It is a rare entrepreneur who leaps out of bed each morning excited about building a finance team. Largely, they want to be looking at strategic partnerships, new service offerings, hiring great sales people or looking for the next big acquisition.
And that’s all well and good, but without the fundamental backbone of a business being in good shape, all those great ideas can come crashing down with a bang.
The finance team is that backbone. So when you’re building a world-class business, why wouldn’t you aim for a world-class finance team to support it. And here’s how.
Data
Talking strategy and vision is very exciting, but you need to have the fundamentals in place first. How do your transactions get posted? How does your cash come in and go out? Without robust data, everything else is guesswork.
Control
Managing risk is a core part of a finance team’s duties. How do you ensure that you’re not subject to fraud as you scale up? You might have great trust in your finance team, but having solid, repeatable processes in place will help ensure this trust is never misplaced.
Information
A great mentor of our MD used to always ask, “where are the rivers of cash in your business?”. The information layer of a finance team should be giving you more than enough hints on exactly where these are. Raw numbers are meaningless without interpretation, so you should be getting regular, reliable financial intelligence to help make informed decisions.
Wisdom
Great CFOs use the numbers to guide business strategy, forecast future trends and drive long-term success. They’re the partner to the CEO, reinforcing the vision, while privately challenging it where needed.
Don’t expect one person to do it all
Expecting one person to manage right all these four areas isn’t feasible. There are very different skills and knowhow required across the different functions. But assessing each of these areas can help you see where the issues currently lie, and where you need to invest in additional resources.
On our website, there is a free finance team test where you can answer 20 quick questions and get a tailored score on the 4 areas of your finance team. There’s also a free guide you can download on building a world-class finance team to help you get started.
