Best Practices for Financial Operations

Smart accounting practices: 5 proven strategies to maximize your business savings As a CFO with extensive experience in financial management, I've identified key accounting practices that consistently deliver substantial cost savings. Here are the most impactful strategies I've implemented: 1. Digital Automation 💻 - Implement cloud-based accounting software - Automate recurring transactions and invoicing - Reduce manual errors and processing time 2. Strategic Tax Planning 📊 - Schedule quarterly tax reviews - Identify all eligible deductions and credits - Stay updated with tax law changes and opportunities 3. Cash Flow Management 💰 - Monitor receivables aging regularly - Negotiate better payment terms with suppliers - Implement early payment discounts 4. Expense Tracking Systems 📱 - Use digital receipt management - Categorize expenses accurately - Monitor departmental spending in real-time 5. Regular Financial Analysis 📈 - Conduct monthly financial health checks - Review and optimize overhead costs - Identify and eliminate redundant expenses These practices have consistently helped businesses achieve significant savings while maintaining operational efficiency. When implemented correctly, they can transform your financial management approach. What accounting practices have you found most effective in reducing costs? Share your experiences and let's explore how we can optimize our financial strategies together 💡

I learned these financial lessons the hard way as a CFO. Here are the 8 rules I wish someone had shared with me earlier: 1. Cash flow beats profit on paper - always keep enough liquid assets to cover 6 months of operations. 2. Build a strong relationship with your auditors early. Regular communication prevents last-minute fire drills during tax season. 3. Never rely on a single financial model. Cross-validate predictions with at least three different approaches. 4. Document every non-standard transaction thoroughly. What seems obvious today won't be in 18 months. 5. Set clear spending authority limits for each management level. Ambiguity leads to costly mistakes ⚠️ 6. Invest in your finance team's training continuously. The cost of keeping skills current is lower than fixing errors. 7. Create monthly variance reports, not quarterly. Catching issues early saves resources and reputation. 8. Maintain direct lines of communication with operations managers. Numbers tell only half the story - context matters 📊 Looking back at my career, following these rules would have prevented 90% of the challenges I faced. The real secret to being a successful CFO isn't just about managing money - it's about creating systems that prevent problems before they happen. Make these rules your foundation, and watch your finance department thrive.

CFO “luxuries” aren’t yachts. They’re quiet, boring, dependable systems. When finance runs clean, strategy gets sharp. When it doesn’t, the whole company argues with the spreadsheet instead of the market. 💡 What great CFOs actually want looks like this: ↳ Clean, reconciled data they can trust at 8 AM ↳ Budgets that hold up under stress, not just board day ↳ Time to think, not chase fires ↳ A monthly close that runs on autopilot ↳ A team that thinks before asking ↳ Reports that need no translation ↳ Real accountability across teams ↳ Meetings with decisions and owners, not status recaps ↳ Systems that talk to each other without duct tape ↳ Partners who understand that numbers drive strategy The pattern is simple: remove noise, compress cycle times, and make the next decision obvious. Here’s a pragmatic operating playbook to earn these “luxuries”: ↳ Define the single source of truth. One data model, one chart of accounts, one KPI glossary. ↳ Lock decision rights. Who decides, by when, with what inputs. Publish it. ↳ Standardize artifacts. Close checklist, budget template, metric dictionary, decision log. ↳ Instrument handoffs. Sales → RevOps → Finance, Purchasing → Inventory → AP, Payroll → HRIS → GL. ↳ Shorten loops. Weekly cash, weekly pipeline-to-cash, weekly unit economics. ↳ Automate the boring. Imports, allocations, variance flags, and distribution of the scorecard. ↳ Make meetings do work. Agenda = decisions, owners, deadlines. No readouts. ↳ Train for judgment. Teach the “why” behind metrics, not just the math. ↳ Socialize the scoreboard. Same view for executives, managers, and frontline. ↳ Tie it to strategy. KPIs mirror how the company wins, not what the system can export. Start Here: ✅ Start a KPI glossary today: define 12 metrics, owner, formula, cadence. ✅ Replace next week’s finance meeting with a decision review: three decisions, three owners, dates. ✅ Automate one step in the close that steals the most time. ♻️Repost & follow John Brewton for content that helps. ✅ Do. Fail. Learn. Grow. Win. ✅ Repeat. Forever. ⸻ 📬Subscribe to Operating by John Brewton for deep dives on the history and future of operating companies (🔗in profile).

