virtual meetings

A remote CFO will take on the traditional roles of a full-time chief financial officer but work on a part-time or freelance basis. Either way, they will be able to help with a company’s financial planning, including areas of finance such as accounting, budgeting, risk assessment, and the management side. A CFO or fractional Chief Financial Officer, will likely report directly to a company’s CEO (Chief Executive Officer). It will be a top-level discussion about the finances with the benefits of their expertise helping financial staff at all levels.

With the above in mind, let us check out some of these remote CFO benefits.

Cost Benefits of Hiring a Virtual CFO

Virtual CFO is an idea that will allow a business to hire a remote CFO without needing to hire a full-time employee. A business will benefit from having a strategist that will be forward-thinking without much of the cost associated with full-time roles. The company still has the expertise but receives it more cheaply.

A company will need to balance the costs of its management team as much as its operatives on the ground. So, although the CEO will want the financial experience, they will not want to pay excessively for it. This is where outsourcing staff can provide benefits over hiring a person who works directly for a business. A company will already have those processing the day-to-day financial transactions. A company’s staff just need that bit of extra advice, which will filter down from the top, to keep on track with making the business as profitable as possible. The advice can be about which expenses to cut and how to go about doing it. There may be a procedure that is creating a bottleneck or costing more through its inefficiency that needs to be identified.

Better Strategies

It is invaluable to have an adviser that knows about how business and finance works and that can be called upon to provide help to those at the top of a company responsible for managing its overall financial position. If we do not have the skills in-house, it makes sense to obtain them freelance to help existing staff develop more in their roles should they lack some of the expertise required. There may come a time when everything can be dealt with by employees. Although, right now we look for extra help to make sure we are on the right track with finances. Even those at the top benefit from greater expertise.

Financial staff employed by a company, at any level, will barely have time to manage the day-to-day financial activites during a busy period, so it is good to have someone else thinking further along the line with their strategy, which will be based on the figures produced. It can be difficult to think beyond the immediate when that seems to take up the time we just do not have. Outside help can have that extra time for a company and provide it at a good rate.

Controlling Costs While Not Increasing Them

It is all well and good recording a company’s expenses but someone needs to be the one who gives serious consideration to them if they appear to be starting to spiral out of control. A financially minded person looking from a distance can often see things those closer to figures cannot. Those good with the analysis of figures are adept at seeing if the balance of income and expenses is out of sync with what that month should bring and how it compares with the previous year’s.

Outsourcing financial help will keep costs down while increasing expertise. For this reason, companies will embrace this extra help that ensures the efficient running of activities.

Company CEOs will only want the best kind of financial help. It does not, however, need to be obtained from within a company because we can outsource it by taking advantage of the services of remote and virtual CFOs. The main consideration, however, is that a company is not paying for full-time hours and only paying for the help it needs, as and when. Remote CFOs will report directly to a CEO and will act as an assistant to them. Even at the top, we need help. The trouble is at this level there is nobody to ask. However, in reality, this is because we can hire remote CEOs on a virtual basis.