WANTED: Systems Accountant
Everywhere · Full time · Finance (kinda)
Purpose of role: manually reconcile between two systems that should already speak to each other.
Salary: $$$ plus benefits.
This is a role that shouldn’t need to exist, if only the core systems were right. And the salary is the cheap part… the real costs are the weaker, slower decisions that come from the slow drag on information throughout the business.
TLDR: Scrap that hire. Fix the ledger.
When your business is short of cash, it’s hard as a CFO to think about anything else.
You feel personally responsible for starving the business of the oxygen it needs to thrive… or even survive.
I remember one period that was particularly rough; I was forced to make liquidity my sole priority.
And for good reason... we had a bunch of issues:
An upcoming covenant breach had caught us off guard. We needed to handle it delicately, but urgently, with our current lenders.
We were negotiating new funding with a tricky lender who would use any excuse to move the goalposts. That needed pushing in just the right way, at just the right time.
Working capital volatility was seesawing our short-term cash flow forecast. Up by $20M one week and back down the next. So it was hard to separate performance issues from forecast accuracy issues. It needed constant attention to make sure we understood where we really were.
And I was determined to improve some of the underlying forecasting processes as we went, so we wouldn’t end up in the same position again.
Now, in theory, those things were all tightly connected around a single theme: cashflow and funding. So hunkering down with a singular focus felt efficient and correct.
The challenge, of course, was that they couldn’t be isolated from the rest of the business.
In fact, most were downstream from tough trading conditions and the business’s response to them. What we CFOs affectionately call, on earnings calls, “headwinds.”
Coded CFO speak for: “fuck, things are hard, better put your seat belt on….”
So, on paper, my approach sounded sensible: put almost all of my attention into the biggest problem area.
It felt tight and focused... but in practice, it was anything but.
I’d go from a detailed cash flow forecast review, to a critical introductory meeting with a new lender, to a process remap with the treasury team.
Then some part of the business would piss the bed in sales, margin or inventory and the whole cash picture would change again.
I was working 70-plus-hour weeks, under a lot of pressure, and spinning in circles.
While the prioritization was right… I can see now that the mistake was in how I organized the work.
Welcome to week two of this five-part series of The Secret CFO’s Playbook: The CFO Operating System.
Last week, we kicked the series off by defining exactly what a CFO operating system is, and why you have one whether you realize it or not.
It boils down to the most effective way of rationing the scarcest resource you have: your attention. And how you ultimately control the quality, direction, and altitude of that attention. Get that right, and your hard-earned technical skills, people skills, and experience will carry you so far.
I’m frequently surprised by who does this well. It’s very hard to predict who will and won’t be able to.
I remember having two BU CFOs several years ago:
One, Dominic, was quite limited technically, a bit surly and, on paper, didn’t look like a particularly good fit. But he had this awesome knack for being right where he needed to be, when he needed to be.
Meanwhile, Kevin had a far broader technical toolkit, was a great communicator, and had more leadership experience. But he, and therefore his team, always just seemed to be working on the wrong things at the wrong times.
There was no comparison between their output as CFOs; Dominic was much better.
I promise you, if you saw their résumés side by side and even met them both, you would pick Kevin for the role 100 times out of 100.
But having seen them in action, there was no question Dominic was the more effective operator.
And the only difference Dominic had over Kevin was that he had mastered the art of managing the attention and him and his team. And Kevin had not.
The Four Operating Modes of the CFO
In the opening story, despite feeling like I was only working on one thing, the breadth and chaos that came from feeling like I was switching between things felt worse than ever. Slowing me down and making me less efficient right when I needed to be on it.
Why?
Because the subject matter of your attention as a CFO is only one variable. It’s the obvious variable. But it’s not the only one. And I’d argue it’s not even the most important one when it comes to managing your operating system.
The subject tells you what you are working on.
It doesn’t tell you how you need to operate.
For that, I think there are four distinct operating modes of the CFO, which I have (somewhat forcibly) called The Four Es.
