31. CFO Check-In Calls

The last thing you want to do is let me get into QuickBooks and look right when you're on that CFO call, if you find yourself like, oh, hold on, let me pull that up and see. Ooh, you're, you're done. That rabbit hole. Right? So, yeah, avoid that. Stay away from the decimal.

As I've been doing CFO work, it's kind of hard to not always depend upon, like the lagging information from bookkeeping. And so when I have the meeting with them, we're over KPIs and strategy and looking at their numbers, I feel like I could add more value with giving them something between the meetings. Like if I'm looking at their books and seeing their revenue is way down or expenses are way up, like things that I could be doing throughout the month to add value so they stay on track. In between the times of our monthly.

Meetings, in between your CFO calls, there's feels like there's a drop off. And what can you do in between to keep the momentum and the activity and the positive things going? Is that.

Yeah, is that fair?

Okay.

And probably you or some of you have heard us talk about the check in calls that we offer between the CFO calls. So for like quarterly clients, we have a monthly check in. For monthly clients, we have a bi weekly check in. Sometimes it's weekly for a season. And we do it. They look very different, as I was thinking of that with all our clients, they look different, but they're basically in five categories. So picking off where Mike left off, kind of going through goals and strategies. I have conversations that are just about that. Oh, you told me in our last CFO call to focus on this. This is what we've done. What do you think? Do you think we should do something differently? Something more that we get the right stuff done that you talked about? So those goals, accountability, all that, some of them are about Q&As. I have more complex clients that have accounting issues and they just want to ask a ton of questions that the CFO report is more strategic, forward looking. So it's not about accounting, it's not about finance. So they just ask a bunch of questions and I'm like in the hot seat, just firing off answers. So that would be another category of checking calls that I have. Another one would be I do a very light financial statement review with some clients. Some of what you were talking about, maybe I'm looking at interim data and your accounts receivable look pretty high. Especially they're migrating to the different buckets it's affecting our cash balance. We need to look at that and have conversations around that. So that would be another category of conversations I have. Another one is cash flows. So with some clients, I just talk about cash flow forecasting in those checking calls and that's it. So again, the CFO report is looking more around a year, looking forward. These cash flow calls are. They have a cash flow forecast that's in weeks. So I'm going from a CFO report that's looking at months ahead to a cfo, a cash flow call that's looking at weeks and just looking at what that looks like, what the trends are telling us. Sometimes they ask, hey, can I pay this credit card off? Can I buy this vehicle? Can I do whatever, you know? So having those conversations around cash flows and others, I'm just getting data for my CFO report. So I'm just getting information that I need around everything. You know, I asked what's new in your world? Right? And they just go off and oh, we hired this person and we purchased this and we hired this consultant and all that kind of information I need for my CFO report so I could be better prepared. So I'm asking those questions intentionally around, around that so I can execute on the CFO call with, with and add more value in those calls. So that's what I do.

Does that answer your question? It does.

Thank you.

And, and by the way, that adds a ton of value because again, on the CFO call, we're looking at strategic objectives, we're looking at goals, we're looking at financials, we're looking at projections. And sometimes just the conversation doesn't lend itself to going deeper in a certain area. So this is. The checking calls are really free time. You know, it's, hey, I got Carlos for 30 minutes. Let me get the most out of him and get all my questions answered and all that kind of stuff. So they feel awesome that they have that space that they could just ask anything finance related. Obviously.

Kind of my guiding principle for this FO call itself is you want to be talking about things that are as far away from the decimal point as possible. You want to be talking about big, big things, you know, tens or hundreds or millions of dollars of things, strategy, those goals, dreams and aspiration things. You don't want to be talking about stuff that's dealing with tens or hundreds of dollars. Those check in calls are a great opportunity to address those concerns with your clients if they have them, particularly if you're doing bookkeeping for your clients as well. Because. Yeah, because what'll end up happening is you'll get on the CFO call, you're going to want to talk about strategy, and they're gonna wanna haggle over if that was a meal and entertainment expense or travel.

That's what's happening. And so I knew I'm like, I had to figure out a way to.

For them not to drag me into bookkeeping questions. And then we get off track and then the strategy is shot. And I don't really feel like we got to talk about the thing that we were supposed to be talking about now.

Important to remember, you've gotta set that expectation out loud with them. This call is for these things. This call is for these things. And if they try to, especially on the CFO call, if they try to get too close to the decimal, you got to be okay saying, hey, let me take a note of that. We'll circle back during our check in call and I'll have an answer for you by then. Okay, there's the last thing you want to do is let me get into QuickBooks and look, right, you're on that CFO call. If you find yourself like, oh, hold on, let me pull that up and see. Ooh, you're, you're done. That rabbit hole, right? So, yeah, avoid that. Stay away from the decimal.