How To Choose a CFO for Your Small Business
All small businesses can benefit from the knowledge and guidance of a CFO. They report directly to the owner, are responsible for financial reporting, and oversee the accounting team, but how do you know who is the right fit for your business?
We have created a simple checklist to help you get started in your selection of a Chief Financial Officer.
- Do they have experience in your industry? If they have worked in a similar business or industry, odds are they are familiar with the nuances of the reporting that you will need. You can ask for references and do your own research, Google and LinkedIn are great resources.
- Do you like them? While this may seem a bit basic, if you like them you will feel more comfortable asking uncomfortable questions. Those questions may include clarification on something you don’t understand, and when you’re out of your comfort zone, it’s easier to discuss with someone you are comfortable around.
- Do they understand and embrace your core values, mission, and vision for the company? They need to be on board for what is to come and be able to provide insight into the direction you are going or be able to change course as needed.
- Do they understand what you need and can communicate effectively? It is critical that a CFO can interpret your pain points and relay information to you in a way that is easy to understand. A CFO who has brilliant reports on financials that you don’t understand or who doesn’t communicate what actions should be taken next isn’t going to be what you need to grow or scale your business.
A CFO can help you grow your business, navigate unsteady economic conditions, and work on strategic plans based on your vision. Choosing the right one can make all the difference in achieving your goals.
Our Latest Insight
Article 2 ended with a question. What would you actually see first if this relationship started breaking down inside your business? Here is the answer. You would see five things. If you are like most owners reading this, you are already looking at two or three of them. None of the five announces itself as a communication problem. Each one shows up as friction inside your accounting systems, wearing a perfectly reasonable disguise. That is the difficulty. On the surface, none of these looks like a broken relationship. Each looks like something else entirely. A busy month. A tough quarter. A personality difference between two people who were never going to be friends anyway. Every one of them gets explained away the first time you see it. That is exactly what makes them expensive. This article does not fix any of it. Article 4 does that. The job here is naming what is already sitting in front of you. Most owners walk past these signs for years without recognizing what they are looking at. Part 3 of a 5-part series on the COO-Accounting relationship
Article 1 ended with a question. When does your COO actually talk to Accounting before a decision gets made? How long did it take you to answer? Immediately? Minutes? Maybe you could not think of a single example. Bills get paid, projects keep moving, and financial reports show up. Nothing feels obviously broken, so you conclude everything is fine. If that question made you uncomfortable, you are not alone. Here is the part that keeps this problem alive. You only know what good looks like based on what you have already lived through. Most owners have never worked inside a business where Operations and Accounting were intentionally built to function together. So they measure their company against their own status quo. This article gives you a different reference point. You will see what the relationship looks like day to day, what rhythm it runs on, and five things you can check this week. None of it requires scrapping what you have built. The people are already in the building. The data already exists. What changes is how the pieces are arranged, and how much leverage you get out of the company you have right now. Part 2 of a 5-part series on the COO-Accounting relationship
"Accounting is a stick in the mud." "I'm not really sure what a COO does all day." "The CFO just plays around with their little Excel sheets." You have probably heard one of those lines. You may have thought one yourself. They sound like harmless office humor. They actually point to something expensive. In most growing service businesses, nobody has ever defined how operations and accounting work together. The people who produce your financial reports sit outside the very decisions those reports are meant to inform. That gap costs you every single month, quietly, in profit that should have been there. Part 1 of a 5-part series on the COO and Accounting relationship
