We get it: Your teams are overworked, understaffed, and taking on tasks outside of their typical purview.

Enter cosourcing. It’s not a cure-all, but the teaming approach, in which external finance and accounting professionals work alongside internal teams, can help CFOs pledge more time to strategic initiatives, according to Chris Chiriatti, managing director in Deloitte’s national office accounting and reporting services group. Here, we chat with Chiriatti about the benefits and key skills associated with cosourcing.

This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.

If you were to sit down with a CFO and give them the ultimate business case of why they should consider cosourcing, what would your big picture argument be?

It’s recognizing that the financial reporting landscape continues to evolve, and with resources being constrained as they are, it’s very difficult for anyone within an organization—CFOs in particular—to be able to see all and be all. And leveraging the service provider who has the breadth and capabilities of really all the different disciplines can bring the right resources to the right needs at the right time.

And at the same time, provide industry insights to help really guide an organization through change, or even just address the status quo if that’s where they are in their life cycle. [It also releases] capacity for the CFO to go focus on more strategic things, and that’s really a key benefit of cosourcing. It’s being able to leverage down workstreams not to an individual FTE but to an organization who can address the needs differently to unlock that capacity for the CFO or CEO to focus on on more strategic initiatives.

For more on cosourcing as a solution to the talent shortage, click here.—NP

Financial leaders are sharing the deets on what helps CFOs do their best work, and you can be there to hear all of the info for the sweet, sweet price of free.

It’s all happening on June 25. All you have to do is register for Sage’s webinar: The Secrets of Successful CFOs. Hear from experts like Mark Floisand, EVP of Global Product Marketing at Sage, and Ed Kless, MetaConsultant at Tipping Point Advisors.

These pros will break down what it takes for a CFO to thrive, covering topics like embracing AI and tech savviness and getting work-life balance just right. They’ll also discuss:

• the impact of implementing AI
• how 88% of very successful finance leaders are using AI and automation tools
• their predictions on technological change

Don’t wait. Save your seat today.

Deepfake attacks are on the rise, and they’re hitting consumers where it hurts: in their bank accounts.

According to a new report from security tech company Pindrop, 67% of respondents said they’re concerned about the use of deepfakes and voice clones in the banking and finance sector. Those concerns aren’t unfounded, Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan told Tech Brew.

“Banks and financial institutions are almost [always] the first target for any new, sophisticated attack vector. And that’s because they offer the easiest way to money,” he said. “If I’m able to take over a banking account, I can actually, immediately, potentially wire-transfer money, order new credit cards, perform transactions—and I get real money very quickly.”

Since deepfakes burst into the public eye around 2019 with a high-profile, altered video of Nancy Pelosi, they’ve amused, confused, and exploited the images of unsuspecting people. (A Department of Homeland Security report notes that ​​95% of deepfakes depict “nonconsensual porn of women,” at least as of 2021.) But the potential for business losses are very real as well, as design firm Arup saw when it lost $25 million to a deepfake scam earlier this year.

Click here to continue reading Tech Brew’s story on the financial threat of deepfakes.—KG

In the immortal words of Kim Kardashian: “It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” And there’s one group of people who definitely aren’t working 200 times harder than everyone else—but they’re getting paid like it.

CEOs made almost 200 times what their workers did last year, according to a recent analysis by Equilar and the Associated Press. Median pay packages for S&P 500 CEOs jumped to $16.3 million, a 12.6% YoY increase.

Wages were also up for S&P workers—but at a tragicomically slower rate. Workers’ wages climbed 4.1% throughout 2023, and here’s the kicker: “At half the companies in this year’s pay survey, it would take the worker at the middle of the company’s pay scale almost 200 years to make what their CEO did,” according to the AP.

We haven’t crunched the numbers, but we have a feeling their meetings aren’t 200 times harder to sit through.

The trouble, besides everything, with this gap is that while paychecks finally grew faster than prices in 2023, the average American is still struggling with years of painful inflation, making any slight pay gains ultimately feel negligible.

For more on how CEO pay is growing, click here.—NP

Changes (AR)e coming. The way businesses move money is changing. Peer at what’s to come in the AR space with Paystand’s The Future of Accounts Receivable e-book. From the impact of AI to real-time payments, it’s got deets on all the trends that could help you elevate your work in 2024—and beyond. Snag the e-book.