What your finance department should make you feel

Interactions with finance can be soothing, dreadful, or anything in between. It’s clear which side of the spectrum is preferred.

So… what traits does a finance department that makes you feel calm have?

It is reliable. Teams have to be able to get information with accuracy, consistently. This builds trust. With trust you create an ecosystem that uses finance as an “oracle” from which to get guidance and make better decisions.

Also, working with reliable data feels good. It’s empowering.

Now, information has to be timely. If information is reliable but late, it’s useless. If it’s reliable and timely, you have a powerhouse function. This is the only way other functions can feel confident to make decisions.

Finance operators should be partners to other functions. The sense of having a trusted advisor walk you through your path and help you anticipate challenges can drive confidence and push projects to completion.

The department has to be objective and practice fairness. If there are two initiatives competing for a budget, the selection should be based on the project that adds the most value to the organization, not friendships or tenure. If objectivity is well managed, it inspires and drives credibility.

It definitely has to be clear in their messaging. Good finance leaders are storytellers: they provide a narrative behind the numbers. This makes any goal or strategy more robust too: if more people understand them, more people are likely to follow them.

They are proactive. The most dreaded financial departments are the reactive ones. Strong finance teams have a function with well-defined processes and responsibilities: you can throw anything at them and they will know what to do.

Wouldn’t having a finance team like this make you feel calm and confident -and even strong- as an organization?