Budgets where CFOs are lagging

New Zealand chief financial officers are finding their time is increasingly spent supporting management decisions and less on book-keeping.

A total of 400 CFOs and senior financial executives in 13 Asian-Pacific countries including New Zealand were interviewed for the Enhancing Value in Asia survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The survey was designed to explore the relationship between finance, governance and company's growth.

"The CFOs have confirmed there is a clear relationship," said Colin McCloy, PricewaterhouseCoopers Performance Improvement partner.

The role of CFO was also an evolving one.

Across Asia, just under half the CFOs (47 per cent) spent at least half their time on decision support to management and in New Zealand it was only slightly lower (41 per cent).

When asked how much time they spent on their traditional area of transaction processing, less than three out of 10 New Zealand CFOs said they spent more than half their time doing processing, while six out of 10 in Malaysia, China and Singapore did.

"It's not just about monthly results any more - it's about revisiting the whole issue of finance's role in supporting company growth," McCloy said.

The survey showed most CFOs were reasonably satisfied with transaction processing and reporting.

But they agreed that improvements were needed in planning, budgeting and forecasting.

In particular, New Zealand was "a long way behind with our budgeting processes compared with most other countries in the survey".

It took 73 per cent of New Zealand CFOs more than two months to complete the job.

While most respondents in Asia also took longer, several countries had lower rates, including India, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia, where only 33 per cent to 41 per cent of companies struggled to meet the two-month deadline.

McCloy said the survey did not ask why budgeting was so slow and suggested it was a subject for further research.

- NZPA