What are the benefits for AI startups to hire a flexible CFO from Sam McQuade: Gain A Better Understanding Of Financial Health: Running a business means monitoring all the numbers for accuracy and compliance.. A fractional CFO clarifies complicated financial data and constructs different types of financial projections based on the data. For example, CFOs use cash flow projections to help founders understand how much money is coming in and out of the business and where it is coming from. Strategize For Long-Term Goals: A fractional CFO can help you look to the future by strategizing toward long-term goals. They can help you develop strategies to ensure your business is on track for success and pursuing its ultimate ambitions. For example, by creating financial objectives and meticulously tracking performance KPIs, founders are better positioned for growth and expansion. If you know you need to purchase updated equipment as your business grows, a fractional CFO will help you build a plan to fund the needed purchases. See additional information at Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance.
When a finance function is focused purely on accounting (performed by a bookkeeper) and financial planning (performed by a controller), a CFO will, in most cases, not be necessary. However, companies at this level may want to consider bringing on a fractional CFO on an interim basis in the event of a takeover or restructuring. Companies should consider engaging a CFO, whether fractional or full-time, when the size and complexity of revenue begin to overburden the existing finance team. This generally occurs at the Series B funding round.
A fractional CFO is an experienced CFO who provides services for organizations in a part-time, retainer, or contract arrangement. This offers a company the experience and expertise of a high-end CFO without the in-house cost—salary, benefits, and bonuses—of a full-time CFO. Unlike a full-time CFO who oversees and maintains all general financial strategy or an interim CFO who performs CFO duties before or between CFO hires, a fractional CFO’s duties are typically on a project basis and specifically tuned to the company’s particular challenges or goals.
Searching to hire your first CFO or need interim coverage? We offer solution CFOs for urgent very short term objectives and longer term engagements. Customizable with transparent pricing so you solve the needs of your business and don’t have to get into a potentially bad and costly full time hire. Sam McQuade CFO has successfully scaled his decades old ideas into an innovative full-service Financial Partner Solution for incubators, startups, emerging business concepts as well as well-established international companies, corporations and organizations with the introduction of Panterra Finance. The Panterra Finance professional executive team members are equipped to provide an industry leading concept of an on demand Fractional CFO and Interim CFO during pivotal transitions.
Vision, Roadmaps and Business Plans are typically good collaboration processes, however alignment on meaningful strategy is driven by relationships and the CFO cannot over-communicate in this area. In an era of “greenwashing”, the CFO has a real opportunity to lead since success will ultimately be measured with scorecards and transparency. Sharing the Sustainable Story with financial support is the most credible way for stakeholders to see progress.
What Does a CFO Do? The CFO’s role is twofold: Oversee the organization’s financial activities, including being responsible for the finance and accounting professionals who perform operational functions, and serve in a strategic advisory role for the CEO and C-suite peers. Brainyard’s Winter 2021 Survey shows how finance and business leaders rank success factors and how those priorities have changed over time. Meeting revenue and earnings goals and keeping cash flow stable are clearly in the CFO’s purview. Finance chiefs also advise department heads across the organization, assisting them in both maximizing revenues, if they serve in a revenue-generating capacity, and controlling expenses without sacrificing customer or employee satisfaction or the company’s reputation.
Liquidity refers to an organization’s ability to pay off its short-term liabilities — those that will come due in less than a year — with readily accessible, or liquid, funds. Liquidity is usually expressed as a ratio or a percentage of what the company owes against what it owns. CFOs are concerned with ensuring that customer payments are made in full and on time and controlling expenses so that enough cash is on hand to meet financial obligations.
Another purpose of a DAO is to automate decision-making. In a traditional organization, decisions are made by a small group of people. This can often lead to delays in decision-making. With a DAO, decisions are made by the code that governs the organization. This makes it much faster and easier to make decisions. In business environments, it frees up space for people to focus on other things. It has opened up opportunities for more decision-makers to get involved in the governance of a DAO. The most notable example is the MakerDAO, which is a decentralized autonomous organization that governs the Dai stablecoin. The MakerDAO has a voting system that allows anyone to participate in the governance of the organization.
As independent internal auditors, we compile in-depth audit reports that convey insights on both known and unknown risks and vulnerabilities in order to protect your business. We hold a niche in capital project auditing and in assisting start-ups with outsourced Internal Audit services.
A lot of our clients at Panterra Finance ask us about DAOs, what they are, and how they work. So we thought it would be helpful to write a blog post explaining them. Before getting into DAO, a brief few things about blockchain. A blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions on many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the collusion of the network. Sounds complicated? Let’s take an example to understand this better. Suppose there are two people, A and B, who want to transact with each other. A wants to buy a product from B worth $100. In the old way of transacting, A would hand over the $100 to B, and B would hand over the product to A. This process is called ‘centralized’ because there is one central entity, in our case, a bank or PayPal, through which both parties have to go through to complete the transaction.
A properly qualified CFO is a business professional with relevant experience within various commercial environments. This important distinction between a career CFO and the CPA is key. The CFO can solve many financial and business problems in short order, due to having had experience in such matters and the ability to quickly identify and address issues and employ best practices and techniques. Hiring a CFO to perform the financial and administrative functions of the business, frees up the business owner so they can focus on other value-enhancing aspects of the business. In addition to bringing financial and accounting expertise – a CFO can deal with most administrative areas such as human resources, facilities, insurances, legal and compliance, as well as stakeholder relations.
In these early years of creating innovations in the corporate C-Suite, Sam McQuade nurtured and created a maverick approach to new finance operations for Stryker as it broke through to the lucrative emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)). While approaching the markets in the growing economies of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia and Romania, Sam McQuade was recognizing the need for Interim and Fractional CFO’s for the avalanche of incubators and startup companies in these underdeveloped economies that were on the cusp of being integrated into modern International Finance systems and markets. See even more information at https://medium.com/@sam_5012/dao-101-a-new-paradigm-for-organizing-businesses-and-other-ventures-215369ac7261.
