By Andy Burrows

It’s horribly dismissive, as well as being terribly cliché and old hat, to call us “bean counters” for working in the Finance department. Mere “number crunchers!”

Some go even further. One Marketing Director once tried to put us in our place by telling us that we in Finance were “just an overhead”. Apparently, Sales and Marketing brought in money, and everyone else, including Finance, just spent it. It seemed a source of some bitterness that he could work so hard bringing money in only to see it frittered away on our over-inflated salaries!

And so, why would anyone think to involve us in strategic discussion, let alone tell us about a new product before they launch it (thus avoiding the accounting mayhem we normally have to deal with!)?

And as a result, we’re made to feel like outsiders. We really want to be involved and valued, but instead feel shut out.

But, you see, sometimes we don’t help ourselves. Sometimes it’s the way we do things that leads them to think t...

By Andy Burrows

I’ve worked as a senior leader in many Finance teams. And over the years I’ve noticed several things that we do that really hamper our effectiveness.

‘Effectiveness’ can be defined as the extent to which we’re achieving our mission.

I’ll come to that mission more specifically at the end of this article. But for now, let’s just take it in general terms that we exist in the business to help the business. We don’t do anything for its own sake, just to satisfy ourselves as accountants. We don’t produce reports just to be able to admire a nice report. We don’t do analysis just so that we can admire a financial model that balances. All the things we do should help the business.

And so, I want to talk about things I’ve come to see as unhelpful. Some of them we take for granted. We just do them, we accept that they exist and we perpetuate them. Some of them almost have the status of sacred cows that we don’t feel able to question.

I hope that in the process of highlighting...

By Andy Burrows

You can be a Finance business partner in a small company

As I’ve spoken with Finance professionals around the world about their careers, there’s a particular pain that is felt by those who work in small businesses.

Sometimes they talk about the fact that they want to be Finance business partners, but they’re stuck in the mundane tasks of Finance.

Sometimes they talk about the struggle they have trying to get involved with the business, because the business doesn’t see the need to include them.

There’s a perception in some places that to get real Finance business partnering experience you have to go and work in a bigger company.

But that cannot be right!

In the USA, 45% of GDP comes from small businesses. Nearly 50% of employees work for small businesses. And I bet the situation is similar around the world, possibly even more so.

Imagine the impact we could have on the economy if small business Finance professionals could help their businesses to perform better. ...

By Andy Burrows

You’re a Finance professional who wants to do their best for the business you work for.

You may want to rise to be a CFO one day.

If so, you must grasp business performance management.

Business performance management is a key element of the business acumen you need to be a business-focused Finance professional. And it’s something that is specifically the responsibility of the CFO and Finance.

If you want to be more than “just an accountant”; if you want to drive business performance, rather than just spectate or commentate on it, learn business performance management!

And that’s what I aim to introduce you to in this article.

Why is business performance management so important?

Business performance management is an essential discipline, because as I regularly say, “managing business performance better leads to better business performance... otherwise why bother managing it?”

Management is “maintaining control over” something. In this case we want to maintain co...