CFO stress: Are manual processes the cause?

A new study says a lot of CFOs (83%) are feeling stressed out. And outdated systems may be to blame.

According to DataRails, a financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users, 81% of CFOs say their daily workflows are more manually intensive than any of their fellow C-suite pros.

Two hundred CFOs at companies with up to 500 employees said their most common manual process pain points are:

• multiple versions of reports
• fixing errors, and
• chasing data.

Also, they said 41% of data gathering for budget and profit/loss reports, balance sheets and month-end reporting is manual.

And that adds up to 10 hours each week that CFOs could be using for strategic analysis or value creation.

As a result of manual overload, CFOs say they:

• spend less time with family and friends (48%)
• are dissatisfied with their job performance (37%), and
• get bored at work (31%).

Busting CFO stress, inefficiency

Besides exploring finance automation solutions, which a third of your peers have done, another area to consider is whether you’re using Excel to its full potential.

Most companies (70%) use Excel for budgeting and forecasting, but only 18% of CFOs say they’re Excel experts.

The majority (53%) of CFOs rated their skills between basic and intermediate to advanced.

The researchers advised creating a policy for updating Excel. That includes training the rest of the finance team on what’s new and efficiently using it.

Good resources for improving your Excel skills include ResourcefulFinancePro’s Excel Tips section and LearnExcelNow.com.