3 things finance leaders wished they had more time for
How would you spend an extra hour in the day? While some might dream of cooking a hearty breakfast or catching up on sleep, finance leaders would jump at the chance to act like the strategic leaders they were appointed to be.
Today’s CFOs have their capacity drained by everyday tasks like balancing the books and chasing down budget updates. They struggle to make time for new skills and technologies that could enrich the business.
To learn more, SAP Concur asked finance professionals a simple question: If you were given one additional, uninterrupted hour of free time in your working day, how would you spend it?
These are the three tasks CFOs would like to spend time on:
- Investing in professional development
Current ways of working create a time-drain problem for CFOs. According to SAP Concur’s data, nearly all (96%) CFOs still rely on manual forecasting workflows to some degree.
Leaders are keen to bring finance into the 21st century by enhancing operations with AI – they only wish they had more capacity to focus on it. The most popular way finance chiefs say they’d like to spend an extra hour is to learn more about AI, reported by six in 10 CFOs.
Most leaders are still grappling with exactly how to apply the technology to deliver impact. But upskilling shouldn’t be reserved for junior members of staff. Some 5% of CFOs rank taking a professional development course as the top way they’d use an extra hour. Others would explore ways to add value to the business on the job, with 7% claiming they’d take on a stretch project to challenge themselves.
Learning how to apply new technologies can help finance leaders model risk, reduce manual work, and forecast more accurately. But manual data entry and approvals can push learning to the back burner.
Organisations must offer all employees upskilling opportunities, whether they’re trainee accountants or heads of the ledger. That’s how finance can learn to automate critical workflows, such as forecasting and invoice management, to deliver value across the enterprise – and invest in talent at every rung of the corporate ladder.
- Making time for strategic planning
Economic uncertainty and rising material and labour costs are threatening business turnover in 2026. Financial leaders can’t afford to manage through the rearview mirror; they need the capacity to forecast and optimise cash runways to guard the business against challenging market conditions.
That’s why 58% of CFOs name long-term strategic planning as a top-three goal they’d dedicate a 25th turn of the clock towards. In fact, nearly a quarter (22%) of CFOs rank it as their number-one priority.
This reveals a disconnect between the reactive stewardship many CFOs are forced to deliver and the proactive planning they know the organisation needs. For instance, 15% of finance chiefs say they’d use the time to review risks to the business – a critical task, given the pace of AI and regulatory change.
- Meeting with leaders across the business
For decades, the finance department has been viewed as an island – a ringfenced operations hub siloed away from the rest of the business. Many finance leaders want off that island.
SAP Concur’s data reveals that nearly half (49%) of CFOs would use an extra hour to engage with other function leaders, while another 13% want to expand their network.
Having climbed the ranks to reach the C-suite, CFOs know firsthand that relationship-building is the kind of strategic work that can’t be automated. By forging closer ties with CMOs, CIOs, and other business unit heads, CFOs can build their understanding of the wider organisation’s priorities and pain points.
This empowers them to identify cost-saving and growth opportunities, rather than get bogged down by manual reporting and receipt-chasing.
The bottom line
A finance leader’s work is never quite finished. But SAP Concur’s data suggests it’s time for that work to evolve.
By learning new skills, making time to plan, collaborating across the business, and applying emerging technologies to enhance spend management, leaders can set themselves up for success. Now that’s a worthwhile use of time.
