Hacking the Annual Wheel in Finance
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
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Finance is a function of traditions. Every year, we repeat the same old processes: annual reporting, budgeting, month-end close, etc. We try to do things more efficiently, utilize technology where possible, and allocate our time to more value-adding activities. Yet, fundamentally, we’re still doing the same as we’ve done for decades.?
Change for the sake of change isn’t, by definition, good. However, business leaders want more from Finance, so CFOs need more from Finance to keep their jobs. Doing more of the same isn’t likely to deliver different results. Perhaps it’s time we hack the Annual Wheel in Finance to move Finance into the future and deliver on the CEO's and CFO's ambitions.?
It would be na?ve to think we can cause a revolution. We’re willing to settle for less if it means provoking finance leaders into action. We aim to provide simple, actionable, and easy-to-understand hacks you can implement quickly. We will do so in a new article series titled “Hacking the Annual Wheel in Finance”.?
We intend to cover annual reporting, month-end close, budgeting, quarterly forecasting, and strategic planning while also considering the role of continuous improvement and the future. We’d love to hear your stories too. Don't hesitate to reach out if you want to contribute with case stories or specific views.?
In this blog, we will take a holistic perspective on the annual wheel and discuss how to free ourselves from its shackles to spark innovation and creativity. We will also consider what it takes from a changed perspective to succeed in implementing some of the proposed hacks.?
Start with the end in mind?
When attempting to hack the annual wheel, it’s important to consider the general purpose of the various standard processes. Instead of running them to keep us occupied, we should consider why we’re running them in the first place. Let’s quickly review each one.?
We can debate about the exact core purpose of each of these processes, however, it’s clear that today they have mushroomed into something much bigger in most companies. The simplest example is the annual report. The core financials take up less than 20% in most annual reports. Companies would argue that they use them to communicate many other things in the report, however, let’s be honest, in most companies they’re also just seen as a prestige project for the finance function and communication department.?
Instead, we should start with the end in mind when discussing the purpose of these processes. For most companies, the end is value creation. If we cannot articulate and document how these processes create value, we should diminish them into simple compliance and control exercises. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in that case, we could significantly reduce the volume of work involved in running these processes.?
We can continue with the example of the annual report. What value does it generate? Internally, it’s next to nothing since all the information was shared earlier this past year. Externally, there are always nuances in the numbers that may impact the markets; however, it’s usually boiled down to forward-looking statements. Even if the numbers are very different from what the company has publicly announced previously, this information must be communicated as soon as possible and not wait for the official announcement.?
Hence, from Finance’s perspective, producing the numbers is a simple compliance and control exercise, yet the forward-looking statements are where the effort should be made. We could reduce this effort even further since this is also part of the quarterly forecasting cycle and investor days that larger companies would hold a few times yearly.?
We’re not trying to diminish the work of the finance function. Instead, we’re trying to free time for more value-adding work, which is impossible when so much time is tied up with standard work. We also want to challenge the notion that spending so much time on these processes is necessary. Could we simply feel most comfortable doing the standard work to avoid fulfilling the vision of a transformed finance function where we’re “people people” and not so much “numbers people” anymore??
How to create change in Finance??
Creating change in the finance function is complicated. We’re a little bit more conservative and change-resistant than other functions. However, making change is far from impossible, and the approach doesn’t differ. We usually promote the change approach called ADKAR.
We will dive deep into ADKAR for each standard process; however, we could also consider it for the overall change narrative in the finance function.?
Previously, we advocated for companies to create capability-building programs to address the knowledge and ability gap. One reinforcement we know is that most companies buy into the 70-20-10 learning philosophy, i.e., 70% on-the-job training, 20% sparring and learning from role models, and 10% from formal training. Here, more emphasis should be put on the contents of the 70%.?
Hacking your daily work?
With a concrete change framework and the ambition to hack the annual wheel in Finance, we'll suggest concrete hacks for your daily work in Finance. We will also suggest hacks for CFOs to change the overall standard work, keeping the end in mind. Each hack should be concrete and possible to implement after reading each article.?
We will give concrete guidance on why a hack makes sense, what the hack is, and how you can implement it. We hope you will contribute with your hacks, too, and share success stories about how you have hacked or even disrupted the annual wheel of standard work in finance.?
Do you think the Annual Wheel in Finance is overdue for a hackathon? We certainly think so because there are so many other things we could spend time on. Together, we will hack the wheel and create a brighter future for finance professionals!
This was the first article in our new series, "Hacking the Annual Wheel in Finance". Here, we will explore different hacks to transform our standard work in Finance. If you want more trends in finance and accounting, you can read our previous series, "The Top 10 Priorities for CFOs in 2024." In this series, we explored what critical issues CFOs should focus on in 2024.
Catch the insights from our latest series, "The Modern Finance Function," here.
You can read all blog posts in our previous series "Demystifying AI in Finance & Accounting" below.
Continue reading below for more articles about trends in finance and accounting.
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder and a partner at Business Partnering Institute and the owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn, which has more than 12,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner”, a long-time Finance Blogger, a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and a Top Voice on LinkedIn with 345,000+ followers.
Love your ideas. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Founder at Linkmate | Effortless LinkedIn Leads | 7x More Visitors to Your Profile
6 个月Great initiative! Looking forward to seeing practical solutions that address not only the need for efficiency but also foster innovation in traditional finance processes. How do you envision implementing these hacks without disrupting the core stability of our finance functions?
Global Finance Executive | CGMA | Driving Sustainable Growth and Inclusive Leadership| Fortune 500 experience
6 个月Oooh! I love the idea Anders Liu-Lindberg. Annual processes take majority of time for Finance professionals, we tend to focus on the first 90% and run out of time for the last 10% that actually delivers the most value. I will be on the look out fpr next posts and promise to contribute ??
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