Sam McQuade CFO about advantages for startups hiring a flexible CFO these days: Optimize strategy: Businesses run on money, which means that CFOs, as the financial gatekeepers, are essential to strategy formulation and optimization. A fractional CFO can weigh in on the financial side of strategy by bringing in a perspective based on the numbers. In other words, your fractional CFO can test your strategy and tell you if it’s financially viable. And if not, what can be done to optimize it. Implement systems: As startups scale up, they need to put better systems in place to meet their changing requirements. This necessitates the supervision and guidance of someone who has implemented multiple systems in different scenarios. Someone who’s seen it all can predict the things that can go wrong and correct them before they do.
A fractional CFO is an experienced CFO who provides services for organizations in a part-time, retainer, or contract arrangement. This offers a company the experience and expertise of a high-end CFO without the in-house cost—salary, benefits, and bonuses—of a full-time CFO. Unlike a full-time CFO who oversees and maintains all general financial strategy or an interim CFO who performs CFO duties before or between CFO hires, a fractional CFO’s duties are typically on a project basis and specifically tuned to the company’s particular challenges or goals.
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 details at https://e27.co/user/samueledwinmcquade/.
Vision, Roadmaps and Business Plans are typically good collaboration processes, however alignment on meaningful strategy is driven by relationships and the CFO cannot over-communicate in this area. In an era of “greenwashing”, the CFO has a real opportunity to lead since success will ultimately be measured with scorecards and transparency. Sharing the Sustainable Story with financial support is the most credible way for stakeholders to see progress.
The CFO also works with other senior managers and is a vital participant in a company’s overall success, especially when it comes to the long run. For instance, when the marketing department wants to launch a new campaign, the CFO may help to ensure the campaign is feasible or give input on the funds available for the campaign. A CFO can become a CEO, COO, or they can assume the role of company president. The CFO must report accurate information because many decisions are based on the data they provide. The CFO is responsible for managing the financial activities of a company and adhering to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulatory entities.
Internal factors include sales trends, labor and HR-related costs, the price of raw materials and more, while external data inputs could include opportunity cost for capital, shifts in market demand, emerging competitors and advances in technology. To monitor the external environment, CFOs may rely on government data, analyst firms and business and general media, supplemented with insights gleaned through trade and association memberships and the input of board members, lenders and others.
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.
We are your ally in managing business risks. In a world that is rapidly changing, we help you identify what that change means for your business and what measures you need to employ to protect it from a range of risks in the new economy.
A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that is run by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. It is an organization or company that is not centrally controlled by any one person or entity. Rather, it is governed by code that is written into the smart contracts. This code can be modified or updated by anyone who has access to the DAO’s GitHub repository. To put this into perspective, imagine a traditional company or organization. There is usually a board of directors or executive team that makes all the decisions about how the company will be run. With a DAO, there is no such thing. The code that governs the DAO is open source and available for anyone to view and audit. In this new scenario, an organization can be run by anyone in the world who has an internet connection.
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.
Searching to hire your very first CFO or wanting only some interim coverage? We offer CFOs for urgent short term objectives and longer term engagements. Customizable with transparent pricing so you solve the needs of your business and don’t have to get into a potentially bad solution and costly full time hire. Sam McQuade CFO is the Founder and CEO of Panterra Finance. This worldwide Financial Partner Solution services is a leading innovator in the new economy of scale offering a new executive suite model with the Fractional CFO and Interim CFO. The Panterra Finance team with expert Interim CFO executives and Fractional CFO services brings with it a global financial leadership team to the new world economy. Describing Panterra Finance in his own words, CFO Sam McQuade stated : As Founder/CEO of Panterra Finance, I am on mission to help guide businesses to achieve success through thoughtful strategic financial collaboration. See even more information on https://www.thinglink.com/user/1609884254542495747.