Finance officers must go beyond the figures

THE Sub-Saharan African Director of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Mr Jamil Ampomah, has tasked Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) to stop what he terms as “hiding behind the numbers” and broaden their horizons to enable them create value for their respective businesses.



He consequently urged them to go beyond managing the financial accounts and risks of their companies alone and contribute to “business strategy while acting as a ‘guardian of the company’s brand both internally and externally.”

Mr Ampomah made the call when he addressed a forum organised by the ACCA, on the theme ‘Accountant for Business Roundtable Discussion,’ in Accra.

“The role of the CFO has transformed and expanded well beyond a traditional focus on finance accounting and reporting responsibilities,” Mr Ampomah said, and added that companies all over the world expected toady’s CFO to act as the “gatekeepers, especially when managers have projects or investment ideas to pitch.”

He identified the need for finance professionals and CFOs to act as ‘standard bearers’ of integrity for their businesses in addition to being relied on by their business leaders to manage and mitigate risks as the most daring roles currently expected from the CFO.

On the relevance of managing risks within companies, the director said the ACCA “believes that risks needs to be better identified and managed than they have been in the past.

He explained that current trends in the corporate world had made it necessary for risk managers and CFOs for that matter to first recognise the existence of behavioural risks as “being crucial to the process of risk management.

“Risk management also needs to be seen within the wider framework of good corporate governance,” he added.

The programme which torched on risk assesments and management, the role of the CFO in taking an investment decision among others had companies finance directors and consultants, managing directors and chief accountants as its guest discussants.

The roundtable discussion also gave members the opportunity to debate on the yet to be implemented integrated reporting which when implemented, would see finance officials of companies integrating financial and non-financial information in their company’s end of year financial reports.

It was attended by the ACCA’s sub-Saharan members, including those in Ghana.