Do not think of these as categories of finance work.
Think of them as the operating demands placed on you and your team.
The reason the load in my opening story felt so demanding, despite the relatively narrow focus, was that I was constantly switching between modes.
I was moving from Everyday management, like cash flow forecasting accuracy, to an Event, like active fundraising, to an Emergency, like a covenant reset, while also trying to Evolve the underlying processes so we were in better shape next time.
And I was switching between those modes several times within the same day, which even on a narrow topic… was exhausting and inefficient.
So, with that understanding, I want to tackle each of the Four Es in more detail, and what each one actually means on the ground.
And then we will come to how they interact…
Everyday - Core Cadence
Your Everyday mode is the core machinery of finance and the business.
Examples: Month-end close. Management reporting. Forecasting. Business partnering. Cash management. Functional management. Performance management. Controls & compliance. Board reporting.
This is the work on a predictable rhythm every week, month or quarter. It’s the kind of stuff you’ll find in your job spec. It requires a repeatable, predictable kind of attention rather than constant reinvention.
Last week, we talked about different altitudes and qualities of attention. If you’ve got those dialed in, a strong Everyday rhythm allows you to cover an enormous amount of ground.
You scan broadly, then dive deep into whatever warrants greater attention.
One adjustment I had to make when I moved into a broader Group CFO role was shifting from a largely weekly Everyday rhythm to a monthly one.
It meant I could cover a much larger surface area, build a pulse on what was happening, and spot the things that needed a deeper dive.
And occasionally those deeper dives would uncover something that didn’t belong in Everyday at all, but in one of the other three Es (more on that in a moment).
The power of a strong Everyday rhythm is simple: better coverage, fewer surprises.
But it is harder to run well than it sounds. It needs a coordinated calendar. Consistently prepared information. Clear ownership. A common expectation of what gets surfaced and what doesn’t.
And not just inside finance. This becomes part of the operating cadence of the business. Some people are naturally brilliant at this stuff. They have Inbox Zero, run 10K before breakfast and presumably iron their socks.
Others, like me, enjoy the discipline of a good routine but need a forcing function to make it happen. You should know which you are and build your support accordingly (more on how next week).
A few notes of caution:
Your cadence creates work for everybody else: Every review you add creates preparation, analysis, and meetings underneath it. So be thoughtful about frequency. The right cadence depends on how quickly the area changes, how much risk sits in it, and how long you can afford to wait before spotting something. If monthly or quarterly is enough, don’t make it weekly.
Batch your time: When oversight activities sit together, you start connecting what you hear across them. A margin issue in one business. A working capital movement somewhere else. A hiring pattern. A strange forecast assumption. Individually, they might mean little. Together, they give you the pulse of the business. Put them together at the same time each week / month. It helps you build rhythm.
It isn’t all oversight: Some Everyday work still needs actual CFO production and judgment. Board preparation. Building an investor guidance narrative. Making resource calls. Coaching your team. The ‘Everyday’ mode needs to leave room for you actually doing the work, not just reviewing everyone else’s.
Everyday work is never really finished: There is always another forecast to refine, another review to run, another stakeholder who would like more support from finance. So you have to decide how much capacity Everyday gets, because it will happily consume every hour you give it.
Events - Finite Intensity
Your Events mode is for big pieces of work with a beginning, an end and a defined outcome.
Examples: Acquisitions. Disposals. Refinancing. Equity raises. Annual budget. System implementations. Restructurings. Investor events. Major contract negotiations
If Everyday mode is like an infinite marathon that demands a consistent rhythm and pace, then Event mode is a short, intense sprint.
These are the the one-liners on your job spec: “Leading occasional M&A as needed” that can totally upend your life when they appear.
They need high-intensity, focused attention for a defined period. It’s less of a scanning kind of attention and requires more deliberate depth and intensity.
These are often high-stakes, sliding-doors moments for a business, packed full of non-routine, high-judgment, time-sensitive decisions.
