Sixthfin CFO survey: what really troubles finances bosses

1 in 3 CFOs is not highly confident in the reliability of post close figures. Sixthfin’s CFO Report highlights issues with the closing process in medium to large companies.

In the report, CFOs acknowledge that data integrity will be vital for the future. The industry is looking to AI for answers, but will need to be certain of its figures, and manage the process of transformation.

Reliability of figures: the top priority for CFOs, and yet…

Confidence remains a sticking point. Over a third of CFOs have a lack of confidence in the reliability of their figures. And yet they know that unreliable numbers have very real risks. The research finds that 67% of respondents rank improving the reliability of accounts as their numberone priority, a clear sign that current tools and processes are not yet fully meeting this critical challenge. Tasks that are still mainly carried out using spreadsheets include: accruals (57%), manual journal entries (54%), close calendar management (53%).

The financial close is therefore STILL a major source of stress for Finance teams

The close places a heavy burden on teams: 97% of CFOs acknowledge its impact on workload, and 93% on employee motivation.

Sources of stress are multiple and cumulative:

• deadlines (96%),
  
• lack of time for analysis (86%),
  
• parallel projects (88%),
  
• tool quality (93%),
  
• data reliability (86%).
  
  

As a result, the closing process also weighs heavily on UK leadership: less than 1 in 2 finance departments consider the close management to be ‘very satisfactory’.

AI is a widely endorsed as a lever for the future, but confidence still needs to be strengthened

CFOs report AI as a key driver for improvement. The expectation is that it will resolve issues across all closing activities, such as: automation of repetitive tasks (currently reported by 84%), improved reliability and anomaly detection (80%), fraud identification (77%), and financial planning (79%).

However, the study highlights an important nuance. Confidence remains predominantly “fairly confident” rather than “fully confident”. Adoption is real, but deeprooted conviction still needs to be built.

The report concludes that the transformation of Finance functions is under way, but the closing process remains a major point of friction. It is now vital that CFOs structure and secure the analysis and reconciliation phases, so that they can rely on the quality of their financial data.

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