Essential Techniques: Effective Cash Flow Forecasting Effective cash flow forecasting is crucial for financial stability and planning future growth in banking. Accurate forecasting ensures banks can meet obligations, manage unexpected expenses, and seize opportunities. Forecasting starts with analysing historical data to identify patterns and trends, aiding in accurate predictions. Scenario planning involves developing best-case, worst-case, and most-likely scenarios to prepare for various financial situations. Rolling forecasts, which involve continuously updating projections with the latest data, allow banks to adjust forecasts based on changing market conditions and business activities. Detailed categorisation of cash flow into operational, investing, and financing activities helps identify areas needing attention or improvement. Technology integration enhances forecasting accuracy and efficiency. Advanced financial software, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, analyses vast amounts of data to identify patterns and provide precise forecasts. This streamlines forecasting processes and enables data-driven decisions. Collaboration across departments is crucial. Input from sales, operations, and finance ensures all relevant data is considered, fostering shared responsibility and informed decision-making. Monitoring economic indicators like interest rates, inflation, and market trends is essential for anticipating changes that could impact cash flow. Stress tests evaluate the bank’s cash flow under extreme conditions, simulating adverse scenarios to assess resilience and identify vulnerabilities. This allows treasurers to develop contingency plans to ensure financial stability. Regular review and adjustment of cash flow forecasts maintain accuracy and relevance. Forecasts should be updated to reflect actual performance and changes in the business environment, ensuring alignment with financial goals and market conditions. Engaging stakeholders, including senior management and board members, ensures alignment with strategic objectives. Transparent reporting builds confidence and facilitates informed decision-making, supporting the bank's overall strategy and long-term success. In summary, effective cash flow forecasting combines historical analysis, scenario planning, continuous updates, and technological integration. By employing these techniques, banks can achieve accurate predictions, better financial management, and preparedness for future challenges and opportunities. These practices are essential for maintaining financial stability and achieving long-term success in the dynamic banking environment.

After 12 years in finance, here are 12 lessons: 1. The fastest way to lose trust is to present surprises. Bad financial news early is always better than bad news late. 2. Your stakeholders don't care about your workload. They care about their budgets. Frame everything through their lens. 3. The best cost-cutting ideas come from operations teams, not finance. Build those relationships early. 4. The most dangerous phrase in FP&A is "we've always done it this way." Question legacy financial processes relentlessly. 5. Knowing which financial metrics NOT to track is as important as knowing which ones to monitor. Less noise = clearer signal. 6. Financial policies exist to manage risk, not prevent progress. Learn when flexibility serves the business better than rigid rule enforcement. 7. Your financial models must scale with your business maturity. What works for a $10M company often breaks at $100M - plan for that evolution. 8. Three budget scenarios aren't enough anymore. Modern financial planning needs multiple paths with trigger points for each decision milestone. 9. The best finance professionals don't just explain what happened. They anticipate questions about what could happen next. Master scenario thinking. 10. The most valuable meetings happen after the financial presentation ends. Stay behind, build relationships, understand the unspoken market dynamics. 11. The most insightful financial analysis often comes from connecting data across departments. A spike in HR turnover can predict quality issues before they hit the P&L. 12. Technical skills get you hired, but emotional intelligence gets you promoted. Understanding the human side of financial decisions is what separates good from great. Finance is transforming. Numbers tell the past. Insights shape the future. Follow Warren Wang for more finance and HR insights.

