Turnover in finance and accounting (F&A) leadership is on the rise. In 2024, CFO turnover among Standard & Poor’s 500 companies hit 17.8%, tying a record high in 2021, according to the Russell Reynolds Global CFO Turnover Index. This trend isn’t limited to large corporations. Closely held businesses are also feeling the pinch, as competition for experienced finance professionals intensifies and the accounting profession faces a well-documented talent shortage.

The departure of a CFO, controller or senior accountant can disrupt daily business operations. It often leaves the remaining staff stretched thin, creates gaps in institutional knowledge, and increases the risk of errors or compliance lapses, especially during time-sensitive reporting cycles.

However, if handled wisely, this disruption can also be a turning point. It gives business owners and managers time to re-evaluate the department, modernize processes and make strategic upgrades. Here are four critical steps to consider after a leadership change in your F&A department.

Redefine the F&A team role

Your business has likely evolved since the previous F&A team leader was hired. Perhaps you’ve taken on debt, expanded into new markets, or needed to meet investor or regulatory reporting requirements. Now’s the time to ask: Does our original job description reflect the company’s current financial reporting needs?

You might need to replace a former bookkeeper-turned-controller with a CPA who has experience managing teams, scaling finance systems and working with external stakeholders. A fresh job description that aligns with your current and future goals helps ensure you hire (or outsource to) someone with the appropriate talent level.

Evaluate past performance

Leadership transitions are a natural opportunity to assess whether your accounting reports are timely, accurate and relevant. Your reports should provide insights to help you feel confident during tax season and when speaking with lenders.

If not, now is the time to improve internal processes, provide additional training for your remaining staff, and explore outsourced accounting and CFO services. An external partner can bring consistency, technical expertise and forward-looking insights, often at a lower cost than a full-time hire.

Assess technology

Outdated or underutilized accounting software can leave your business overly dependent on one person to “make it work.” Modern solutions can automate account reconciliations, track real-time performance metrics and reduce manual entry. Cost-effective upgrades can reduce errors, lower fraud risks and free your F&A staff for higher-value work.

Take stock of your systems. Are you using them effectively? Is it time for an upgrade or additional training on your existing software? If you’re unsure, we can assess your tech stack and help you make the most of your current platform or recommend more suitable options.

Look to the future

As your business grows and evolves, your F&A department needs to keep pace. For instance, if you’re planning a merger, seeking capital or expanding geographically, your F&A team must be equipped to support these moves.

In-house teams often lack the time or capacity to prepare for growth — and they might have outdated or biased ways of approaching change that could benefit from fresh insights. Outsourced CFOs can help by providing strategic support and financial clarity without the cost of a full-time executive. Likewise, streamlining the department’s policies and procedures can help improve performance and position it for the future.

For more information

Losing an F&A team leader is never convenient, but it doesn’t have to be chaotic. Contact us today to keep your finances on track — no matter who’s in charge. We can help you find an F&A professional with the right skills to help your business emerge from the leadership transition stronger, more agile and better prepared for what’s next.

Designing Your Life After Business – Free Download

For many entrepreneurs, building a successful business is a lifelong pursuit—one that defines their identity, purpose, and daily rhythm. But what happens when it’s time to step away? The transition out of business ownership can be jarring if not approached with intention. That’s where the concept of life after business becomes essential.

In Designing Your Life After Business, we highlight a key insight: while financial planning is crucial, personal planning is what gives your post-exit life meaning. Research shows that 75% of business owners regret selling their businesses within the first year—not because they lack financial security, but because they haven’t clearly defined what comes next.

To navigate this transition successfully, the guide presents a “Three-Legged Stool” approach:

1. Personal Plan – Clarify passions, purpose, and what your ideal day looks like after exiting.

2. Financial Plan – Align resources to fund your envisioned lifestyle.

3. Business Plan – Maximize your company’s value before the transition.

The guide includes practical worksheets to help business owners explore their passions, social connections, health and wellness, continued learning, and ways to give back. Whether it’s through travel, mentoring, volunteering, or rediscovering hobbies, life after business is an opportunity to intentionally craft a joyful and meaningful future.

Ultimately, your exit isn’t an end—it’s a pivot point. With thoughtful planning, you can shift from making a living to truly making a life.

In today’s volatile economic climate, organizations face mounting pressures that can increase the risk of fraudulent activities. Auditors play a pivotal role in identifying and mitigating these risks through comprehensive fraud risk assessments and tailored audit procedures.

Fraud triangle

Three elements are generally required for fraud to happen. First, perpetrators must experience some type of pressure that motivates fraud. Motives may be personal or come from within the organization. Second, perpetrators must mentally justify (or rationalize) fraudulent conduct. Third, perpetrators must perceive and exploit opportunities that they believe will allow them to go undetected.

The presence of these three elements doesn’t prove that fraud has been committed — or that an individual will commit fraud. Rather, the so-called “fraud triangle” is designed to help organizations identify risks and understand the importance of eliminating the perceived opportunity to commit fraud.

