Periodic Reporting for General Management or Steering Committee
It is important to keep track of the evolution of the company and some type of benchmarking. The reporting can include a wide variety of data related to the financial perspective i.e. capital yield, cost of debt, evolution of the main sales figures, supplies, personnel expenses and profit margins.
It is also common for other types of reports to be compiled from the finance and administration department and KPI measurements are collected for the balanced scorecard. Although everything is relative, this will depend on the organizational structure of the company.
Relationships with Bankers, Shareholders and External Advisers
The finance officer is a regular interlocutor with bankers, shareholders, consultants, tax advisors, legal advisers and other management members of the company. It is not that the finance officer has to become a PR, but a good deal of networking is necessary and maintaining good communication is vital to building strategic relationships.
Regulatory Compliance
The finance department is used to comply with tax and commercial law, which is a task that has a large part of bureaucracy and that brings little value.
Depending on the size of the company, there will be a human resource department with an administrative part responsible for labor issues and in other cases, the department of administration and finance assumes these tasks.
The financial accounting is designed to inform the external agents about the company’s situation and its usefulness at the management level is limited. It is not that it is useless, but of course many financiers would implant an internal accounting of a very different type. Hence, it is often differentiated between financial accounting and management accounting.
Unfortunately, keeping management accounts in addition to financial accounting requires allocating resources, especially human resources, that are only available to the most powerful and professional companies. A finance officer will handle certain tasks and will act as a mere supervisor.
Risk Management
A company is subject to all kinds of risks. The risks may be of a different nature, and affect both the assets and the reputation of the brand in the market. The finance officer is usually responsible for assessing the risks, including the following;
Credit risk of customers and suppliers
The internal analysis of the accounts of the companies
The company is responsible for actions that its employees may have such as accidents in their facilities.
Occupational hazards
Financial risks such as interest rate coverage, sudden price changes in procurement and risks in financial investments.
Organize the Financial Department
The department of administration and finances can reach a certain size in big companies, so the tasks usually are grouped by the nature in different jobs such as the following;
Issued invoices
Invoices received
Collections
Payments
Banks
Risk control
It is the role of the finance officer to organize the workflow, assign the tasks and maximize the productivity of the department, as well as ensure the proper functioning before absences for vacations, casualties, etc.
Leading the Team
The finance officer has to fulfill his managerial role, which includes both participation in the management committees that guarantee the sharing of problems and solutions providing the vision of the financial part of the company, as well as motivation and coordination of the team of people under his supervision.