I’ve sat in 100s of executive meetings where everyone nods at the dashboard and no one actually knows what to do next. Most CROs and CMOs struggle to speak Finance’s language. And Finance struggles to connect with sales and marketing. At Pavilion, we believe the best CROs and CMOs don’t just work with Finance—they sit on the same side of the table. Easy to say. Hard as hell to do. And here’s the trap I see over and over: As executives, we confuse visibility with control. We’ve got dashboards for everything. We’re tracking every possible number. We’re updating it every week and driving our teams crazy But: the more we measure, the less we focus. Visibility ≠ Control. Control comes from knowing the drivers of your business—and pushing on them relentlessly. That requires prioritization: choosing the few metrics that matter most and accepting that others will take a back seat. And understanding that the back seat means — certain numbers will move in the WRONG direction. That’s OK. If you’ve prioritized correctly. But prioritization only matters if it changes how you run the business. The next step is making sure those critical metrics are embedded in your operations and decisions. Here’s how to start: 5 Practical Ways to Improve Financial Performance: 1. Shrink your dashboard to 5-10 key metrics—split into leading and lagging indicators. I’ve seen zealots advocate for as few as 3-5 key metrics. If your dashboard has 10+, you know you’re swimming in data but probably don’t know where to focus. 2. Cascade each metric to an owner so every team member knows how they’re moving the number. The goal is to have everyone in the company understand how they’re contributing to the success of the company. 3. Build a monthly cashflow forecast to anticipate inflows and outflows. Your monthly forecast helps you understand the RHYTHM of the company. I’ve met CEOs that don’t have any cash forecast at all — not sure what to say there but hoping those people have an amazing balance sheet. 4. Track profitability by business unit so you know where the money is actually being made. This means allocating expenses by revenue stream and business line so you can look at everything individually AND holistically. 5. Use A/P spend thresholds to align cash outflows with inflows. I once worked with a CFO that pushed $500K+ of A/P out in the middle of a slow season without any oversight or CEO approval. I don’t work with that person anymore. BOTTOM LINE: Control isn’t about seeing everything. It’s about steering the few things that actually move the business forward. When you focus on the right drivers, align your team around them, and build systems to track and act on them, financial performance stops being a mystery. It becomes a habit. Over the next few months, I’ll be partnering with BILL to share strategies like these—from 25 years of building companies—so CROs, CMOs, CFOs, and CEOs can align around what truly drives enterprise value. #BILLPartner

I scaled 30 businesses from $5M to $25M as investor & CFO. Most founders set the bar too low for the finance function. Here's how it usually goes. 0-$2M setup: - Need books done, hire a bookkeeper. - Need taxes filed, hire a CPA. (Possibly the cheapest option available.) Check the box. Done. At this revenue stage, it works fine. No judgment. But when revenue climbs, teams grow, and clients multiply, the finance function cannot stay frozen at "are the books done?" The two most common mistakes I see: Sticking with a basic bookkeeper for too long → because "accounting debt" piles up. Hiring an expensive CFO to clean up the mess → they can do it, but for 3x the price of what it would cost if you hired a controller sooner. Instead, founders at the $2-20M stage should change their setup: 1️⃣ Upgrade Bookkeeper with Controller Move from passive accounting to accurate, actionable financials tailored to your business (this is key). 2️⃣ Upgrade Generalist CPA with Tax Planner Get compliance AND proactive tax efficiency to reinvest tax dollars in growth. 3️⃣ Bring on an Operational CFO At $2-20M stage, the line between finance and operations is blurred. An operational CFO sits in the middle: - designs and implements operational processes to increase efficiency - guides capital and growth decisions 6-12 months ahead This combination of partners will turn growth complexity into the opportunity to: → Accelerate growth (hiring, new services, markets, partnerships, etc) → Make capital decisions (dividends, reinvestment, fundraise, or M&A) At $2-20M, the best finance partners don't just report numbers. They build operational visibility and pay for themselves. Are you making the most out of your numbers?

