Benefits of Hiring a Virtual CFO
Posted on Thursday, September 02, 2021
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Do you have a dedicated accounting staff, but have trouble finding higher level talent for the controllership or CFO role in your business? Do you find yourself struggling monthly to produce and understand financial statements that will help you run your business? If the answer to any of these questions is a yes, you may benefit from hiring a “Virtual CFO.”
With today’s accounting labor shortage and a multitude of open roles in the market, losing a higher-level accounting staff member can cause a multi-month gap in financial reporting within your business. Hiring a controller or CFO in this situation can be a daunting task, especially if the applicants are not up to par with your accounting systems and processes.
Hiring a virtual CFO could alleviate the pressure to fill these higher-level accounting roles in your business. At first glance, hiring a virtual CFO can seem like a costly endeavor, but as you will see, there are both cost savings as well as added benefits to this route of accounting role versus the traditional in-house controller or CFO position.
Continuity
With a virtual CFO, you will never have to worry about your employee putting in their two-weeks’ notice unexpectedly. Your virtual CFO is here to stay to provide support for you and your business every single month. You will be able to rest easy knowing that you won’t have to deal with costly controller/CFO turnover that would surely include a learning curve for the new accounting staff as well as gaps in monthly financial information until the new employee was completely up to speed.
Expertise of Accounting Firm
Hiring an in-house controller/CFO will bring the knowledge of one qualified person into your business. Hiring a virtual CFO through an accounting firm will bring the knowledge of the entire firm into your business. The virtual CFO will be able to use the firm’s research systems and be able to draw on the knowledge of every single individual in the office to provide you with the correct answer to any issues you come across.
Community Network
Along with the expertise of the whole accounting firm, a virtual CFO will provide a vast network of contacts within the community of your business. Instead of relying on the contacts of a single individual controller or CFO, you will be able to rely on the accounting firm’s status within the community to help you meet your business goals. An accounting firm can have many different contacts within the banking industry, non-profit community, as well as a vast network of clients who operate in many different industries.
Salary and Benefits
Hiring a virtual CFO comes with a contract and a set fee that is many times less costly than hiring a full-time salary controller or CFO. Along with a fee that is less than the salary amount of an employee, a virtual CFO will not participate in any benefit programs with your company. Any health insurance, life insurance, retirement plan, vacation, sick-time, or other costs will be completely zero.
While hiring a full-time controller or CFO may be the traditional option for most businesses, the cost savings of hiring a virtual CFO through an accounting firm could not only save your business money, but it will provide multiple resources that would not be available otherwise.
Contributed By: Zach Richards, CPA | DWD CPAs & Advisors
Posted in Virtual CFO
Disclaimer: The information contained in Dulin, Ward & DeWald’s blog is provided for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or legal advice on any subject matter. Before taking any action based on this information, we strongly encourage you to consult competent legal, accounting or other professional advice about your specific situation. Questions on blog posts may be submitted to your DWD representative.