You need to be plugged in and ready to react without ‘needing a few days to get back up to speed.’ That means carrying a lot of context around in your head, which taxes your brain, and drains from the other modes.
There is also a lot of altitude-switching. On an M&A deal, you might spend one minute thinking about strategic rationale and the overall economics, then suddenly find yourself three levels down arguing about a working capital mechanism that could move the price by $20 million.
You need to know which details warrant the dive without becoming the project manager for the whole thing.
Events will often disrupt your normal operating rhythm.
If you’ve ever done a big M&A deal, you’ll know it can consume basically all of your time and more. You’ll be thinking about it in the shower. Probably talking about it in your sleep.
And, inconveniently, your day job doesn’t go anywhere. Events do not create extra CFO hours, they have to steal them from other things.
A few notes of caution:
Events are seductive: An M&A deal hits the desk and your eyes light up. Suddenly you are picturing yourself like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. They’re interesting, important and full of senior people making consequential decisions. It is very easy to over-invest your attention simply because you enjoy them. Knowing when to activate yourself, and when to stay out, is key.
Some Events are a complete waste of time: Plenty of M&A / funding opportunities deals die. Some because they were executed badly, but plenty because they were never particularly likely to happen in the first place. Identifying that early can save an enormous dilution of attention.
Beware Events-as-usual: Some businesses are structurally heavy on M&A, fundraising, transformation or long-running implementations. My last role was like that. One of the keys to surviving it was building more permanent Everyday capacity around recurring types of Events. This is why acquisitive businesses build Corp Dev teams, or transformation-heavy businesses create dedicated transformation capacity. We’ll come back to how you build that capacity later in the series.
Emergencies - Crisis Mode
Emergency mode is for those unplanned, consequential and time-critical things that torpedo everything else.
Examples: Liquidity crunch. Covenant breach. Profit warning. Major forecast miss. Control failure. Fraud. Cyber incident. Audit crisis. Critical payment failure.
They are distinct from Events because you don’t get to choose when they happen. You do not elect an Emergency. It happens to you.
If Events are about sprinting a planned race, an Emergency is more like sprinting away for your life from an angry bear.
Bad news in itself needn’t be an Emergency. What defines one is the combination of consequence and urgency: waiting materially worsens the outcome or starts closing down your options.
It requires a similar intensity to Event mode, with the same high-quality, judgment-heavy attention. But it creates a very different emotional state.
Where an Event is usually about trying to move the ceiling upwards, an Emergency is about stopping the floor from collapsing beneath you. They often come with a sense of existential dread and responsibility which is tiring.
In Emergencies, everyone drops down an altitude or two. There is very little scanning. You need detail, speed, and great judgment while the facts are changing underneath you.
But remember, we aren’t saving lives. Genuine Emergencies should be rare in a well-run finance function. I say that without judgment, having had far more than my fair share.
A few notes of caution:
Not everything urgent is an Emergency: Normal Everyday pressure does not need war-room behavior. If everything is urgent, nothing is.
Emergency mode is infectious: If your team sees you running around like a blue-assed fly (you can thank my mother for that phrase), canceling meetings, demanding ad hoc analysis, and changing priorities every five minutes, they’ll adopt the same chaotic approach.
Do not confuse firefighting ability with great CFO-ing: Being excellent when something catches fire is useful. Needing something to be on fire before the organization can move is not… that’s weak culture
Know when to get out: Daily calls, centralized decisions, and constant escalation might be entirely appropriate for a while, but don’t let it become your Everyday system.
Emergency mode is a legitimate temporary operating mode and a disastrous permanent management style. If you find yourself wrestling an emergency right now; you might find my crisis management playbook from last year useful
Evolution - Building Better
Evolution is about the deliberate work you do today to make the machine run better tomorrow.
Examples: Finance vision. Process redesign. Operating model redesign. Team upgrades. Capability building. Systems roadmaps. Automation. Control improvement. Data improvement. Finance transformation.
