Originally written by Sadie Williamson on Small Business
It’s no secret that the best businesses rely on data to drive decisions. It’s also no secret that even for the most data-literate CFOs, there are still some significant challenges involved with achieving data-driven financial planning excellence.
The sheer volume of information coming in can be challenging to parse in a meaningful way. And Excel, the CFO’s go-to app for ad hoc reporting, can be tricky to work with, especially given how many hours of busy work are generally involved with getting all the latest figures imported and standardised.
Rather than coping with the challenges of dynamic financial reporting, many organisations end up going on ‘gut feel’ instead of making an educated choice based on the metrics they’re collecting. But this can have even more serious ramifications – for example, failing to properly keep track of auto-renewing contracts and subscriptions cost small businesses between £3bn and £5.75bn in 2020.
Instead of trying to deal with all the data, or avoiding the mention of data altogether, it’s important for CFOs to demonstrate what can be possible when data is properly harnessed and understood. Here are five ways for CFOs to make better use of their data.
1. Remove