Introduction
I am convinced that corporate accountants, as professionals, want to leave a legacy before they move on. To be remembered they need to have made a permanent improvement to the organization.
Many finance teams are merely processing machines, moving from one deadline to the next, having too little time to invest in being a business partner to budget holders and senior management.
I know this from observation and my own personal experience.
THE THIRD VERSION
This book is a third version, as it follows on from Pareto's 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants and Winning CFOs: Implementing and Applying Better Practices. The book has been restructured to facilitate easier implementation and is accompanied with a 100-page toolkit. The reader can access, free of charge, a PDF of the suggested templates, checklists and templates from www.davidparmenter.com/The_Financial_Controller_and_CFO's_Toolkit.
The better practices in this book are ignored at your peril, as they are based on the wisdom and better practices of over 5,000 accountants whom I have met through delivering my workshops and webcasts around the world.
I would like to add that few, if any, of these practices were used by me when I was a corporate accountant; thus senior management did not shed a tear when I left the organization. It is my mission to ensure CFOs, financial controllers, and management accountants leave a legacy that remains long after they have left the organization.
HOW TO USE THE BOOK
This book is divided into six parts and appendices. Exhibit I.1 explains the purpose of each section.
EXHIBIT I.1 Book Outline
| Section | Outline | Significance |
| Part I: Change—why the need and how to lead | Covers why there is a need to change and move away from the existing practices. Includes how to sell change to management and staff and lead the change in the organization. | Far too often, change initiatives fail. By following the leading thinkers in this space, John Kotter and Zaffron & Logan, you will be successful in leading the change. |
| Part II: To be completed before the next month-end | How you can save days out of the month-end close process. | A fast month-end is the first step on the journey to adopting lean finance team practices. |
| Part III: Technologies to adopt | Focuses on the technologies you need to implement to achieve efficiency and accuracy. | Removing the reliance on Excel spreadsheets that are unsuitable, in order to move forward with appropriate solutions. |
| Part IV: progress you need to make within the next six months | Focuses on the areas where the finance team can score the easy goals in the next six months. | The better practices here, if implemented, will free up time so more strategic initiatives can be executed successfully. |
| Part V: How finance teams can help their organizations get future-ready | Focuses on more wide- ranging changes, such as introducing winning key performance indicators and quarterly rolling planning, which will require a heavy investment of time from the finance team. | These modern initiatives will have a profound impact on your organization, with the finance team as the driver of change. |
| Part VI: Areas where costly mistakes can be made | Focuses on areas where the CFO can and should save the organization from making costly mistakes, such as performance bonus schemes, takeovers, reorganizations, and downsizing. | The CFO's involvement in these strategic issues will have an extensive positive effect on the organization as a whole. |
| Appendices and THE PDF toolkit | The templates and diagrams in the book will take some time to absorb. Discuss these with the corporate accountants in the finance team and with your mentor. | Once understood, these templates and diagrams will instruct and allow seamless implementation of these better practices with significant impact. |
THE PDF TOOLKIT
With all my books there is a heavy focus on implementation. The purpose is to prepare the route forward. To second guess the problems the finance team will need to address and set out the major tasks they will need to undertake. Naturally, each implementation will reflect the organization's culture, future-ready status, and the level of commitment from the CFO and his or her direct reports.
The PDF toolkit is to be read and used in conjunction with The Financial Controller and CFO's Toolkit—Lean Finance Teams' Best Practices. The location of the templates is indicated in the relevant chapters.
To support your implementing the strategies and best practices in this book, the following electronic media are available:
- Webcasts and recorded presentations (see www.davidparmenter.com/webcasts). Some of these are free to everyone and some are accessed via a third party for a fee.
- A PDF download of the checklists, draft agendas, questionnaires, and worksheets referred to in the chapters are available from www.davidparmenter.com/The_Financial_Controller_and_CFO's_Toolkit. The website will refer to a word from a specific page in this book that you need to use as a password to access these free.
- The electronic versions of all the templates and most of the report formats, featured in the book, can be purchased from www.davidparmenter.com.
EXHIBIT I.2 Impact of Working Smarter, Not Harder
REPORTING HISTORY OR MAKING IT
The impact of the efficient and effective practices listed in the book will, if implemented, make a major change to the nature of work performed by the accounting team. There will be a migration away from low-value processing activities into the more value-added areas such as advisory, being a business partner with budget holders, and implementing new systems.
As Exhibit I.2 shows, the change in focus should mean we are working smarter, not harder. This change in workload will, over time, lead to the formation of a smaller but more experienced accounting team and a better work–life balance.
In many finance teams around the world, far too much time is spent in month-end reporting, the annual accounts, and the annual planning process, as shown in Exhibit I.3. I call these three activities the trifecta of lost opportunities for the accounting team. They leave so little time to add value.
EXHIBIT I.3 The Year's Workload of a Non-Lean Finance Team (Based on a June year-end in the Northern Hemisphere)
Exhibit I.4 shows how the year's workload will change with shift away from processing into more service delivery work (based on a June year-end in the Northern Hemisphere). The key change is to radically reduce the time the accounting team spends in the trifecta of lost opportunities.
EXHIBIT I.4 The Year's Workload of a Lean Finance Team (Based on a June year-end in the Northern Hemisphere)
The better practices in this book will approximately double the amount of “added value time” you and your team have.