For business owners, choosing the right virtual Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to improve their financial performance is one of the crucial tasks that requires the utmost attention.
From aiding firms in exploring and finding new opportunities to boost productivity and enhancing efficiency at a lower cost than in-house CFOs, these virtual CFOs are truly the backbone of businesses across the globe.
However, choosing the right remote CFO can be a pretty daunting task since there exist several outsourced CFOs in the market claiming to be the “ideal one” for your business.
But by keeping the following key factors in mind, you can successfully hire a virtual CFO that best suits your needs.
How to Choose the Right Virtual CFO?
Here are certain tips by which you can choose the right Virtual CFO for your business:
Identify Your Firm’s Needs
Before seeking out any outsourced CFO services, it is imperative that you identify your business needs. This involves figuring out your financial goals, current financial situations, or any financial issues that your firm might be facing.
Once you recognize your needs, you can get on and choose the right virtual CFO who possesses the experience that is aligned with your goals.
Experience and Expertise
In order to get vital monetary counsel, you need to hire a remote CFO who possesses the right capability and expertise to lead your firm financially. Look at their qualifications and past work experience apart from other track records that confirm their leadership qualities in strategic guidance.
When you choose a virtual CFO who has the required skills, you can leverage their experience in the right direction that help you achieve your financial needs and goals.
Technical Dexterity
In present times, financial management greatly relies on modern technology and software tools. Therefore, before choosing an outsourced CFO, you must ensure that the remote CFO is proficient and has technical dexterity across various accounting platforms.
Always remember that their technical know-how can take your firm a long way, easing your work throughout.
Assess Communication Skills
Good communication is one of the prerequisites of a good virtual CFO. As such, you must ascertain whether your potential candidate is adept at communicating complex financial issues to teammates, stakeholders, or others effectively.
In addition to this, you must also ensure that they possess strong interpersonal skills that lead to better collaboration with other teams of your firm.
Data Security and Confidentiality Ethics
Since financial management involves the possession of huge amounts of sensitive data, you must ensure that the virtual CFO or the firm offering the service holds the right ethics when it comes to protecting these pieces of information.
It is recommended that you inquire about the kind of servers they use or other data protection measures they employ per your business requirements.
Check Client References
If you wish to know about the functional style of the virtual CFO and whether they will be an apt fit for your firm, check with clients with whom they have worked before or are working at the moment.
You can contact their previous clients and get feedback on their professionalism, and the value they brought to those clients. This will give you a better insight and even help you to assess if about-to-be hired remote CFO is the right fit for your business endeavors.
Analyze the Risk Assessment Skills
Before you get on and say yes to the virtual CFO or the company offering such services, make sure that you analyze their risk-handling capabilities. Check whether they can diagnose the risk and provide solutions to mitigate the same.
You can ask behavioral questions and assess how they respond to the situations presented to them. This way you can ascertain their risk-identification capabilities and risk-solving skills and see if they fit your parameters.
Check the Analytical Skills
Being sure of the outsourced CFOs’ analytical skills is of paramount importance and must be considered so as to hire the right talent for your firm. Check how they interpret data and ascertain their logical thinking as well as eye for detail. Also, look at how adept they are in identifying patterns and drawing meaningful inferences from them.
For this, you can pose a job-related challenge in front of the potential CFO candidate and see if they are keeping relevant factors in consideration before offering a solution to you.
Assess the Emotional Intelligence
Another criterion to look for in your virtual CFO is their emotional intelligence. This will help you check if they have interpersonal skills and if they can maintain good team dynamics.
You can ask them situation-oriented questions and ways they handled conflicts and emotions in the past. Assessing this will help you ascertain their overall soft skill which is necessary to have a good relationship with work peers.
Check Business Intelligence
Business acumen is a pre-requisite of individual CFOs or any company that offers virtual CFO assistance. These assessments can let you know the candidate’s proficiency in understanding various tools and software, ascertaining business objectives, and analyzing data to draw ideal conclusions.
You can check their business acumen by giving them practical tests and various case studies which will help you to also gain an understanding of their analytical abilities closely.
Assess Management Skills
Another way to hire the right CFO for your firm is by checking their management skills. This you can do by discussing with them hypothetical management questions and evaluating their response which will reflect their leadership style and decision-making capability. It will also highlight their communication and team-building skills.
This management skill test should also encompass their Revenue management skill as money is essential for any firm and unwanted expenditure can affect the organization negatively. Not only this, but you should also try to evaluate their balance sheet management skills by asking them relevant questions and assigning them tasks.
In all this, also check their Cash flow management skills. This is a necessary skill that a virtual CFO must have as it aids in monitoring business performance and avoiding cash flow problems of the firm. You can give them some tests on which you can check their financial analysis skills including their budgeting and forecasting proficiency.
Understand the Difference: Independent CFO consultant vs. Firm Offering Consultants
Lastly but most important, it is essential that you understand the difference between an independent CFO consultant and a firm offering CFO services. As such, when you reach out to an organization for these services, you will not just be hiring a single person but rather a team of experts who will work together to carry out your tasks, which will not be the case when you hire an individual CFO. There would also be a difference in the money that both types of CFOs will charge. Thus, your personal discretion is highly recommended.
Final Thoughts
Choosing a virtual CFO who has all the nuances to help your business thrive can seem like a challenging task. However, keeping the above key considerations in mind can aid you in hiring the right remote CFO who can help you make informed decisions and enhance financial management effectiveness in the long run.