Businesses in Florida have to deal with several financial drudgeries to assess their performance and ensure legal compliance. While big companies in the state can afford to hire a dedicated staff and an on-roll CFO, small businesses and startups in cities like Pompano Beach fail to do so due to limited resources.
Nonetheless, small businesses and startups can still hire a part-time CFO or a Pompano Beach tax accountant and avail financial expertise without committing to a full-time resource.
Understanding why businesses need a part-time CFO
Here are some points that can allow you to understand when and why your business might need a part-time CFO:
- When your business grows, you need financial expertise to cope with a complex economic landscape, like managing cash flow, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and much more.
- Small businesses and startups with limited financial resources can engage a part-time CFO and save on the expense of a full-time salaried CFO.
- When businesses need financial insight and guidance for situations like mergers and acquisitions, investment, fundraising, cost management, etc.
- A part-time CFO can help businesses comply with various federal and state tax laws and regulations.
- Businesses can also hire part-time CFOs as interim solutions while looking for a permanent alternative.
Jobs and responsibilities of a part-time CFO
Here’s what a part-time CFO’s role and responsibilities consist of:
- Providing input on financial and taxation strategies, business plans, budgeting, forecasting, etc.
- Support the company’s strategic direction with performance measures.
- Ensure the company complies with all the state and federal legal and regulatory requirements.
- Oversee the functions of accounting, tax, legal, human resources, and other departments.
- Oversee the company’s transaction processing system.
- Providing supervision on mergers and acquisitions.
- Review and approve the filing of various forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), such as Form 8-K, 10-Q, 10-K, etc.
- Present various financial reports to the stakeholders and report risk issues to the internal auditing team.
In short, a part-time CFO is responsible for keeping an eye on cash and other assets, return on investment, sales, profits, and many more key performance indicators to help businesses grow and remain compliant.
Skills and qualifications of a part-time CFO
You can ensure that the part-time CFO you are hiring is capable of doing their job by looking at the following qualifications and skills of the person:
- A bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, statistics, operations, or a related discipline.
- A master’s degree in a relevant discipline like business administration or accounting.
- Prior experience of working as a CFO or equivalent.
- Give preference to a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Public Accountant (CMA), or MBA in finance candidate.
- Excellent proficiency in advanced Excel and written and spoken communication.
