Lean Financial Reporting That Executives Actually Read
The Reporting Paradox Finance teams often find themselves caught in a frustrating paradox: they invest enormous effort into producing detailed reports that executives barely read. A survey by Financial Executives International found that finance departments spend up to 30% of their time on report preparation, yet 65% of executives admit to reading only summaries or conclusions (FEI, 2023). As David Parmenter observes in “Winning CFOs: Implementing and Applying Better Practices” (2012), “Most finance teams are producing a monthly financial pack that is more like a doorstop than a decision support tool.” This disconnect wastes valuable resources and misses the critical opportunity for finance to influence decision-making. ...