We’re Ellen and Simone. After 36 years in finance, we’re ready to share what textbooks won’t tell you.

💛 Welcome to The CFO Playbook – your practical guide to real-world finance insights. A bi-weekly newsletter we’ll send out every other Thursday. The full read will take approximately 5 minutes. If you’re enjoying the newsletter, we’d greatly appreciate it if you shared it using the “Share the Newsletter” button at the end of this email.

📖 READ OF THE WEEK

Quick Recap

In the last two newsletters, we explored how Finance serves as a

• Business Partner, guiding departments to make smart, data-backed decisions, not gut instincts. The key?

• A strong Data Set-up with a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) – and remember

• Excel sheets have an expiry date!

So you put a lot of effort together with the data team in creating a fantastic set-up? 

And now, nothing happens.

Before you give up, ask yourself: What’s missing?

A good horse doesn’t make a good rider. And so do a sound data infrastructure, data governance and SSoT not make a data-driven company. We have seen many companies who invested big times and got ZERO value out of this. 

If you want to be a data-driven organisation, you need to engrain this in the culture. In short: it’s a change process. And change needs time.

If you want to be part of this change, your job is to serve as a change agent.

Without leadership commitment, your efforts on building a data-driven culture fail

Lead by example. 

Even with the best data, a data-driven culture only thrives when leadership, especially the CEO, embraces and promotes it. This is crucial. When leadership leads by example, a data-driven mindset has the chance to take root across the company.

Hmmm, our leaders are more the “decide based on gut feeling”-type. What can I do to convince them?

Focus on business outcomes! To gain leadership buy-in, show how data can drive tangible business outcomes. 

For instance, if you close a contract in a country like Brazil without fully understanding the local taxes or hidden costs, you could end up with way higher expenses and drastically reduced margins.  This will not happen by creating a simple and quick Business Case. When leaders see this prevents costly mistakes, they’ll be hooked—because, in the end, everyone wants better margins!

Once you have the commitment from leadership… Why should Finance lead on promoting data-driven decision making?

First of, we take a holistic view: in the finance team, all company data comes together. We connect the loose ends and combine financial and non-financial metrics.

We combined this with a forward looking view and focus on forecasting and planning to help the company understand how the future can look like BEFORE it arrives. This gives the company enough time to anticipate and take action instead of being reactive.

We are numbers-driven by nature and can assist non-number-centric teams like HR manage key cost drivers like salaries.

The CFO’s role is to make sure decisions are based on data, not gut instinct. They allocate resources where they add the most value, keep gross margins healthy, and manage costs well. At the same time, the CFO ensures the cash burn stays under control. In today’s times, profitability is not just a buzz-word but it can make or break your business.

Does every decision need to be based on a business case or data? Absolutely NOT!

The last thing we want is to lose our agility. It’s all about using data where it matters most, while staying quick for the day-to-day calls.

Some examples of Good Data Practices

• Business Case for New Market: Finance creates a detailed business case considering all costs, such as overhead, taxes, and local specifics before market entry decision.

• Aligned Sales & Revenue Dashboards: Ensure dashboards reflect relevant metrics like ARR and revenue from a finance perspective.

• Pricing Strategy: Finance runs a business case to assess pricing strategy, ensuring gross margins and costs are aligned with company goals.

Agree on the above? Now, how to put this into action?

Here’s your 3-step plan to foster a data-driven culture:

• IMPORTANT: Hire the Right FP&A Talent: The key to driving a data-driven culture within the finance team is hiring an open-minded FP&A professional. This person will be the backbone of implementing these strategies. As Bijan puts it, “Rare is the talent who combines business and data skills—when you find them, keep them.”

• Make Others Shine: Support other departments with data analysis to help them succeed. Show how data can guide smarter decisions and drive their performance.

• Data-Based Resource Allocation: Resources should only be allocated when there's clear proof of a good ROI. Everyone in the company should understand that additional spending, pricing adjustments etc. can only happen with sign-off from the finance team.

When you implement these steps, this IDEALLY won’t happen…

Who will make sure the business plan and cash burn targets are hit if everyone is making decisions on their own? 

In the end, it’s the CFO who has to stand by the numbers presented to the Board, investors, or management. When budgets get out of control, it's the CFO who takes the blame. Without finance's approval, you risk overspending, missing targets, and losing trust with key stakeholders. 

You are the CFO: Ask yourself, do you want to be in that situation? Sign-off is crucial to stay on track, and everyone will understand it! Of course, you have a budget that the company generally follows, but there are so many decisions made throughout the year after that budget gets approved. It's essential to ensure that all these ongoing decisions still align with the company's financial goals and cash burn targets.

💡 QUICK INSIGHTS

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly - Shared Learnings

Start with the business needs. Don’t start with the tool.

One major pitfall when implementing new tools is to purely to focus on what tools are available. I have seen companies failing with tool implementations because they did not consider their business logic. 

Don’t fool yourself and start with the process. Follow these steps:

• Step 1: How does the process look like today? Is there a process at all? Make sure to ask all key stakeholders.

• Step 2: How can you streamline the process and what should the target process look like (e.g. if you are looking at a billing process, how many billing cases are there in total and are these all needed)? What hard business requirements do you need? Again, speak with all relevant stakeholder groups to make sure you understand what is needed and what is nice to have.

• Step 3: Have tool providers present to you how their tool could fit your business case.

New Regulations:

E-invoicing is coming... Is your team ready?

• Starting 2025, all companies must be able to receive e-invoices.

  • The usually (ERP) accounting systems like NetSuite, Datev etc. can handle e-invoicing, including formats like XRechnung and ZUGFeRD

• The rule to issue e-invoices will be introduced step by step, with full compliance needed by 2028.

• AR (Accounts Receivable) tools (like Chargebee, etc.) will likely offer solutions in the coming months to help with this change.

• You have time until the end of 2027 to be ready for issuing e-invoices.

• For now, focus on being ready to receive e-invoices by 2025, as this is the immediate requirement.

💼 JOB SECTION

We’re connecting companies with the right candidates based on key criteria

• Remote work

• Salary expectations from both sides

• Technical skill set match

• Career growth opportunities

Companies: Register here
Applicants: Register here

Let’s find your perfect match!

🕵️‍♀️ EASY QUESTIONS - DIFFICULT ANSWERS

READER QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Question: "Who should be responsible for booking taxes like VAT in the accounting tool? My Accounting team says it’s a tax issue, but the Tax team insists it’s part of the accounting process. Any advice on how to handle this?"

Answer: It's all about teamwork and clear guidelines!

• Accounting: Books taxes (like VAT and withholding) with each invoice and manages daily transactions, following guidelines provided by the Tax team.

• Tax: Provides clear booking guidelines for Accounting, ensuring it’s clear how to handle VAT, sales tax etc. Additionally, Tax reviews, monitors for compliance, and handles reconciliations and final declarations.

In short, Accounting manages the operational side, while Tax ensures accuracy, compliance, and gives the necessary guidance for consistent bookings!

Got a burning question? Fill out this form

UPCOMING READS OF THE WEEK

• AI in finance teams - now and future

• How does the future Finance Team look like?

• Finance Tech Stack 2025

• …and many more

CLOSING REMARKS

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Send your feedback, suggestions, or requests to feature something in future editions to [email protected]. We’d love to include your input.

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The CFO Playbook reflects our personal opinions, not professional advice.