -
Too Many ERP Systems Are a Bad Thing: Metric of the Month
Finance shared service centers (SSCs) provide a centralized team that carries out high-volume, repeatable finance processes on behalf of business units or areas across an enterprise. Organizations commonly choose this model to achieve process standardization and improvement, reduce errors, and br...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Nov. 2, 2022 -
How Much Revenue Should Each Employee Generate? Metric of the Month
A competitive labor market has placed enormous wage pressures on employers over the last few years. The result has been a material increase in labor costs for employers looking to backfill vacant positions, retain key personnel, or grow their business with added human resources. More than ever, o...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Oct. 5, 2022 -
Top Performers Automate 40% of Primary Controls: Metric of the Month
If you’re not already automating your internal controls, you should be. The cost of controls technology has come way down while its capabilities have increased. Advanced controls automation is now accessible even to smaller organizations, and the return on investment is high. Automation not only ...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Sept. 7, 2022 -
Top Organizations Record Accounts Payable Cycle Time in 2.8 Days: Metric of the Month
An optimized accounts payable (AP) process not only helps organizations take advantage of early pay discounts and favorable payment terms but is vital for cash flow management more broadly. But AP teams do not work in a vacuum — process excellence is partly a product of collaboration with other a...
By Perry D. Wiggins • Aug. 3, 2022 -
Best Organizations Report Consolidated Financials in 4 Days: Metric of the Month
Consolidated financial statements enable organizations with a parent company and subordinate reporting units (e.g., subsidiaries, regional operations, or multiple locations) to report their finances as a single enterprise for creditors, investors, operational leaders, and other stakeholders. Prep...
By Perry D. Wiggins • July 6, 2022 -
Fixing Invoice Errors Shouldn’t Take a Week: Metric of the Month
Invoicing errors are a waste of time for all parties. The customer not only has to contact you (the supplier) to resolve the error, but your employees need to investigate its cause. Then, ideally, an employee has to take action to make sure the problem doesn’t recur. Invoicing errors happen for ...
By Perry D. Wiggins • June 1, 2022 -
Metric of the Month: The Right Mix of New and Long-Serving Employees
Highly-trained, knowledgeable, and well-tenured staff are some of the most critical assets of a business. Long-serving employees know their job inside and out, know processes intimately, and often have deep inter-company relationships that break down silos and foster collaboration.   Perry D. ...
By Perry D. Wiggins • May 5, 2022