How to get more out of your financial close (+FREE: My top 10 infographics) Does your month-end close look like this: ➣ Endless follow-ups ➣ Last-minute fire drills ➣ Variances you can’t explain ➣ Not enough time to discuss results --- 💡 Get my top 10 most popular FP&A infographics for FREE at https://lnkd.in/eihTAhTW --- If that’s the case, you need to do something. This can help: #1 Create a complete checklist • Include who needs to do what, and by when.    • List every last action item of the recurring process. It will free up your team because instead of having to try not to forget anything, they can focus on root causes.    #2 Make sure everyone has the checklist • Depending on the size of your team and the complexity of your process, it may not be enough to send an email.    • A brief meeting helps to emphasize the importance and answer questions.    #3 Make sure everyone knows WHY the things on the list matter • Empowering the team means they have enough context to come up with process improvements.    • The foundation is that each team member fully understands why their action item matters. #4 Check expected results a week before the close • You can start asking questions before the actuals are final.    • That helps avoid the last-minute rush to get answers from business partners.    #5 Have an ongoing conversation about pain points • Every month, ask your team and involved operational teams what should be improved.    • The key is not to expect solutions, so people are more likely to speak up about pain points. #6  Tweak the process to get a bit better every month • Try to experiment every time with making a small change.    • Then, assess the impact, keep what works, and don't hesitate to stop what doesn't. 📌 Do you have any other tips? Comment below. -Christian About me: 🏫 I teach FP&A skills to finance teams and business leaders. 🖥️ I spent 15+ years in FP&A leadership roles at P&G, Unilever, Squarespace. 🎓 Now, I'm a full-time corporate trainer, online course creator, and the Director of the Wharton School's FP&A Certificate program. 🗣️ To learn more, visit FPAprep[dot]com or email me at hello[at]FPAprep[dot]com.

Three years ago, I met a passionate founder who had just closed a $5M seed round. Their product was innovative, the team was agile, but their financial operations? A ticking time bomb. They were juggling: -> Manual accounting processes that consumed valuable time. -> Overlooked tax credits, leaving money on the table. -> Disorganized compliance records risk penalties. Fast forward to today: ->Automated financial systems have reduced manual tasks by 40%. ->Strategic tax planning has unlocked over $1M in savings. ->Robust compliance frameworks have ensured peace of mind. This transformation wasn't magic—it was about embracing the right strategies and tools. 💡 Why This Matters Now In 2025, the financial landscape is shifting: -> AI-driven financial tools are revolutionizing how startups manage budgets and forecasts. -> Sustainable investing is no longer optional; it's a competitive advantage. -> Private credit markets are booming, offering new funding avenues. Startups that adapt to these trends are not just surviving—they're thriving. If you're a founder feeling the weight of financial chaos, know that a streamlined, strategic approach is within reach. Let's connect and explore how to turn your financial operations from a burden into a catalyst for growth. #StartupSuccess #FinancialStrategy #TaxPlanning #AIinFinance #SustainableInvesting

Monthly End Closing Checklist | Best Practices for Finance Teams A strong month-end close is critical to maintaining financial accuracy, ensuring compliance, and supporting strategic decision-making. Here’s a streamlined checklist every accounting and finance team should follow: ⸻ 1. Reconcile Bank Accounts • Match bank statements with internal company records. • Investigate and resolve discrepancies. 2. Reconcile Credit Card Accounts • Verify credit card transactions against internal records. • Identify and address any inconsistencies. 3. Accounts Receivable Management • Issue all customer invoices timely. • Follow up on overdue accounts. • Write off confirmed bad debts appropriately. 4. Accounts Payable Management • Enter all supplier/vendor invoices. • Process pending supplier payments. • Review and adjust accrued liabilities. 5. Payroll Reconciliation • Ensure payroll transactions are accurately recorded. • Reconcile payroll taxes and benefits obligations. 6. Fixed Assets Update • Record all asset acquisitions and disposals. • Update and apply depreciation schedules. 7. Inventory Management • Conduct physical inventory counts (if applicable). • Reconcile inventory values with accounting records. 8. Prepaid Expenses Adjustment • Record amortization of prepaid expenses. • Prepare entries for newly incurred prepayments. 9. Accruals and Deferrals • Book necessary accruals for expenses and revenues. • Ensure proper period recognition for all transactions. 10. Financial Reporting • Prepare Profit & Loss (P&L) Statement. • Generate Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. • Compare actual performance against budgeted forecasts. 11. Review and Adjust Journal Entries • Validate journal entries for accuracy and completeness. • Post required adjusting entries to the General Ledger. 12. Backup Financial Data • Securely back up all financial records and sensitive data. 13. Management Review and Analysis • Present finalized financial statements to management. • Discuss variances, trends, and any material concerns. ⸻ Key Takeaway: ✔️ A disciplined monthly close improves financial transparency, strengthens internal controls, and empowers strategic business decisions. ⸻ #accounting #finance #financialreporting #monthendclosing #closingchecklist #accountsreconciliation #corporatefinance #financialanalysis #accountingbestpractices