CFO Techniques

CFO Techniques: A Hands-on Guide to Keeping Your Business Solvent and Successful will help you and your small to mid-size company to find success. This book offers functional recommendations and practical advice specifically tailored to address your day-to-day challenges. It also goes beyond finance and accounting, addressing the administrative and behavioral issues all CFOs must occasionally face.

With bite-sized, easy-to-read chapters, CFO Techniques serves as both an invaluable desktop reference handbook and a good bedtime or commuter read for multitasking chief financial officers and controllers working in fast-paced commercial environments. This book:

• Guides you through CFO/controller core responsibilities, function by function
• Offers best practices for each CFO/controller function
• Explains how to formulate processes and procedures
• Helps you to organize daily, weekly, monthly, and annual routines
• Identifies reporting and analytical requirements
• Explains how to keep the organization on the right side of the law and regulation at all times.

No matter how many hats you need to wear throughout your workday, CFO Techniques has you covered! From traditional responsibilities like budgeting and financial reporting to more innovative tasks like performance analytics and business strategy development, it will help you master all that you need to do to make your company a success.

• Part I: Scouting Your Surroundings and Defining Your Mission
1. What Is Special About Smaller Businesses?
2. Titles vs. Job Descriptions
3. The CFO’s Mission and Aspirations
4. Eight Balls You Must Keep in the Air
5. The Essential Knowledge Prerequisites
• Part II: Enforcing the Law: Policies, Procedures, and Controls
  
6. System of Internal Control and Company Policies
7. Generally Accepted Fiscal Policies
8. Procedures for Quintessential Tasks
9. The Weakest Link
10. Budgeting as a Control Mechanism
11. Controlling Commerce
• Part III: Deep Pockets: Your Capital Resources
12. Options for Capital Financing
13. Business Nature vs. Financial Resources
14. Soliciting Investors and Lenders
15. Nurturing Financial Relationships
• Part IV: Cash Must Flow: Treasury Management
16. The Gist of the Treasury Function
17. Cash Flow Projections
18. Daily Cash Position
19. Managing Receivables and Payables
20. Treasury Management Services
• Part V: Data Mining: Information Management, Analysis, and Reporting
21. Information Technology Decisions
22. Ode to Excel
23. Executive Reports and Performance Analytics
24. The Importance of Segmental Analysis
25. Ad Hoc Reporting
• Part VI: Accounting by the Book
26. Clean Books and Compliant Statements
27. Accounting Cycles and the Structure of Financial Statements
28. The Most Important Statement: Cash Flow
29. Choose Your Auditors Wisely
30. What Guarantees Fast and Painless Audits
• Part VII: Risk Management
31. Insurable Risks
32. Commercial Risks
33. Tax and Regulations Compliance
• Part VIII: Ensuring Your Going Concern: Strategies, Plans, and Forecasts
34. Principles of Strategic Planning
35. Practical Modeling and Forecasting
36. New Ventures
37. Exit Strategies
• Part IX: Administration: The Organization of People
38. Acquisition of Human Resources
39. Managing Human Resources
40. The Behavioral Approach