Economic uncertainty can alter workers’ motivations, opportunities and abilities to rationalize fraudulent behavior. For example, an unethical manager might conceal a company’s deteriorating performance with creative journal entries to avoid loan defaults, maximize a year-end bonus or stay employed.

Fraud vs. errors

Auditing standards require auditors to plan and conduct audits that provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement. There are two reasons an organization misstates financial results:

1. Fraud, and
2. Error.

The difference between the two is a matter of intent. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) defines financial statement fraud as “a scheme in which an employee intentionally causes a misstatement or omission of material information in the organization’s financial reports.” By contrast, human errors are unintentional.

External audits: An effective antifraud control

While auditing standards require auditors to provide reasonable assurance against material misstatement, they don’t act as fraud investigators. An audit’s scope is limited due to sampling techniques, reliance on management-provided information and documentation, and concealed frauds, especially those involving collusion. However, auditors are still responsible for responding appropriately to fraud suspicions and designing audit procedures for fraud risks.

Professional skepticism is applied by auditors who serve as independent watchdogs, assessing whether financial reporting is transparent and compliant with accounting standards. Their oversight may deter management from engaging in fraudulent behavior and help promote a culture of accountability and transparency.

Auditors also perform a fraud risk assessment, which includes management interviews, analytical procedures and brainstorming sessions to identify fraud scenarios. Then, they tailor audit procedures to focus on high-risk areas, such as revenue recognition and accounting estimates, to help uncover inconsistencies and anomalies. Fraud risk assessments can affect the nature, timing and scope of audit procedures during fieldwork. Auditors must communicate identified fraud risks and any instances of fraud to those charged with governance, such as management and the audit committee.

Additionally, auditors examine and test internal controls over financial reporting. Weak controls are documented and reported, enabling management to strengthen defenses against fraud.

To catch a thief

External auditors serve as a critical line of defense against corporate fraud. If you suspect employee theft or financial misstatement, contact us to assess your company’s risk profile and determine whether fraud losses have been incurred. We can also help you implement strong controls to prevent fraud from happening in the future and minimize potential fraud losses.

The month-end close is a pain point for many small to midsize businesses. While internal accounting teams often aim to wrap up the close within three days, a recent survey found that half the respondents actually take six days or longer to close the books. What can your organization do to help streamline this process? Leveraging cloud-based technology tools like QuickBooks® can be a game changer.

Why closing the books matters

Closing the books — the process of finalizing all accounting records for a specific period — is more than a compliance chore. It provides insight into a company’s financial health by ensuring assets and liabilities are accurately posted, revenue and expenses are matched in the right periods, and any errors are quickly caught and corrected. A consistent, timely closing process can provide reliable data for:

• Tracking profitability by product or department,
• Maintaining cash flow visibility,
• Budgeting and strategic planning,
• Preparing tax returns and financial statements, and
• Strengthening internal controls and preventing fraud.

Conversely, delays in closing the books can result in operational inefficiencies, misinformed business decisions, and overlooked growth opportunities.

Best practices for QuickBooks users

Using QuickBooks’ features, you can speed up the closing process without compromising financial reporting quality. Establishing a structured, repeatable workflow is key. Rather than improvising each month, create a standardized closing checklist that includes these nine steps:

1. Reconcile bank and credit card accounts. Every reliable close begins with accurate account reconciliations to help prevent duplicate, missing and fraudulent transactions. However, this step can be time consuming and frustrating, especially for businesses with significant transaction volume. QuickBooks can streamline reconciliation by importing and categorizing transactions automatically through its bank feed feature. Configuring bank rules further reduces manual coding and improves consistency.
2. Review open receivables and payables. Unpaid invoices and overdue bills distort cash flows, profitability, and amounts reported on your balance sheet. QuickBooks can generate aging summaries for accounts receivable and accounts payable. Review the receivables summary for overdue invoices, then follow up with customers and determine whether any accounts are uncollectible. Similarly, scrutinize the payables summary to verify all bills have been received and posted, and check for duplicate entries. Understanding what you owe and when helps maintain strong supplier relationships and avoids surprises in future periods.
3. Conduct physical inventory counts. For businesses with inventory, errors in stock levels can lead to misstatements in the cost of goods sold and gross profits. Performing a physical inventory count at month end — and reconciling it to QuickBooks data — is a best practice that ensures inventory valuation remains accurate. QuickBooks’ built-in inventory tools or integrations with third-party platforms can provide real-time visibility into stock levels and streamline this process.
4. Record fixed assets and depreciation. Any major purchases made during the month that qualify as fixed assets — such as equipment, furniture, vehicles, and leasehold improvements — must be capitalized on the balance sheet, not immediately expensed on the income statement. Set up depreciation schedules based on the acquired assets’ useful lives. Also, remove any sold or retired assets from the books. While QuickBooks doesn’t automate depreciation, you can track depreciation schedules in spreadsheets or integrate third-party tools.
5. Post prepaid expenses and accruals. Accrual accounting requires that revenue and expenses be recorded when earned or incurred, not when cash changes hands. This requires journal entries for prepaid assets and accrued expenses. QuickBooks allows you to create custom journal entries and automate recurring items to reduce manual effort. Recording these entries monthly helps produce a more accurate, complete picture of the business’s interim financial performance.
6. Verify payroll and benefits. Even when using a third-party payroll provider, it’s essential to reconcile payroll-related entries each month. This includes verifying gross wages, employer-paid taxes and benefit contributions. QuickBooks Payroll can automate much of this process, but comparing payroll reports to general ledger entries is prudent to confirm accuracy and catch any inconsistencies early.
7. Analyze preliminary financial reports. With QuickBooks, you can quickly run a preliminary profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. Compare these reports to prior periods, internal budgets or forecasts, and/or industry benchmarks to identify anomalies. Investigate unusual fluctuations for coding errors, missing transactions, or unexpected balances, then make any necessary corrections. Keeping up with adjusting entries every month facilitates year-end financial reporting and tax preparation.
8. Lock the books. Once you’ve made all necessary adjustments and entries, QuickBooks allows you to “close the books” with a password to prevent changes after the period ends. This functionality, accessed through the settings menu, prevents backdating or editing past transactions, thereby maintaining the integrity of finalized records.
9. Document the closing process. The final element of a well-run close is documentation. Save the month-end checklist, supporting reconciliations, journal entries and exception notes in a shared folder or attach them directly to QuickBooks transactions. This adds transparency and ensures continuity if there’s turnover in your accounting department.

