So, where do you start in your CFO role?
"Begin with the end in mind," Stephen R. Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
In their whitepaper, The Four Faces of the CFO, Deloitte describes four critical areas of focus for a CFO:
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Efficiency – managing the effectiveness of the overall finance function
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Control – risk management, accounting and financial reporting compliance
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Execution – partnering with other business executives to implement strategies
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Performance – using a financial perspective to set the strategic direction of the business.
When determining where you would like to be in 90 days and what you want (and need) to achieve beyond that, you need to start by looking much further. Define your ideal end state or ultimate visions in your role as CFO, and map a path to get there - one step at a time. The first 90 days may be the first step in that journey.
There is a lot to do in a significant role like CFO, so how do you prioritise the urgent, the immediate and the essential tasks to create maximum impact within your first 90 days? Read on to find out how.
Audit and understand current processes
The first step to becoming strategic in your approach to the CFO role and the broader finance function is understanding what you're coming into.
What is the current maturity level and performance within the finance function as it currently stands? What needs to change? What needs to stay the same?
Be sure to observe and have many conversations to understand the lay of the land instead of simply sweeping in and making immediate changes. That kind of approach won't gain you many supporters.
Learn more about your responsibilities by reading our guide to being a strategic CFO.
The sort of processes you need to understand may include:
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Data collection
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Budgeting
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Strategic planning
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Financial planning
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Forecasting
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Financial modelling
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Consolidation
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Reporting.
Establish the baseline of where your processes currently sit, gather all the information you need to gain a holistic view of the state of play and get a handle on how the finance department intersects with the other business functions.
Once you have an idea of what you're dealing with, you'll be able to have more informed conversations with your team and stakeholders, make intelligent decisions and know they are based on financial insights, not guesswork or speculation.
Get to know your finance team
Within the first two weeks of starting your new role, set up one-to-one meetings with your new team - including direct reports, key internal stakeholders, other heads of functions in your business, and your relevant peers.
Use your one-to-one meetings as an opportunity to get to know your team as individuals, their concerns and what they’d like to change in the business, in addition to assessing any current issues.
This is a great chance to find out what’s working well and what can be improved, along with any suggestions your team and key stakeholders may have.
Lean on your team and speak openly with them about your desire to get to know them, their strengths and what they want to achieve as part of the business. Listen to and note any concerns these parties may have that can be addressed within your 90-day plan and beyond.
Once you have met with all your key internal stakeholders, set up meetings with your key external stakeholders within the next two weeks.
Key external stakeholders will include major investors and investor organisations, your company's audit and tax firms, and major suppliers and partners. Take this time to connect with and engage with any external parties who are an extension of the internal team and who will play a role in your long-term success.
Assess your current performance
Understanding the business's current financial performance is a vital part of hitting the ground running in your role as CFO. An assessment of the recent financial performance will give you a clearer picture of the business's overall health of the business, enabling you to identify and prioritise some of the actions you may need to take in your first 90 days and beyond.
To do this, you will need five key documents from the most recent financial quarter and previous quarters for comparison:
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Balance Sheet
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Income Statement
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Cash Flow Statement
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General Ledger
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Profit and Loss Statement
There are ten critical financial metrics from these documents that you will need for your financial performance analysis.
These key performance indicators will provide valuable insights for hiring new team members, ascertaining strategic goals, assessing vendor relationships, and managing expenses. They'll also provide an overall assessment of the business’s financial health.
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Gross profit margin – a measure of profitability that is helpful for executives and shareholders
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Net profit margin – taking all costs into consideration
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Working capital – a measure of liquidity showing how much capital the company has to work with
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Current ratio – determines whether the business can pay its short-term obligations due within a year
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Quick ratio – determines the business's ability to pay short-term bills
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Debt–to–equity ratio - shows the company's ability to use shareholder equity to cover debt in the event of a closure or business downturn.
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Leverage – measures the amount of debt used to buy assets.
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Return on equity – the company's performance in generating returns on shareholder investments
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Return on assets – the company's profitability about its total assets
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Operating cash flow – indicates whether the company can produce sufficient cash flow to cover current expenses and pay debts.
Prioritise your actions
At this stage, you will have spent the first 30 days auditing your processes, meeting your stakeholders, and assessing your company's current financial performance.
By this time, you will have a long list of actions, issues, notes, and points to address. So, how do you turn these into top CFO priorities, so that you are working on the right things at the right time?
According to a survey by AccountingWEB, only 2.2% of finance leaders consider themselves working on strategic tasks. Therefore, it's essential to prioritise the actions you will be working on over the 90 days to focus on those tasks that will directly contribute to the strategic objectives of the company and the finance operation.
You can use several different tools and methods to help you prioritise the right tasks to focus your attention on. Here are three suggestions:
1. The Ivy Lee Method
Developed more than 100 years ago by productivity consultant Ivy Lee. The Method forces you to prioritise your day by following a simple set of rules:
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At the end of each day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write more than six tasks.
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Prioritise those six items in order of their importance.
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Tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task until it is finished before moving on to the next one.
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Approach the rest of your list the same. Move any unfinished tasks to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
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Repeat this process every working day.
Limiting yourself to six tasks forces you to prioritise appropriately and then stay focused by single-tasking your way through your list. Multitasking may be touted as a productivity hack, but in fact, by focusing on a single task at a time, you're more likely to make long-term headway.
2. Brian Tracy's ABCDE Method
This method offers two or more levels for each task instead of keeping all tasks on a single priority level.
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Go through your list and give every task a letter from A to E (A being the highest priority)
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For every task with an A, give it a number that dictates the order in which you'll complete it.
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Repeat until all tasks have letters and numbers.
Ordinarily, it would be almost impossible to differentiate between a B1 task and an A3 one, for example, but by prioritising each task in layers, their true importance becomes more apparent.
3. The Eisenhower Matrix
Developed by former US president Dwight Eisenhower, the matrix is a simple four-quadrant box that helps separate "urgent” tasks from "important” ones. What's the difference, you may ask? One of the most difficult tasks for all executives is to remove urgent but not important tasks from their priority lists. This matrix can help with that.
In basic terms, ‘urgent’ tasks are things you feel like you need to react to right away – think emails, phone calls, texts, news. While ‘important’ tasks are ones that contribute to your long-term mission, values, and goals.
When looking at how to prioritise tasks best, ask which one of the quadrants they best fit in:
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Urgent and Important: Do these tasks as soon as possible
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Important, but not urgent: Decide when you’ll do these and schedule it
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Urgent, but not important: Delegate these tasks to someone else
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Neither urgent nor important: Drop these from your schedule as soon as possible
But perhaps the best and most simple advice comes from Harvard professor Teresa Amabile, “Prioritise a small win early on in the day and you'll be motivated for the rest of the day.”
Once your actions are prioritised, it's best to put them in a project plan and assign owners and dates to the tasks.
Schedule a weekly session to revisit the actions and check on progress. This ensures that the actions will be addressed and implemented instead of forgotten on a list.
How financial management software supports new CFOs
Financial systems can support you in your first 90 days as a CFO by enabling full visibility of your finance operations. It can provide you with your finance, project, sales, HR, credit and third-party data in one single view to assess your processes and make better-informed decisions.
Our software solution joins all your systems, data and people in one place - helping improve productivity and visibility across your organisation.
Making it easy for people across your organisation to assess processes and financial performance, input financial data, action approvals, and view relevant reports on any device at any time.
As you implement your actions and enhance your processes over the next 90 days, you can assemble your bespoke system by adding on apps as you grow.