Expanding the CFO role: navigating broader reporting and strategic value creation

The role of the CFO has evolved dramatically. Once focused purely on financial oversight, today's finance leaders are now central to shaping strategy, driving long-term value and delivering insight across both financial and non-financial elements.

As a result, CFO financial reporting is evolving into a more expansive discipline – one that blends compliance with foresight and integrates traditional financial metrics with broader, value-driven performance indicators. Meeting these expectations demands a smarter, more agile financial reporting strategy that reflects the full scope of what drives business success today.
 

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The expanding role of the CFO in reporting

Traditionally, a CFO’s remit was strictly financial, looking at areas such as financial control, management accounting, taxation and compliance. But that’s changing. Businesses now expect finance leaders to influence areas far beyond finance, including operational strategy, data analytics and sustainability.

This change is elevating the role of financial reporting from historical record-keeping to forward-looking insight. It means integrating more data sources, broadening the reporting lens and building structures that enable better decision-making across the entire organisation.

This transformation is already underway, and it’s reshaping what effective reporting looks like.
 

Strategic reporting: key areas CFOs must now address

CFOs today are navigating an increasingly complex reporting landscape. Strategic reporting responsibilities now span everything from environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics to capital allocation, risk transparency and stakeholder communication.

Here are some of the core areas where CFOs are expanding their focus:

ESG and sustainability reporting

One of the most high-profile shifts in CFO financial reporting is the need to report accurately and transparently on ESG performance.

Our research with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) shows that finance teams are playing a growing role in shaping the quality and reliability of ESG disclosures. Whether for regulators, investors, or internal stakeholders, sustainability reporting is fast becoming a core element of the finance function.

Rather than mastering the technical aspects of climate science or social governance, CFOs can apply their analytical skills to ensure ESG data is consistent, comparable and decision-useful – just like traditional financial data.

Read more: Why do CFOs need to be on board with ESG and sustainability?

Integrated Value Reporting

Frameworks like the IIRC's Integrated Reporting Framework are encouraging organisations to think more holistically about how value is created and reported. This includes six dimensions of capital: Financial, Manufactured, Intellectual, Human, Social and Relationship and Natural.

For CFOs, this means rethinking how different parts of the organisation contribute to long-term performance – and how to reflect that in a coherent financial reporting strategy. It also means developing the ability to report across both financial and non-financial domains in a way that tells a unified performance story.

Forecasting, modelling and forward-looking insight

As reporting becomes more strategic, it also becomes more forward-looking. CFOs are expected not just to explain what happened, but to anticipate what’s next. This involves:

• Building models that account for multiple future scenarios
• Integrating operational data into financial forecasts
• Highlighting risks and opportunities for proactive planning

 

These capabilities are increasingly essential to CFO reporting, especially in uncertain or rapidly evolving markets.

Read more: How CFOs are leading data-driven decision making
 

Tools and talent: building the capability for strategic reporting

Delivering on this expanded reporting agenda requires more than the right mindset. It requires the right infrastructure, tools and people.

Automation and advanced analytics is vital to managing increasing complexity, reducing manual effort, improving accuracy and freeing up time for strategic interpretation. But technology isn’t enough on its own. CFOs also need to ensure their teams have access to specialist skills, and that the finance function is resourced strategically, whether in-house or through external partnerships.

Outsourcing select areas of reporting, or leveraging external expertise, can help CFOs stay agile and focused on high-value activities.
 

How can we help?

At BDO, we help CFOs design and implement smarter financial reporting strategies – blending financial, operational, and ESG data into a single, strategic view.

Let's talk about how we can support your reporting transformation.

Find out more

Chief Value Officer: The Important Evolution of the CFO copyright © 2023 by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). All rights reserved. Used with permission of ACCA. Contact insights@accaglobal.com for permission to reproduce, store or transmit, or to make other similar uses of this document.