Crossing the finish line with confidence

The month-end close doesn’t have to be a source of stress. By leveraging QuickBooks’ functionality and implementing a structured closing process, your business can significantly reduce the time and effort required to close the books while improving accuracy and insight. Contact us to help set up efficient, reliable closing procedures for your business.

For many businesses, accounts receivable (AR) are more than just a line item on the balance sheet. This account provides a key indicator of potential cash flow, customer relationships and overall financial health. So proactive AR management is critical. The AR aging report has long been a cornerstone of expediting collections and reducing credit risk, but it’s taken on greater significance with the implementation of new accounting rules for recognizing credit losses.

Digging deeper into receivables

The AR aging report provides a structured breakdown of all outstanding customer invoices. Rather than simply listing balances owed, it categorizes AR based on how long each invoice has remained unpaid. The following time-based “aging buckets” are typically used:

• 0 to 30 days (current),
• 31 to 60 days,
• 61 to 90 days, and
• Over 90 days.

This breakdown helps management evaluate trends in customer payment behavior, identify chronic late payers, and assess how credit policies are performing. The information can be used to prioritize collection efforts and determine when receivables should be written off. Management also might use it to modify overall credit practices (for instance, offering early-bird discounts or electronic payment methods to encourage faster payments) or tighten credit policies for certain slow-paying accounts.

Optimizing cash flows

By revealing how long invoices have been unpaid and identifying customer payment trends, the AR aging report helps businesses forecast future cash receipts. This can help management more accurately:

• Budget operating expenses,
• Determine the need for short-term borrowing or credit lines, and
• Plan investments or capital expenditures.

For instance, if a business sees that 40% of its receivables are older than 60 days, management can anticipate cash shortages in the next cycle and act preemptively. They may decide to delay certain discretionary expenditures or reevaluate vendor payment terms to maintain liquidity.

Using aging buckets to estimate write-offs

Starting in 2023, private entities that follow U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are required to implement new accounting rules for reporting credit losses on financial assets, including trade receivables. (The rules went into effect for most public companies in 2021.) The updated guidance requires companies to estimate an allowance for credit losses based on current expected credit losses (CECL) at each reporting date. The net amount reported on the balance sheet equals the amount expected to be collected. The CECL model essentially requires companies to estimate write-offs sooner than in the past.

Under prior accounting rules, a credit loss wasn’t recognized until it was probable the loss had been incurred, regardless of whether an expectation of credit loss existed beforehand. Under the CECL model, a loss allowance must be estimated based on historical information, current conditions, and reasonable and supportable forecasts. This estimate is often derived using historical default rates from aging buckets and adjusted for current and forecasted economic conditions. AR aging reports provide the historical and current data necessary to project the probability of default for various customer segments and invoice-age groups.

Estimated credit losses are recorded on the income statement as bad debt expense, directly reducing net income. Financial statement footnotes may also include detailed aging data and descriptions of how the loss estimate was developed, particularly if receivables represent a significant portion of the company’s assets.

It’s important to note that the Financial Accounting Standards Board is currently working on proposed guidance that, if approved, would allow private entities to use simpler assumptions to estimate credit losses on short-term receivables. However, regardless of whether the proposed simplification measures are approved, the AR aging report remains an essential tool. It helps quantify expected losses with or without complex forecasting.

A strategic management tool

QuickBooks® and many other accounting software platforms can generate real-time, customizable AR aging reports that integrate with customer relationship management systems for seamless tracking and follow-up.

If you’re unsure whether your current processes are CECL-compliant or you need assistance leveraging aging data to strengthen collections, credit policies, and budgeting decisions, we’re here to help. Contact us to maximize the potential of your receivables data.