How a Financial Reporting Dashboard Can Help Your CFO Office Make Better Decisions

The role of the CFO has undergone an evolution over the last 20 years. Thanks to rapidly increasing digitalization in business, many of the accounting duties that were once the CFO’s bread and butter are now automated.

As a CFO, it’s no longer enough to have the best accounting skills. The modern CFO needs to be a strategic decision maker, team leader, and liaison who inspires confidence. To be successful in each of these roles, you need quick access to a simple overview of your company’s financial data, all in one place.

Better Decisions with the Financial Dashboard

Technology may have changed the role of the CFO, but it can also make your job easier. By leveraging new technology, CFOs can make more informed, strategic business decisions.

But trying to compile a comprehensive report on your own can be time-consuming. And data visualization tools that come with basic spreadsheet software lack many key features. That’s why financial dashboards are becoming the new standard for CFOs looking to increase efficiency and guide future strategy.

A fine-tuned financial dashboard analyzes and compiles your company’s most relevant data from multiple sources in real time. Here’s how a good CFO dashboard can help you make better financial decisions.

Staying Current

Dashboard reporting will keep you current by combining real-time data from multiple sources. A good financial dashboard gives you a comprehensive snapshot of your company’s most up-to-date financial data.

When you have a bird’s-eye view of key metrics, your company can stay agile. What if your cash on hand starts to plummet unexpectedly? With dashboard reporting, you’ll be able to take action immediately instead of being caught off guard at the end of the month.

Taking the Broad View

As a CFO, we know you love numbers. But sometimes it can be easy to get lost in the weeds. A well-crafted CFO dashboard will give you a daily reminder of the bigger picture. Modern companies rely on their CFOs to act as financial strategists. When you have the broad view in mind, you’ll be better equipped to meet the challenges facing your business.

Avoiding Uncertainty in Decision-Making

An overview of your company’s data is useful. But the best data solutions offer analytic power so you can truly take advantage of your data. Data analytics doesn’t just summarize your data; it gives you meaningful predictions and insights, which allows you to leave uncertainty behind and start making confident, data-driven decisions.

The Modern CFO’s Dashboard

Not all software solutions are created equal. The modern CFO’s dashboard needs to include some key features to be effective.

Connect to Multiple Data Sources

Fast-growing businesses are complex. No matter how complex your business is, an effective financial dashboard should help you see the whole picture. That means automatically bringing together all of your data from multiple sources.

Simple to Use

The latest high-tech tool won’t do you any good if it’s too complicated to use. A good financial dashboard should provide a user-friendly interface that delivers the most relevant metrics for your business. A simple design also makes dashboard reporting accessible, which promotes information sharing and collaboration at all levels of your organization, not just among the finance experts.

Customizable

Every business has a unique identity, and so should each financial dashboard. A CFO dashboard must be customizable. You’ll want the option to mix and match components to create a financial report that’s tailored to your business. A good dashboard will let you easily switch out data visuals to meet your changing needs.

Conclusion

The responsibilities of the modern CFO are expanding beyond simple accounting duties. As a result, financial dashboard reporting and analysis is critical for strategic CFOs. A good financial dashboard allows you to simplify your reporting, accelerate decision making and see the bigger picture.

Looking for a CFO dashboard to bring your financial reporting to the next level? insightsoftware gives you forecasting and predictive analytics capabilities, the ability to combine all relevant data from disparate sources and access critical dashboards in real-time from any device.