Category: CFO

The Evolving Role of Today’s CFO

11/30/2018

New technologies and growing expectations are changing the job of CFOs like never before. An article in Forbes put the matter like this: “Perhaps chief technology evangelizer, chief strategic engineer or chief operations partner should share the billing with the finance title. CFOs today are expected to fill all of these roles.”

To be more strategic and a champion of growth, CFOs need to embrace technology in all its forms. Deloitte research indicates seven technologies that “have growing interaction and relevance for how the work of finance gets done:”

Cloud computing
Process robotics
Visualization
Advanced analytics
Cognitive computing
In-memory computing
Blockchain

“Together, [these technologies] form a toolset finance can use to improve its own performance and serve the business more effectively, especially when they are used together,” according to Deloitte.

Elevating finance to the cloud
In particular, tech-savvy CFOs are looking to the cloud to expedite financial accounting tasks and get the insights they need to grow their business. Cloud-based financial management solutions such as Sage Intacct are essential to progressive CFOs for several reasons:

Greater operational efficiency. Sage Intacct replaces the “million spreadsheet march” with smart and streamlined automated financial processes, including order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and project accounting. Sage Intacct has the flexibility to automate workflows including PO approvals, automatic invoicing, and more—without a spreadsheet in sight.
In-depth insights, on demand. Sage Intacct provides comprehensive, real-time financial reporting and analysis, giving CFOs an up-to-the-minute picture of their entire organization. They can create any report, dashboard, or visualization they need with the precise metrics that matter to investors, lenders, executives, and department leaders.
More productivity, flexibility at less cost. Sage Intacct eliminate the hardware costs and IT burdens while delivering the advantages of modern financial software—with lower costs, more security, and increased productivity. In addition, Sage Intacct implementations can be adapted—including functionality, reports, and analyses—to stay in step with changing business requirements. In this way, CFOs sidestep the painful capital investments, and tap into the power of sophisticated, high-performance financial software that’s managed by experts in a world-class data center.

Kevin Craig, managing director at Concur Canada, summed up the benefits of cloud technology this way: “Ultimately, cloud-based solutions are the key to allowing CFOs to take on the evolving role they are expected to fill. With emerging technologies and increased automation helping to remove much of the mechanical burden placed on a CFO, these business leaders are free to concentrate on adding value in the form of creative innovation and strategic direction to continue moving their business forward.”

Grow your company and your role with Leaf Software Solutions
Technology in and of itself has little value without the right partner. That’s why you can trust the professionals at Leaf Software Solutions to select and implement a business technology solution for your organization—one that helps you meet current needs and provides a platform for growth.

Contact us today and let us know how we can help.

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Tech-Savvy CFO

4/20/2018

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5 Ways to Be a Tech-Savvy CFO

The role of the CFO is changing fast. Customers, the board, your finance team, your stakeholders within the firm, and—most of all—technology is driving this change. Of course, change is rarely easy, even if it’s entirely worthwhile. In this case, technology is both the source of your challenge and the solution you need.

Today, it takes a tech-savvy CFO—someone who understands and embraces the promise and power of technology—to navigate this exciting but sometimes uncertain future. A tech-savvy CFO seeks to modernize and transform the company’s business systems (and IT infrastructure) to boost staff productivity and give the company flexibility for the future. Even if you are in the process of becoming tech savvy, in today’s landscape, an effective CFO must have knowledge of how technology will positively impact your company.

Here are five ways the tech-savvy CFO uses technology to get ahead and stay ahead.

1. Embrace automation. Technology powers the new tools and processes you need to transform your organization, while keeping pace with rapid growth. As you put that technology to work, you will see the results in your company’s performance. For example, you can add financial controls that ensure compliance and auditability. Automation enables rock-solid accounting and bullet-proof record-keeping—allowing your company to move faster, without fear.

2. Gain visibility. Where can you accelerate your business? How can you eliminate risk? Are you seeing your data in real-time? The sooner you know, the faster you can act on the really big opportunities in front of your business. To truly understand the nature of your business, you need to leverage a single source of truth. Your teams become empowered to dig deeper, and you can move faster toward bigger growth.

3. Look to the cloud. It’s time to invigorate your organization with the cost efficiencies and freedom of the cloud. After all, the safe bet of on-premises systems has become a bust. Slow innovation delivery and nightmare implementation cycles have shown there is just no future in the old way of doing things. Today’s cloud solutions, such as Sage Intacct’s best-in-class financial management software, deliver greater productivity, lower TCO, and better security.

4. Empower the next level of growth with agility. Top-performing organizations must constantly evaluate operations to make the right strategic investments. You need the flexibility to address the shifts in your business as they occur. The decisions you make today will become the competitive advantages of tomorrow.

5. Collaborate with confidence across your entire company. Departmental silos suppress collaboration and productivity. And that challenge compounds as your business grows. Why stay constrained by the old ways of isolated decision-making and missed information, when you can achieve your best results by working together? The tech-savvy CFO uses technology to streamline processes and leverage the power of the team.

Transform your technology with Leaf Software Solutions
Tech-savvy CFOs know and understand the power of harnessing technology to quickly grow their business. They also know that the details of implementing a transformative solution are best left to the experts. Leaf Software Solutions combines more than 30 years of software application development with the latest technology to create a custom solution that can accelerate your company’s growth.

You can’t afford to be left behind. Contact us today to start your journey to becoming the tech-savvy CFO your company’s future demands.

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