4 Building Blocks of Great CFO Dashboards

So, you’ve been tasked with creating a dashboard for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of your company. How do you create one that will not only present the required KPIs in an effective way but, also allow the user to have all of the data that they need to make informed decisions based on those indicators?

So, you’ve been tasked with creating a dashboard for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of your company. How do you create one that will not only present the required KPIs in an effective way but, also allow the user to have all of the data that they need to make informed decisions based on those indicators?

In this article, we are going to touch on three of the core aspects to creating a dashboard that any CFO would love. This isn’t a definitive guide to creating ‘The Ultimate CFO Dashboard’. Rather, this article will help you to form a solid foundation on which you can introduce your own unique skills and business objectives. Let’s get started.

1. Start with the User

What does the CFO do?

To make an effective dashboard, we need to understand what the CFO is responsible for in an organization. Simply put, a CFO is responsible for understanding and accurately reporting on the financial well-being of the firm. They need to accurately assess the risk and liquidity, manage its capital structure (debt and equity) and make sound decisions for positioning the firm to take advantages of future opportunity. This is a very crude overview but you get the idea. As the title implies, the CFO cares about the finances.

2. Monitor Relevant Financial KPIs

What KPIs are CFOs are interested in?

Now that we know what the CFO cares about, what metrics can we deliver in our dashboard that will be meaningful to them? Below are 8 common KPIs that CFOs should have ready access to. Keep in mind that these can vary depending on industry and the nature of the firm’s business.

For most of these metrics, whether a value is ‘good or ‘bad’, is heavily dependent on industry and past performance. Also, these formulas are generalities. Some firms have specific methods for calculating these values. Be aware of this as you choose what KPIs to include in your dashboard.

3. Enable Interactive Data Exploration

Analysis Capabilities and Operational Reporting

In today’s world, we have the ability to share information on an unprecedented scale. Part of your job as BI Analysts is to provide that information in a manner that allows decision-makers to take informed action. Interactive dashboards for a CFO, or other upper-level management, need to have an analytical nature to them. Operational reporting is better suited to other managerial levels in the company that have the responsibility of running the day-to-day operations.

CFOs are concerned with high-level planning and orchestration of the entire firm. They ask and answer questions like, “Where are we headed as a business?”, “What do we like or not like about what this dashboard is telling us?”, and “Are we on track to meet our goals as a firm?” So, the data shown in the dashboard needs to provide them the ability to assess the firm’s progress towards those goals. Without the ability to see, and drill down into, macro-level metrics, and their projections, CFOs cannot understand the whole story that the KPIs are telling them.

4. Follow Effective Data Visualization and Dashboard Design Principles

Making the Relevant Information Pop

Now that we have an idea of what information we are presenting and who we are presenting it to, it’s time to actually start creating widgets and laying them out in dashboards. We’ve covered some standard best practices for ways to visualize data and dashboard design principles in the past, so feel free to consult these resources to find the best way to create an interactive data display which presents the relevant information without causing your CFO to experience sensory overload.

Get Started!

By understanding our user, the CFO, and their goals, we can provide meaningful KPIs in an effective visualization that provides them the level of operational and analytical reporting they need. Remember to keep in mind the metrics that are important for your CFO to achieve their goals for the firm as you select your KPIs. Present them in meaningful, easy-to-understand visualizations that allow for adequate analysis but the user. Hopefully, this article has helped you to get started creating an effective dashboard for your CFO.