Opinion
According to Zylo research, enterprises use an average of 651 SaaS applications, with annual spending reaching millions of dollars, but executives generally underestimate actual usage. Remote work has driven a surge in SaaS adoption, with spending growing 14% in 2020 and the number of applications doubling in growth rate. Lack of visibility leads to duplicate subscriptions and diluted purchasing power. The article lists ten types of redundant applications and introduces Carta's case of achieving immediate savings of $50,000 through SaaS management, optimizing renewal negotiations, and establishing an employee self-service catalog.
The surge in Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments driven by the pandemic has propelled corporate payment digitalization forward by leaps and bounds, but many accounts payable departments have failed to promptly harden remote network security or establish secure handling procedures for supplier banking information. Now that the dust has settled, CFOs and their teams need to start with data security and implement protective measures. Based on the industry experience of Angela Anastasakis, Senior Vice President of Operations and Customer Success at Nvoicepay, this article analyzes the risks of ACH fraud and vendor email compromise (VEC), and offers security recommendations for data collection, verification, and storage.
The CFO role is increasingly broad, yet nearly 10% of top-company CFOs leave within a year. Boston Consulting Group analysis indicates that new CFOs should focus on planning rather than speed in their first 90 days, laying the groundwork for long-term success by assessing the finance function, defining the vision, setting priorities, building relationships, crafting the investor story, and developing a roadmap.
Price-Volume-Mix (PVM) analysis is a method that helps Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) decompose revenue or profit changes, encompassing price effects, volume effects, and mix effects. Written by Vendavo CFO Dayton Kellenberger, this article introduces the basic concepts, implementation challenges, benefits, and the necessity of enterprise-level application of PVM analysis, emphasizing its value for precise decision-making and long-term growth.
After the pandemic, remote work has become widespread, with employees working across state or national borders as the norm, but tax compliance issues have come to the forefront. Topia's Adapt survey shows that 28% of employees have worked outside their state of residence, and only one-third reported all days to HR. As the tax gap widens and audit risks rise, CFOs need to view remote work as a necessary condition for talent competition and balance compliance with employee expectations through location-sharing mechanisms.
The financial challenges triggered by the pandemic have prompted CFOs to reassess the necessity of EBITDA adjustments. Data shows that the adjustment magnitude fell from 24.4% in Q4 2019 to 21.8% in the same period of 2020, with only 1.6% directly related to the pandemic. The article analyzes company-specific methods, selection of value drivers, and introduces three strategies—annualized earnings, 2021 EBITDA, and month substitution—emphasizing the importance of defensible metrics.
Marvin Weiss, a retired accounting professor, points out that GAAP, rooted in the production-driven era, does not treat talent investments as assets, leading to undervaluation of knowledge-based companies. He suggests capitalizing human resource expenditures and amortizing them over expected service years to address the confusion caused by non-GAAP metrics.
The pandemic offers cost-conscious CFOs an opportunity to save expenses, but closing offices may be short-sighted. HR strategy may trigger unexpected tax and legal risks, especially when employees can work remotely. CFOs and CHROs need to coordinate on office space, remote policies, and the relationship between compensation and location.
In the era of remote work, tools like Zoom are convenient but struggle to support the deep communication required for M&A negotiations. UserTesting Chief Strategy Officer Mona Sabet, drawing on her company's practical experience acquiring a Norwegian tech firm, proposes replacing bullet-point communication with long-form writing. By leveraging collaborative platforms like Google Docs, teams can achieve more comprehensive understanding and alignment in virtual environments, thereby improving the success rate of remote M&A.
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic exposing operational vulnerabilities, CFOs need to re-examine internal controllable process bottlenecks. Accounts payable (AP), as a labor-intensive link, can achieve significant benefits through digital transformation, including cost reduction of up to 80%, processing time shortened by 95%, and reduced fraud risk. Based on industry insights from a Transcepta executive, this article systematically outlines six core advantages and cites a practical case from a large university to demonstrate the quantified results of automated processing.