IT startups benefits when hiring a fractional CFO from Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance: Keep Financial Tasks From Becoming Overwhelming: Financial tasks become overwhelming when you don’t have experience. Even budgets can quickly become a hassle when you struggle to stay on top of the numbers. That’s where a fractional CFO comes in. They can handle financial tasks such as budgeting and cash flow management to keep things running smoothly. With company internal controls in place, you can focus on other aspects of the business. Discover even more details on https://www.behance.net/sammcquade.
For larger companies with more complex board structures, independent board members must be free of conflicts of interest. At times, a corporate action could put a member at risk of being personally conflicted. In these cases, a fractional CFO can be parachuted in as an interim board member to oversee the event, free of any conflicts. When Does a Company Need a Fractional CFO? The financial needs of a company will change depending on its size and stage of growth. There are four core financial roles required during the lifecycle of a company. These stages correspond with the skills needed from talent and range from an initial bookkeeper up to the traditional CFO role.
A fractional CFO is often brought into a company to help overcome specific financial challenges such as: Cash flow issues; Low gross margins; High expenses; Outgrown existing systems; Need to make cost cuts; Navigating an audit. Create Forward-Facing Financial Visibility: Fractional CFOs are also helpful in optimizing or implementing more forward-facing financial visibility. While many financial professionals such as bookkeepers, accountants, and controllers are tasked with keeping past and current finances organized and well-documented, a CFO focuses on the future.
Looking to hire your very first CFO or need interim coverage? We provide CFOs for immediate very short term objectives and longer term engagements. Flexible with clear pricing so you cover your business and don’t have to get into a potentially very bad and expensive full time hire. In disrupting the traditional contracted title of CFO, Panterra Finance innovatively offers all its clients thought leadership based on international financial market experiences. Panterra Finance offers a unified international approach to businesses in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Eight centrally located offices in the USA, Switzerland, the Middle East, and the emerging African Continent, offers global enterprises Fractional and Interim CFO services backed by a team with a grasp of dynamic world trends.
The CFO function is evolving at lightspeed. With digital transformation and societal changes, the CFO role is rapidly turning into one of a “Chief Fiduciary Officer”, which is going beyond the traditional financials to look towards the future and lead long term value creation in a world of many unknown risks. Storytelling is a very powerful tool to engage and energize teams about value creation and potential pitfall areas. The traditional path of CFO usually starts with a solid foundation based on technical knowledge and then after about 15 years, the great leaders earn the coveted title.
The CFO is the top ranking executive related to managing a company’s finances. This includes managing all aspects of financial and cash flow planning, as well as analyzing its financial position. A CFO is comparable to a treasurer or controller. However, unlike a controller or accountant, a CFO is responsible for financial planning, while the other two are in charge of bookkeeping and the company’s financial statements. Big public companies may have defined the CFO role, but the chief financial officer position is becoming increasingly common in midsize and even small firms. Recent postings for full-time CFOs on job-search sites include an emerging air mobility design and manufacturing company in Massachusetts with fewer than 20 employees and a 94-bed community hospital in Hawaii.
The CFO helps select skilled staff for the finance team and works with departments to allocate budget for human capital management. CFOs put complex data — current, past and predicted financial results — in perspective and help the CEO make sound financial decisions: Should we introduce this new product or service? Can we afford to on-shore our supply chain? What are the tax implications of our employees working from anywhere?
Now, suppose there is a problem with the website. Maybe the server goes down, or maybe there is a bug in the code. In such a case, the smart contract will still be functional, and the transactions will still take place. This is because the smart contract is running on the blockchain, which is a decentralized network. Even if one node in the network goes down, the other nodes will still be up and running, and the transactions will take place. This is just a very simple example to show you how a DAO works. In reality, DAOs can be much more complex, and they can do many more things. For instance, they can be used to create decentralized versions of traditional companies or organizations.
As independent internal auditors, we compile in-depth audit reports that convey insights on both known and unknown risks and vulnerabilities in order to protect your business. We hold a niche in capital project auditing and in assisting start-ups with outsourced Internal Audit services.
A lot of our clients at Panterra Finance ask us about DAOs, what they are, and how they work. So we thought it would be helpful to write a blog post explaining them. Before getting into DAO, a brief few things about blockchain. A blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions on many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the collusion of the network. Sounds complicated? Let’s take an example to understand this better. Suppose there are two people, A and B, who want to transact with each other. A wants to buy a product from B worth $100. In the old way of transacting, A would hand over the $100 to B, and B would hand over the product to A. This process is called ‘centralized’ because there is one central entity, in our case, a bank or PayPal, through which both parties have to go through to complete the transaction.
To summarize, a fractional CFO brings all the benefits of a full-time resource, but at a fraction the cost. They work an agreed upon amount of time, and on an ongoing basis. The benefits are myriad, and range from improved reporting and decision-making, clearer insight into the business for planning and forecasting, and stronger financial management and controls. Perhaps the biggest benefit however, is how the CEO can transfer the financial and administrative burden to the CFO, and thus free themselves to work on other critical aspects of the business.
While surveying the landscape of the 21st Century economic climate, Sam McQuade, CFO, CEO and Financial maverick realized that the benefits of the gig economy and off-site personnel had hit the preverbally glass ceiling at the executive floor. Large established companies, corporations and organizations were captive of contracted executives. These executives could be effective and efficient however they could also be playing the game of international finance with obsolete rules, models, and ideas. See even more information at Sam McQuade CFO.