What services are offered by an outsourced CFO?

As businesses grow, owners find themselves having to make more financial decisions, analyze more financial data, and answer more and more complicated financial questions. It’s rare to find the level of financial expertise that these actions require already available inside a small- or even medium-sized business. Still, these questions must be answered and these decisions need to be made.

That’s why outsourcing CFO services make sense for many young businesses. The company benefits from the services of a CFO without investing in a full-time position. An outsourced CFO can provide:

• Short- and long-term financial forecasting. Developing budgets, controlling costs, and forecasting revenue are required to operate a successful business. An outsourced CFO can help a business owner develop both short- and long-term models to project sales, profitability, or desired gross or net margins.

• Financial risk analysis. A part-time CFO can help businesses manage their exposure to financial risk, such as analyzing credit risk to reduce defaults, or reviewing market risk to manage potential losses stemming from changes in rates, commodity prices, or other market shifts.

• Risk planning. Once the risk analysis is conducted, an outsourced CFO can develop a plan to avoid or mitigate potential risks. The plan would outline the business’s risks and detail its ability to tolerate those risks. For example, the CFO might recommend establishing a specific cash reserve for emergencies, augmented by appropriate insurance policies.

• Succession planning. One of the most difficult areas for business owners to address is passing the company on to the next generation of owners or managers. An outside CFO can provide a valuable and independent perspective to establish a succession plan, including developing new leadership, passing the company on to heirs, selling the company, or other strategies. There are a wide variety of options for passing on a business, and a CFO can help evaluate all options, even some the owner may not have considered.

An external CFO resource can give your company a new level of confidence in making decisions. For more information about the benefits of a part-time CFO, contact CFO Strategic Partners at 407-426-8288 for a free consultation.