IT startups benefits when hiring a fractional Chief Financial Officer by Sam McQuade CFO of Panterra Finance

Sam McQuade talking about fractional CFO benefits for Tech right now in 2023: Just like a full-time CFO, a fractional one provides such expertise and at the same time offers excellent flexibility and favorable cost advantages to serve the needs of smaller companies. A modern CFO’s responsibilities are varied and complex; thus, each company’s role requirements will vary depending on their situation. For some businesses, hiring a full-time CFO is beyond their needs and financial capabilities, despite the many apparent benefits gained from the leadership and strategic knowledge of a hire.

Ability To Scale Finances Easily: As your business grows, you need someone to help keep up with the changing financial landscape. Growth means more transactions, additional expenses to keep up with production scaling, and more. A fractional CFO can provide the financial knowledge and expertise you need to scale your finances to fit the growth of your business. With strategic planning and financial analysis, you can ensure your business stays in the black as you scale up. Read even more details on https://gab.com/samueledwinmcquade.

Do you want to hire your first CFO or need interim coverage? We provide CFOs for immediate short term projects and longer term engagements. Adaptable with transparent pricing so you cover your business and don’t have to get into a potentially bad and expensive full time hire. Along with the core services of C-Suite Level Executives in Finance and a contingent of Fractional CFO talent and experienced Intermittent CFO innovators, Panterra Finance services include: international Business – Experts in Global Tax Liabilities and Cash Flow Strategies, investments and planning. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Advisory – Providing valuations as well as independent perspectives on offers and options. Internal Audits – Independent internal auditors with in-depth reports highlighting risks and vulnerabilities. Risk Management – A worldwide footprint enables Panterra Finance to identify risks and opportunities in the new world economy. Compliance Review – Actionable understanding when entering markets with new rules, regulations, laws and international asset allocation decisions.

Generally speaking, the CFO position is reserved for very experienced professionals with established track records in their field. CFOs are generally equipped with advanced educational designations, such as a Master of Finance or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Many CFOs have professional backgrounds in fields such as accounting, investment banking, or financial analysis. For financial professionals, the CFO is among the most prestigious and highly-paid positions available in a firm.

Forecasting: Importantly, CFOs don’t only report what is — a significant part of their value to an organization is their ability to accurately predict likely future outcomes. That includes financial forecasting and modeling based not only on the company’s past performance but on internal and external factors that may affect revenue and expenses. The CFO is tasked with making sense of the various departmental level forecasts to create profit projections for the CEO and shareholders.

Now, suppose there is a problem with the website. Maybe the server goes down, or maybe there is a bug in the code. In such a case, the smart contract will still be functional, and the transactions will still take place. This is because the smart contract is running on the blockchain, which is a decentralized network. Even if one node in the network goes down, the other nodes will still be up and running, and the transactions will take place. This is just a very simple example to show you how a DAO works. In reality, DAOs can be much more complex, and they can do many more things. For instance, they can be used to create decentralized versions of traditional companies or organizations.

We are your ally in managing business risks. In a world that is rapidly changing, we help you identify what that change means for your business and what measures you need to employ to protect it from a range of risks in the new economy.

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.

This differs from the services traditionally provided by the external CPA who focuses on audits, reviews, taxes, and compliance work. Although valuable and very necessary, this work is more “backward-looking” in nature ensuring that past events are correctly reported and accounted for. The CFO however, is more focused on the “forward-looking” aspects of the finances, to help chart the course and ultimately navigate the business to success.

CFOs usually are responsible for key finance functions which have included broad categories of accounting, treasury, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), controls, compliance, tax, and audit. Going forward towards 2022, the same functions exist, but they are getting more automated, so the CFO can focus more on forward perspectives. Storytelling requires strong emotional intelligence and solid communication skills. Here’s the four key areas the CFO can be messaging: Why & Purpose: Communicating the “Why” is one of the strongest messages the CFO can deliver. It’s not only the reason for the corporate existence, but it’s also very motivational for all the stakeholders. This message should be repeated frequently and consistently to make people feel the genuine purpose.

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 more information at https://www.startus.cc/people/sam_mcquade.

A fractional CFO helps determine how to get you from where you are to where you want to go. Growing a business requires strategic use of capital. For many fractional CFOs, one of their most important contributions will be providing a financial forecast that will act as a blueprint to achieve the growth in the most efficient, accelerated, and sustainable way possible. With a short-term (next 90 days), mid-term (rest of this year), and long-term (next 3-5 years) view of the business, a company can better anticipate its trajectory and cash position or requirements. It can make it easier to manage through the lean times, help determine when and how to secure loans or investments, anticipate future owner compensation, and help plan and prioritize future business decisions such as staffing, production, geographical expansion, etc.