Last updated on April 6th, 2024 at 06:48 pm
Post-pandemic, the role of a CFO has altered permanently. The present duties of a CFO have a huge disparity from what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic. The role of a CFO has transformed into a more strategic one. Hence, the role is no longer limited to management and accounting. Therefore, one needs to get enrolled in a strategic CFO course to make himself/herself compatible for a modern-day CFO job.
Online CFO leadership training will help you to begin a successful career. It is difficult to commence a successful CFO career without making mistakes, thus, in this article, we will discuss five common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Who is a CFO?
The chief financial officer (CFO) of a company is a senior executive officer. His/her role is to check and maintain the financial operations of the company. A CFO's basic responsibilities include financial planning, tracking down the cash flow, and analysing the shortcomings of an organisation or a company. They also have to plan an entire financial year of an organisation.
What are the five mistakes one ought to avoid as a CFO?
The career trajectory as a chief financial officer (CFO) is not at all easy. CFOs make many mistakes and learn from them. However, these mistakes can be avoided if one is aware of them. Here we have enlisted the top five mistakes of a CFO and strategies to avoid them.
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Focusing more on profits than cash flow
CFOs at times get more concerned about financial statements, gross margin, and revenue growth from the balance sheet. They also start focusing more on EBIT. However, they tend to ignore the fact that cash flow is a reality and are inclined to work on it at the last minute. This massive error has been committed quite a lot of time by CFOs. To avoid this, one must have vivid knowledge about incoming and outgoing cash. They must maintain a regular cash flow statement. This will help a CFO to regulate expenses and make investments.
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Neglecting the 90 days window of predicting cash flow
A CFO needs to make a cash flow prediction at an interval of 13 weeks. This prediction has a huge impact on investments as well as scaling opportunities. Hence, a CFO must track down and make an aggregate of every outflowing cash of the company. This helps to make accurate cash flow predictions after 90 days.
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CFOs at times do not include transparency and collaboration in their report
This mistake can be avoided by tracking down all the reports and documents and recognising every stakeholder and bottleneck. This will create more clarity and connection in the record to report.
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Lacking supervision over order to cash
At times, a CFO lacks supervision over the order to cash process. But, it should be the most productive work for a CFO. To avoid this mistake, a CFO must know the various handoffs including those that might create turmoil, inconsistency and obscurity in the order-to-cash process.
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Setting utopian targets for budget cuts
Budget cuts help to increase revenue and decrease unnecessary expenses of a company. However, CFOs tend to set unrealistic targets to reduce expenses. This extremely disturbs the performance of a company. To avoid this mistake, a CFO should always set a practical target for budget cuts.
Who is eligible to apply as CFO?
Everyone can not apply for the role of a CFO. Only certain people are competent for this role and they possess specific qualifications. Hence, we have enlisted those eligible degrees below:
- If an individual has earned a bachelor's degree in accountancy or finance, then he/she will be easily competent to apply for the role of chief financial officer (CFO) in a company.
- Apart from a bachelor's degree, an individual is also competent as a CFO if he/she has a master's degree in finance or administration. These degrees bestow essential skills and concepts that are vital for this job role.
- Accounting certification courses like Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and Certified Public Accountant (CPA) will also help an individual to initiate a career as a CFO. These certification courses impart vital skills like strategic design and financial management.
- Besides these degrees and certification programmes, there are numerous online courses. An excellent and strategic CFO course is as valuable as a traditional degree. These courses impart students with vital concepts and skills.
Conclusion
You can easily avoid the five mistakes that have been discussed by choosing the best online CFO programme. Imarticus provides you with an excellent online CFO executive training course. This course will open doors for many lucrative opportunities. So, without any delay, get yourself enrolled in this programme to bag the best opportunities.
