What Really Keeps CFOs Up At Night

Managing money, time and people isn’t easy.

Take into account all of the external factors that can derail even the most well laid out plan and you have the perfect recipe for restless nights – and many of them in a row.

With the responsibility of not only keeping balance sheets healthy but ensuring a company’s financial activities are on the right track, the pressure is always on for chief financial officers.

In its latest eBook, Billtrust takes an in-depth look at the many things that worry a CFO. The good news is that a good night’s rest may be more attainable than CFOs may think.

“When you have to manage payroll, track profit, pay creditors, and invest in future growth, you need to know where your cash is, and how to make it flow faster,” the white paper stated, making it no surprise why this is such a challenge for CFOs.

Cash flow issues come in a variety of shapes and sizes – from struggling to even get employee paychecks out the door each month to not having a financial buffer available when emergencies arise. As the eBook points out, studies show that the top issue for CFOs and treasurers is cash forecasting, which means innovative, automated cash flow solutions may be the only answer.

Data security and the rapidly growing threat of breaches also ranks high among the things CFOs worry about most.

According to the guide book, “stolen data could mean a loss of trust at best, or a loss of money and violations of privacy laws at worst. Either way, you can’t afford to make a mistake.”

With millions of Americans falling victim to identity theft each year, having the cybersecurity measures in place to stay one step ahead of hackers is paramount – but those services don’t come cheap.

Capital is needed in order to hire and keep IT professionals with the necessary security expertise, ensure hardware is secure, deploy services to protect data such as anti-malware software and safeguard physical locations.

But ensuring there is money in the budget to adequately cover all the cybersecurity basis starts with an overall improvement of cash flow, which Billtrust says can be done through automating and accelerating the invoice-to-cash process.

Billtrust’s Payment Cycle Management solution aims to help CFOs sleep a little more soundly at night by deploying secure multi-channel payment options, intelligent matching and cash applications and tailored invoice delivery.

Trying to manage the delicate balancing act between investing for growth and maintaining aggressive cost containment agendas is no easy feat. CFOs must constantly make sure that there is enough staff to meet business needs, that the technology resources are available to get the job done and that payments are being processed both quickly and accurately.

“CFOs everywhere know the key to successful transitions and growth is to invest in smart technology that can be easily scaled with little added cost or manpower. Every department needs flexibility, so it can adapt to changing and growing business needs,” the eBook explains.

It sounds like the key to sweet financial dreams – making the cost vs. growth conundrum work – lies in finding the right solution to take care of the challenges keeping CFOs awake.