CFOs: Do you wish your accounting team had more consistent skills?

Of the 2,300 organizations that participated in APQC’s 2018 General Accounting Open Standards Benchmarking survey, the bottom 25% by revenue said they need 10 or more calendar days to perform the monthly close process. The top performers, or the top 25% by revenue can wrap up a monthly close in just 4.8 days or less — about half the time of the bottom 25%. (as reported in CFO.com).  The disparity between smaller and larger companies is at the core of why we at TGG use big company structures to facilitate small company success. 

Issues CFOs face:

• Current metric set fails to measure business performance (56%)
• Outdated financial planning (52%)
• Margin erosion due to inefficient decision making in business (50%)
• Outdated management reporting infrastructure (50%)
• Unclear ROI on new business investments (45%)
• Inflexible financial data structure (41%)
• As reported in Analytics Magazine, 82% of CFOs see the value of integrating more complex data, but only 24% think their team is up to the task.
• According to an Oxford Economics survey of CFOs, 46% say an isolated finance function keeps them from achieving their business goals. 
• 50% of respondents in a Host Analytics survey cited a lack of systems and tools and 48% cited difficulty in accessing the necessary data or reports as reasons for less than optimal efficiency.
• Less than 23% of CFOs are very confident about their company’s ability to maneuver past unforeseen business obstacles.  The survey by Kaufman Hall from CFO.com cites outdated financial planning and analysis (FP&A) tools and processes. 
• More than 50% of CFOs say they take longer than three months to complete a budget, according to the Kaufman Hall survey.