In the news: Charlotte Carter on closing the spend visibility gap - featured in Finance Derivative
Proactis VP of Solutions Charlotte Carter sets out why CFOs in service-led organisations are still operating without complete visibility of spend, supplier commitments, and contract risk - and what it takes to change that. Writing for Finance Derivative, Charlotte identifies three structural gaps that consistently appear together, and explains why closing them is a CFO decision as much as a technology one.
Three gaps, one fix
In her Finance Derivative piece, Charlotte argues that CFOs increasingly have the tools to arrive at board meetings with complete, confident answers - but that getting there requires closing three gaps that recur across service-led organisations.
The first is confidence in data. When finance teams reconcile across multiple systems, time is lost defending figures rather than acting on them. The second is time lag - when data travels through manual extraction and validation before reaching a decision-maker, the decision window has often already closed. The third is visibility: without a connected view of spend, contracts, and suppliers, risks only surface after they have already cost the organisation.
Charlotte frames the CFO’s progression as a move from passive reporting, through real-time visibility, to foresight - the ability to surface a risk or identify a savings opportunity before the budget cycle closes.
“The moment a board stops asking ‘Are these numbers right?’ and starts asking ‘What should we do next?’ is the moment the finance function has moved from operational necessity to strategic asset.”
Charlotte Carter, VP Solutions
Three questions
The piece closes with three diagnostic questions Charlotte suggests every CFO or Finance Director should ask now:
How quickly could you answer an unexpected board question with confidence - right now?
Where are you still relying on spreadsheets in board reporting and financial close?
What financial risks would only become visible after they have already cost you?
The honest answer to each, Charlotte writes, reveals the real state of an organisation’s financial insight infrastructure - not the capability of its team.
Read the full article: CFOs are closing the spend visibility gap — here’s what it takes to get there
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