Should You Hire a Virtual Controller?
When your business first begins to grow, hiring a full-time CFO can be a big investment. To alleviate the financial burden of an experienced CFO, many small businesses are trending toward hiring a virtual CFO controller.
What is a virtual controller?
A CFO controller is comparable to having a part-time, off-site CFO who looks after all critical components of your finances and financial strategy. Monitoring and managing company finances is essential to optimizing business growth and health, so if there is no budget for an in-house CFO, opting for a virtual CFO service is a necessary step you need to take.
Virtual CFO services are quickly expanding and becoming the preferred methods for financial monitoring in small to mid-sized businesses. Software programs make it easy to understand metrics, margins and financial organization without being hands-on with numbers. This is the perfect solution for companies who are not equipped in-house to strategically monitor and manipulate financial dips and growths.
Many finance and account firms have begun evolving to offer extensions of CFO services in the form of software. Companies can receive consultation and guidance on which software applications are best and most necessary for their financial needs and implement the programs for strong financial results.
However, with the novelty of many of these software programs, there tends to be a gap between mastery of each new software program and the full potential of each application. Hire a business finance controller to overlook and monitor all software platforms for you, updating you on shifts and trends as necessary and ensuring that all financial needs are met with existing software. If a gap appears in your needs with the technology available, the controller will find a supplementary software application to fulfill the need.
Working with a consulting firm that provides virtual services and controllers is doubly advantageous because as reports show deficits in profit or mismatched number, the consulting company knows immediately where to assign aid for relief – be it in the controller duties or new software platforms and programs.
Additional benefits of working with a virtual controller:
Design and implements plans for operational and financial improvement
Automatically benefit from tax saving strategies
Manage cash flow and projections for growth over different increments of time
Improve overall financial reporting clarity
Get assistance for strategic acquisitions and planning
Access full-time experiencing with paying for a full-time employee
Understand key metrics with benchmarking and trend analysis
Learn about private equity and debt financing for your company
Benefit from experienced prep for meetings with banks and investors
Manage financial infrastructure, including accounting, finance, and treasury
Implement the appropriate accounting technology solutions for your specific goals and needs
Receive all information necessary for important financial decisions and understand how each element affects your strategy.
Understand and evaluate equity transactions that are pertinent to your business and owners
If you aren’t sure which type of financial authority and surveillance is best of your company, starting with a virtual controller is a great way to get acquainted with the services that a full-time CFO might offer you one day.
Growing your business from the ground up is a challenging task to take on and a CFO of some sort is, eventually, a non-negotiable element to bring to the table.