The concept of Chief Financial Officer
(C.F.O) is well known to most of us. The C.F.O of an organization is the most
important link between the Board of Directors/ Top management of a company and
the finance department. The C.F.O is not just expected to be excellent in
financial management and control but also a person with good business acumen.
He is expected not just to expose the weak areas and problems in the financial
department but also to provide solutions and fill in the gaps which are
exposed. The solutions provided by him should not just be theoretical, but must
also be practical. This is where a C.F.O. must understand the business well
enough to provide the right solution. In short a C.F.O. is someone every
organization requires right from incorporation. But can all
organizations afford a capable and well qualified C.F.O.? The answer to that question is no
in most cases. One of the main reasons being start ups and small set ups
(growing businesses) are not in a position to afford to pay a fat salary cheque
to a C.F.O. at the end of each month. The other reason being these ambitious
yet small business houses do not have the best infrastructure to fit in a
person with such huge caliber to be called a C.F.O.
There emerges the concept of Virtual
C.F.O. As the word suggests virtual
means “not physically existing”, which means our
C.F.O. will be invisible. No, we are not using the magical watch of Mr. India
to turn our CFO invisible. We are practically shifting the cabin of a CFO
outside the organizations office. The CFO will never be seen in office, yet his
presence shall be felt by everyone. The virtual CFO shall design, control,
initiate and also provide consultancy and advisory related to the financial
management. Today with the advent of information technology the very
requirement of an office has been challenged. Everything is online, web-based
and information is available at the click of a button. We use this very tool of
information technology to enable our clients at Kedar Laghate & Associates,
to offer the services of a virtual CFO. We design our client’s information
technology systems in such a way that the necessary information starts rolling
out at the click of a button. A business head who is not tech-savy or does not
have any knowledge of accounting shall also be able to extract all the
important and required information from the accounting system. We design
certain reporting formats which shall be generated on timely basis for the
management to help them in making business decisions. The management can also
interact with the virtual CFO online through chat mode and get their specific
queries resolved. Our chat windows are open to queries which are answered by
qualified professionals sitting in our office or elsewhere. All this and much
more can be achieved without the physical presence of a CFO, thus saving a huge
amount of money and space of the organization.
