On a basic level, a virtual CFO (or vCFO for short) is exactly what it sounds like. This is someone who performs all of the services normally associated with a chief financial officer, only in a third-party capacity. Instead of going to the trouble (and expense) of hiring, training and bringing someone with these qualifications into your organization, you’re getting access to someone who can handle all of this remotely on a schedule that works best for all involved.
This is a job that didn’t even exist as recently as a decade ago, but technology has advanced to the point where not only is it possible, but more businesses than ever are using on-demand or part-time CFOs to help their organizations soar in increasingly competitive marketplaces. This is true for a huge variety of different reasons, all of which are certainly worth exploring.
The Power of a Virtual CFO
The major reason why smaller organizations, in particular, are finding vCFOs so helpful is that they’re a viable way to control costs almost immediately. Rather than paying the salary to hire your own CFO in a full-time capacity (which can easily balloon into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year once experience and benefits are accounted for), you get the services you need, in an on-demand way, for a fraction of the cost. To that end, a vCFO is really no different than managed services or similar options you may already be using.
This bleeds directly into the next major reason why vCFOs can be so beneficial: They can customize their own skills and services to better meet the needs of your unique organization. Rather than paying someone for a lifetime’s worth of education, you’re only paying for the skills needed to perform the tasks at hand. But even better, the services being offered can also be adjusted on a regular basis as your business continues to grow and evolve. All of this provides you with almost unprecedented access to a wealth of knowledge that used to be out of your budget.
Leveraging Someone Else’s Experience to Your Advantage
That expertise also creates a ripple effect across your enterprise in the best possible way. You’re bringing in someone who naturally has involvement in many different companies similar to your own. This means that you’re in a unique position to avoid making the same mistakes that they’ve previously made.
But maybe the biggest advantage that a virtual or gig-based CFO brings to a company has to do with the quality of the advice being offered. This is more than just an accounting setup. The focus goes beyond simply setting up a financial structure and putting a framework in place for you to effectively manage your books.
Consider the types of challenges that you’re likely to experience over the course of just five years. Your business will naturally get more complex as you add not only more employees but also suppliers, vendors, and all the contracts that come with them. If you go through a period of rapid growth, it can quickly cause your financials to grow out of control … unless you’re prepared for it.
A straightforward accounting setup isn’t necessarily enough to offer that much-needed level of preparation, but a vCFO is. This is a professional who has arrived with the express purpose of putting the systems in place to not only better support the current phase of your business, but the next one as well.
Being Better Prepared for What Comes Next
In the end, a vCFO won’t just explain the finer details of your business’ financial situation. They’ll work with you to make sure you’re better informed about not only your current status but the pros and cons of the options that are available to you in the future. That level of strategic advice — and the advanced decision-making made possible because of it — would be difficult to replicate through nearly any other means.
Armed with more actionable knowledge than ever, you’ll quickly find yourself in a better position to always make the right choice at exactly the right time moving forward. This, in turn, ensures that your business can maximize profitability as much as possible over the next few years, thus allowing you to run the type of organization you always dreamed you’d one day be a part of.
If you’re a large, national organization that can afford to bring on a full-time CFO, there really isn’t any reason NOT to do so. But for most other companies, using a vCFO isn’t just an effective way to fill the types of gaps that naturally exist in your skill set — it’s a way to help your business thrive for the next five, 10 or even 20 years in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.
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