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Writer's pictureShane Glavin

Why Outsourcing CFO Services Is a Game Changer


Executive team reviewing their financial reports.

As your business grows, are you getting to the point where you dread looking at your financial reports? It’s not that it’s bad news; it’s that you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be noticing.


Perhaps you’ve started wondering whether you’re taking the right steps to minimize your tax liability. Or maybe you’ve been contemplating a business growth strategy, but you would like to know how to tell if your cash flow can handle it.


These are all good reasons to consider outsourcing CFO services.


It also could be that it’s time to expand your accounting team or you’ve decided it would be helpful to have CFO-level advice, but you may not have it in your budget to provide a full salary and benefits.


Maybe anything with numbers makes your skin crawl, and you often put off looking at financial information.


Again, valid reasons. When it’s time to choose an outsourcing CFO services provider, you can expect to experience a variety of benefits. Let’s dive right in:


Expertise:

Outsourcing CFO services gives you not only access to accounting and financial reporting. Your provider will have worked across a variety of industries, different sizes of businesses and a wide spectrum of circumstances. This is an invaluable perspective for your business decisions.


Cost Savings:

There are two key ways you will see cost savings with outsourcing CFO services:

  • Services are scalable, so you pay for exactly the services you need.

  • You will only pay for services, whereas you would pay salary and benefits for an in-house CFO, not to mention hiring costs and onboarding, as well as software licenses, real estate and other expenses.


The overall cost of hiring a CFO is around $435,000, and compared to the rate you will pay for outsourcing CFO services, the decision to outsource seems clear from a cost-savings perspective.


Reduced Risk:

Having an in-house CFO requires a careful system of checks and balances to ensure that nobody has too much control. When you outsource these services, you have a third party with a view of your back office and a keen eye for signs of fraud.


Better Planning:

Whether you’re considering a growth strategy or simply attempting to lower your tax bill, outsourcing CFO services can help you plan with more accuracy. Depending on the provider, they may offer other planning tools that you require, such as grant writing, sales forecasting and lead generation and other valuable resources.


Tax planning is often of particular interest to business owners. These services are designed to implement a strategic approach to decision making, using optimization and precision to increase tax savings.


More Time, More Focus:

You may feel the pressure to do it all, but it’s rare that a person who gets excited about starting a business also enjoys digging into financial reports. You are not alone; many business owners prefer to focus on what they do best and allow a CFO to handle the financial reporting, accounting and forecasting.


For many business owners, the lack of time is often what leads them to first consider an outsourcing service. When you consider the many hours that you could free up by outsourcing financial tasks, you may find that you have time to do more customer service training, improve your production efficiency or touch base with important clients more often.


Even if you have the time to handle your accounting and financial services, that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t appreciate the stress reduction that comes from handing it over to an experienced CFO.


A Variety of Services:

You may find that right this minute, you only need a few hours of assistance each month with payroll. Then, sometime down the road, perhaps in a year or two, you find that you’re running into cash flow problems and you aren’t sure what’s causing it.


The good news is that you may have been outsourcing your payroll for years and now you know exactly who to call for some insights around cash flow. There are many services The Power CFO offers:

  • Strategic planning

  • Budgeting

  • Accounting and Financial Reporting

  • Cash Flow Analysis

  • Forecasting

  • Scenario Modeling


As your business continues to grow, you will appreciate the long-term, trusted business relationship that comes with outsourcing to us. Along the way, we will assist you in achieving your financial goals for your business.


But How Will You Know My Business?

This is a question that every business owner encounters when thinking about outsourcing. When you outsource your CFO services to us, we will dig in to get to know you, your priorities and the unique product or service you provide. While we are not your employee, we will act as an extension of your team and gain access to important information about your company.


We have worked with businesses in a variety of industries and likely similar in size and scope to yours. The perspective we offer from our years of experience is invaluable and you will find that we become familiar with your processes quickly. We also know that the more successful you are, the more you will recommend our services.


Choosing the right CFO services provider should involve considering several options before selecting the best option. In many cases, it will come down to a few key factors:

  • The right fit (cost, availability, experience)

  • A similar company culture

  • Good communication (clear pricing, prompt responses)


When you need CFO services, contact us at The Power CFO. Whether you are in a growth trajectory and anticipate needing accounting expertise or you want to compare outsourcing versus hiring in-house, we welcome the opportunity to talk with you about our services.

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