A recent survey of CFOs confirms the accelerating trend of CFOs becoming more strategic and business partners rather than just accountant bean-counters. A recent article by CPA Practice Advisors summarized the survey’s findings.
"The Intacct CFO Perspectives Survey shows that CFOs are elevating their role to being a true strategic business partners to the rest of the team and their Board of Directors, which is raised from their traditional role as scorekeepers," said Robert Reid, CEO of Intacct.
CFO survey had the following interesting data for the CFO respondents:
80% of CFO say that business reporting and analytics is one of their top three business priorities.
60% of CFOs say the automation of financial processes is one of their most strategic priorities.
Only 8% of CFOs are spending the bulk of their time closing the books each month.
76% of CFOs (76%) are spending less than 30% of their time on closing the books
43% of CFOs are spending under 20% of their time on the month-end closing process.
57% of CFOs say they manage between three and five different business systems, and 12% manage six or more.
Only 11% of CFOs said that the only system they manage is their financial solution.
78% of CFOs want better data insights to help fight rising costs.
63% of CFOs want data to help turn around under-performing business units.
55% of CFOS want more data to improve customer profitability.
“The survey finds that CFOs want more insights into their business than simply broad stroke profit and loss numbers. Tools that provide greater understanding of nuanced performance metrics such as business unit performance, customer lifetime value, and churn.”