To stick with our running analogy, this isn’t about the race. It’s about the training you do to make tomorrow’s running better.
The core challenge with Evolution work is that we too often think about it like an Event; a transformation program, system implementation, big reorganization.
Something with a kickoff meeting, a steering committee and an end date. But true evolution in finance and the business rarely works that way.
It happens when improvement gets built into the fabric of Everyday. When looking for a better process, a cleaner control, a smarter use of technology or a better way of organizing the team becomes part of your permanent state of mind.
Done well, Evolution doesn’t just mean better-quality Everyday time tomorrow. It should mean less Everyday time, and fewer Emergencies.
A few notes of caution:
Perpetual postponement: “After year-end.” “After budget.” “After the deal.” “After the system go-live.” There is always another excuse. Evolution rarely screams loud enough to win the battle for today’s attention unless you make real sacrifice for it.
Transformation theater and over-engineering: Big roadmap. Shiny deck. Little actual improvement. Turning one broken process into a two-year program.
Trying to improve everything at once: Evolution should compound. It does not need to (and rarely does) arrive as one giant reinvention of finance.
Using Evolution to avoid today’s problems: Some CFOs love designing the future because it is much more exciting than fixing basic discipline now.
How the Four Es compete for attention
Don’t think about the Four Es as categories of work; they describe the mode you are operating in.
You can tackle every month-end close like it’s an Emergency; many do. And, with enough preparation and discipline, you can sometimes tackle something that looks like a crisis in something much closer to Everyday mode.
The modes typically behave like this:
Everyday naturally fills whatever space is available.
Events seize chunks of the space.
Emergencies blow the whole plan apart.
And Evolution is like a unsecured creditor with the last claim on todays time.
And, of course, these modes are not independent.
Which, looping back to my opening story, is why I was spinning in circles.
A lack of Evolution had made my Everyday harder. Our forecasting process was too slow, too painful, and not accurate enough. Other Events, including M&A activity, had distracted attention from that Everyday discipline. That contributed to an Emergency: a covenant problem arriving faster than expected. The Emergency then swallowed even more capacity, leaving even less time to improve the forecasting process that caused the problem in the first place.
You can probably see the doomloop here:
Neglect Everyday → create Emergencies → lose capacity → postpone Evolution → Everyday stays painful → create more Emergencies… etc etc
If you feel like you are always trying to sprint a marathon, it’s probably because you and your team are in some version of this.
And the frustrating thing is that the quiet day you’re waiting for, when you finally get time to fix everything properly… it just never comes. It’s a lie you tell yourself to feel better.
Once the cycle is really spinning, you normally need to create some kind of breakwater.
Bring in temporary resources to rebuild the most broken thing. Put extra bodies onto forecast accuracy. Lock the team in a room for a weekend and hack out a better process. Pause a major project for three months.
Something that creates enough temporary capacity to interrupt the loop. In my case in that opening story, I decided to pause the fundraising, to get the control back. It was hard to explain to the board (I got eviscerated actually, lol.)
We’ll get more into ways you can create capacity when you need it most across the rest of the series. In the meantime here’s some homework to help set you on your journey:
Net-net
Of course - like everything - this is all about balance.
Protecting Everyday. Investing in Evolution. While still being able to pivot hard into Events and Emergencies when they demand it.
The problem is how easy it is to sleepwalk into a default mode, then only realize much later that you’ve been operating in the wrong one for far too long.
Being more conscious of the Four Es, and where you need to make more deliberate choices, is a good start.
But awareness on its own is never enough. What you really need is an operating system built to protect capacity for each mode, and to flex when the mix changes. And that’s what we’ll start building next week
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Disclaimer: I am not your accountant, tax advisor, lawyer, CFO, director, or friend. Well, maybe I’m your friend, but I am not any of those other things. Everything I publish represents my opinions only, not advice. Running the finances for a company is serious business, and you should take the proper advice you need.
