About This Episide

Kevin Mckenzie, CFO of SimpleNexus and I sit down to discuss his process for running an efficient finance team. Currently, Kevin’s finance team completes the monthly close process within two business days after the close of the month. This enables him to provide timely data to the executive team and board. We deep dive into his process and go through the key processes, meetings, and deliverables that he expects from his finance team. We also discuss important issues like how to gauge your finance team’s effectiveness and what are the signs that you need to expand your team.

Introduction: 

• Anthony – CFO Leader Intro 
  • Topic Introduction Running your Finance Department
  • Anthony to Introduce Kevin McKenzie
  • Welcome to CFOleader.com podcast where we provide tactical and practical knowledge for the modern CFO. 
  • 109MM Series B Raised 

Running a Finance Department

• General Discussion
  • As companies grow, what indicates, in your mind, that you need to grow the finance department? 
  • How do you know your finance department is running efficiently? 
  • How should you structure your team?
    • What are the departments
    • Who roles up to who? 
    • Any thoughts on best practices for organization? 
    • Do you offer bonuses to your finance team? If so how do you measure performance?
  • Mistakes/Landmines you have seen or experienced with running a finance team? 
  • Monthly Close process is central to the finance team, how do you like your finance teams to run?
    • Goal for Monthly Close Date? 
    • What is your cadence of meeting with your team? 
    • Key Processes/Procedures?
      • The role of estimates? 
      • Do you have a monthly close book/folder? How do you like things organized? 
      • When you are reviewing the monthly close, what is your thought process? What are you looking for?
  • For finance operations, what are the systems/tools you use that facilitate a speedy monthly close.
    • Recommendations for CFO’s
    • Payroll is a big cost as most companies, how do you think about the payroll process and controls around payroll, etc.