Top Questions to Ask Your CFO [Video]

Are you having effective strategic sessions with your CFO monthly? To maximize your NPOs governance and planning, you should not only be meeting regularly, but asking critical questions and receiving vital insights on hidden opportunities and potential red flags regarding finances. The key is asking the right questions. Watch today’s Monday Money Moments video for more (and skim the transcript below).

Dana Miller (00:01): Hello, and welcome to Monday Money Moments with myself, your host, Dana Miller of Executive Financial Insights. Our topic this week is “top questions that you should be asking your CFO (your chief financial officer).”

(00:25): These are all of the questions you should be asking in no particular order, other than what is most important to you.

(00:37): So what would be most important to me is:

• What is our top earning program?
• How are we doing in the company?
• Can we take on debt in this company? When can we do so / how much can we take on?
  • And then your CFO should be asking YOU, why do you want to take on debt? What do you plan to do with it?
• Another question, where are the hidden opportunities in our numbers?

(01:12): Now, as you know, I have a course called Finances for Non-financial Executives, and the sole focus of that is looking for opportunities and red flags in your numbers, which is great. And you should definitely be taking this class and looking for this, but your CFO should also be pointing out things that they see in your numbers and coming down the pike in the marketplace.

(01:46): What risks do they see in the coming year?

This is in the marketplace, your neighborhood, your financials, your environment, and your organization. So it’s not just numbers. The CFO looks around and looks at the whole picture and identifies where things might be going wrong.

(02:16): What resources is your CFO following?

Which journals, magazines, online groups, committees, associations, newspapers, all of the things. Who and what are they following? Where are they getting their information, and who are they interacting with to stay up to date on what’s happening in your organization and in your world?

(02:48): Would they do anything differently if they were the CEO? How would they operate the organization? There’s some good between the lines questions there.

(03:02): Another question: What is our cash cushion? How long can we operate with no revenue, in months, in days, in weeks?

This information as we’ve talked about also is in the course that I offer: Finance for Non-financial Executives, and it’s under the metrics and key performance indicators.

So it’s something your CFO should be bringing to you. And it’s something you too should have an awareness of so that you can keep your eye on the ball, along with all the other things that you do as a CEO.

(03:48): Those are the main questions that I recommend you posit to your CFO on a monthly basis. Thank you for joining me. And for more information, check out www.executivefinancialinsights.com. Thank you.