This document summarizes a webinar on choosing between buying or building best-in-class finance and accounting functions. It discusses that finance excellence has four dimensions: strategy, process, talent, and technology. It also outlines assessing the current state, conducting cleanup, and stabilizing operations before transforming. The path includes assessing costs and controls, conducting cleanup to ensure accurate historical data, and options for stabilization including internal rebuilding, outsourcing, or a hybrid model. Finally, it compares considerations for fully building the function internally versus buying services externally or using a hybrid approach.

1. BEST-IN-CLASS FINANCE
AND ACCOUNTING:
June 17, 2021 | C-Suite Snacks Webinar Series
Should You Buy or Build?

2. Welcome &
Introduction
Jason Slivka
Executive Vice President,
Strategic Initiatives
jslivka@citrincooperman.com
646.905.3530
Steve Ronan
Principal, Business Process
Outsourcing Practice Leader
sronan@citrincooperman.com
203.628.2439

3. Finance excellence has four
dimensions
Using business results
and forecasts to
provide outstanding
decision support
Achieving high
velocity, efficiency,
and reliability across
core processes
Putting the right
people in the right
places within the right
culture
Using technology-
forward thinking to
drive efficiency and
innovation
Strategy
Process
Talent
Tech

4. Ultimately, finance should drive
the strategy
Decision Support
What has happened and
why
What is happening and why
What may happen and how
to influence it
Enable rich, deep reporting by getting good business data into systems
quickly with a high level of integrity every time, and offering tools and
processes to analyze and forecast business activities

5. The path to finance excellence
Assess Clean-up Stabilize Transform
Using financial
information to guide
consistent strategic
decision making
effectively.
360 degree
understanding of
where the entity has
been, where it is and
where it wants to go.
Taking action to ensure
the entity’s history is
accurate and
comparable for
evaluation purposes.
Operating the entity
efficiently and
effectively to ensure
cost minimization and
best practices.
The path to financial excellence is outcome driven. We are cleaning-up
and stabilizing so that we can transform effectively.

6. A complete finance assessment
Our rapid finance assessment assesses the totality of finance and accounting.
Process and controls maturity
Cost Benchmarks
Systems and integrations
Strategic Alignment
Month-end close
Condition of the books

7. Clean-up
• How far back do we go?
• How detailed should we be (ie. transactional, GL, etc.)?
• What is our eventual reporting output (ie. monthly, annually, etc.)?
• Are we looking at differences in accrual v. cash?
• Are we looking at differences in accounting standards?
• How will technology enable or frustrate the process?
• How long do we have to complete the clean-up?
• Are there any entity level complexities that may impact the work?

8. Stabilization Options
Internal Stabilization
• Controller or CFO
• Properly size and train staff
• Implement key controls
• Write new key reports
• 10 – 15 day close
Outsourced
• Full stack finance team
• Controller/CFO oversight
• Flexible staff, indexed to
transactional volume
• Key reports
• 5 – 10 day close
Hybrid
• Option 1: Outsourced
Controller/CFO + Internal Staff
• Option 2: Internal Controller/CFO
+ Outsourced Staff
• Key controls
• Key reports
• 5 – 10 day close
Considerations
• Total cost
• Speed
• Ability to retain people and capabilities
• Management patience / priorities
Challenges
• Tight talent marketplace
• Technology – how specific, integrated
• Owner expectations
• Internal management capabilities

9. Why “transformation?”
“Transformation” groups organizational, process, and systems changes into functional sprints to enable an
agile, iterative set of projects that realizes benefits faster and reduces the risk of implementation. In the middle
market,
Connect Talent,
Process, Systems,
and Enterprise Value
1. Scope
2. Org changes
3. Technology
implementation
4. Process re-
design
• Define logical groups of processes to change together
• Match level of change to organizational bandwidth
• Define value and goals up-front and revisit in each
subsequent phase
• Build on the capabilities of each earlier phase
• Define how the organization needs to be structured
conceptually up-front
• Design the leadership roles required immediately
• Migrate people into new roles by phase
• Re-design processes in parallel with technology
implementation
• Standardize wherever possible and leverage
automation for common processes
• Involve new global process owners in process design
• Identify how current systems can be changed or
consolidated first
• Run selection processes for each new system
• Create platform commonality
• Implement technologies that will support and drive
process changes

10. What does transformation look
like
10
Process Design
System Ecosystem Design
Organizational Model Design
Policies and Procedures

11. Buying vs. building finance
transformation
Rapid Finance
Assessment
Design Implementation Stabilization
• Organizational design
• Business processes
• System selection
• Define controls and
policies
• Hiring and training
• System implementation
• Write policies and
procedures / accounting
manual
• Scoping
• Playbook
refinement
& adoption
• Systems
onboarding
Onboarding Outsourcing
• Transition to operations
• Ongoing stabilization
• Hiring and training
• System implementation
• Write policies and
procedures
Outsourcing / hybrid
Full internal build
Time

12. Which model is right for you?
Build Buy Hybrid 1
Outsourced Controllership,
FP&A; in-house CFO
Hybrid 2
Outsourced CFO, Controller, or
FP&A; in-house staff
Hybrid 3
Outsource transactional
accounting, all Controller and
above in-house
Pros • Full control and
optionality
• Flexible tech
• Value of ownership
• Faster iteration
• Tax benefits
• Faster
• Easier talent acquisition
• Less day-to-day
management
• Integrated best practices
• Easy to get higher-level
skills
• CFO gets to focus on
strategy and decision
support
• Can still get mature tech
from outsourcing provider
• Cost savings potential
• Lessen administrative
burden
• Scales easily
• Great decision support
• Retain responsiveness of
in-house staff
• Can still get mature tech
from outsourcing provider
• Lower cost resource
model
• “punch above your
weight” in high-skilled
areas
• Lower cost
• Easier to manage
• Senior staff gets to focus
on strategy and decision
support
Cons • More expensive
• Sower
• Requires full ongoing
internal management of
the function
• Don’t have full control
over staffing
• Does not build internal
expertise over time
• No skills uplift or
transferability
• Difficult for heavy
customer-service
• Less internal oversight
• May not always have
niche business knowledge
• Focused just on cost
• Processes must be highly
disciplined
Good
for
• Larger, more complex
businesses
• Businesses with
aggressive exit targets
• Lean management teams
• Young companies
• Fast-paced CEOs and
family owners
• Businesses with high
transactional volume
• Companies that don’t
need a full-time CFO
• Hyper-growth companies

13. Questions?

14. Thank You
F o r Wa t c h i n g & L i s t e n i n g
UPCOMING C-SUITE SNACKS WEBINARS:
DETERMINING THE VALUE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
June 24, 2021 | 12:00 PM ET/9:00 AM PT
Featuring: Mandeep Trivedi, Principal, Valuation Advisory Services Practice Leader