How Accounting and Finance Earn Influence Beyond the Numbers
For years, Accounting and Finance professionals have talked about wanting a seat at the table.
We want to be involved in strategic decisions. We want our opinions considered. We want to be viewed as business partners rather than the people who show up afterward to explain why something didn’t work.
And yet, sometimes we seem to be waiting for someone to send us an engraved invitation.
Preferably with an agenda, supporting documentation, and at least three business days to prepare.
Here’s something I’ve learned throughout my career: Nobody is going to build your influence for you. If you want Accounting and Finance to have a greater role in the business, you have to get out there and make it happen.
You can’t simply wait for Operations to invite you into its planning meetings or for Sales to suddenly recognize the strategic value of Accounting. You need to demonstrate that value, build the relationships, and create opportunities to contribute.
That doesn’t mean barging into every meeting or inserting yourself into decisions where you have nothing to offer. It means taking responsibility for becoming part of the business rather than remaining on the sidelines.
I explore this idea throughout my book, Leading Beyond the Ledger, because I believe one of the biggest opportunities for Accounting and Finance professionals is expanding our influence beyond the traditional boundaries of our departments.
And it starts with five things we can actually do.
🚪 Get Out of Your Office and Make Yourself Known
I understand why Accounting and Finance professionals sometimes hesitate to get involved in operational discussions.
We’re busy. Month-end close doesn’t complete itself. Auditors have questions. Someone needs a reconciliation that apparently hasn’t been prepared since the Bush administration. H.W., not W.
And there are only so many hours in the day.
But if we spend all our time sitting in our Accounting and Finance cubicles, we shouldn’t be surprised when the rest of the organization sees us primarily as Accounting and Finance.
In Chapter 5 of Leading Beyond the Ledger, “Build Cross-Functional Credibility and Trust,” I discuss the importance of showing up early, asking questions, and developing relationships outside our departments.
Don’t wait for someone to invite you into their world. Make the effort to learn about it.
Ask to attend an Operations meeting. Reach out to Sales and learn about its priorities. Sit down with Human Resources to understand its staffing challenges. Find out what IT is working on and whether those projects have implications for financial reporting or internal controls.
And don’t limit yourself to formal meetings.
Have coffee with someone. Stop by their office. Ask what they’re working on and what challenges they’re facing.
The objective isn’t to attend more meetings for the sake of attending meetings.
Goodness knows we have enough meetings.
It’s to become someone other departments know, trust, and eventually want involved when important decisions are being considered.
A title might give you authority. It doesn’t automatically give you influence.
That has to be earned.
🔍 Learn the Business, Not Just the Numbers
Accounting and Finance professionals can tell you what happened financially.
Revenue increased. Margins declined. Labor costs exceeded budget. Customer acquisition costs increased.
That’s valuable information.
But do we understand why?
Understanding the operational activities behind financial results is essential if we want to become more effective business partners.
If labor costs are increasing, spend time understanding staffing, scheduling, productivity, and operational constraints.
If margins are declining, understand what’s happening with pricing, purchasing, production, and customer behavior.
If a department consistently misses its budget, perhaps the problem isn’t simply that its manager doesn’t understand financial discipline.
Maybe the assumptions were wrong. Maybe the operating environment changed. Or maybe Accounting and Finance developed the budget without sufficiently understanding how the department actually operates.
Imagine that.
Spend time shadowing colleagues outside Finance and learning the key performance indicators they use to measure success.
You may be surprised by what you discover.
And when you do get into those operational meetings, come prepared to contribute.
Review the agenda, identify potential issues, and prepare questions that go beyond the numbers.
What assumptions are we making? What could prevent this initiative from succeeding? How will we measure success? What challenges are we overlooking?
Sometimes the most valuable contribution isn’t providing an answer.
It’s asking the question nobody else thought to ask.
You don’t need to demonstrate your technical accounting knowledge in every conversation.
In fact, I would strongly discourage opening a marketing strategy meeting with a discussion of ASC 326.
Unless you want to make sure you’re never invited back.
🤝 Build Relationships Before You Need Them
Relationships matter.
Not just when there’s a problem, an audit finding, or an unfavorable variance.
If the only time someone hears from Accounting is when something has gone wrong, we’re probably not building the strongest foundation for collaboration.
Nobody gets excited when the Accounting department calls and the first words are, “We need to talk about your expenses.”
Credibility is built through consistent actions, curiosity, empathy, and follow-through.
It’s not something automatically granted because of your title, credentials, or ability to explain ASC 606 without looking it up.
Although that last one might impress a few accountants.
Make an effort to understand the people you work with. Learn their objectives, recognize their successes, and ask how Accounting and Finance can help.
And when you commit to doing something, follow through.
Over time, those interactions build trust.
Eventually, something important happens.
Instead of someone saying, “We should probably tell Accounting about this,” they start saying, “Let’s get Accounting involved before we make a decision.”
That’s progress.
💡 Bring Solutions, Not Just Problems
One of the easiest ways for Accounting and Finance to become excluded from strategic conversations is to develop a reputation as the department that always says no.
Sometimes no is absolutely the correct answer.
There are accounting standards, regulatory requirements, tax considerations, internal controls, and financial realities that cannot simply be ignored because someone has an exciting idea.
But there’s a difference between identifying a problem and helping solve it.
Chapter 8 of Leading Beyond the Ledger, “From ‘No’ to ‘Yes, if…’,” explores how Finance can become a more effective strategic partner by offering alternatives rather than simply rejecting proposals.
Instead of saying, “We can’t afford that,” perhaps the conversation becomes, “We might be able to make this work if we phase the investment over two years.”
Instead of saying, “That approach creates a control problem,” perhaps we say, “Here’s the concern, and here’s another approach that could accomplish the same objective.”
The point isn’t to become agreeable at the expense of sound judgment.
It’s to use our expertise to help the organization accomplish its objectives responsibly.
A two-year-old can say no. The real value is helping people figure out what they can say yes to.
When colleagues recognize that Accounting and Finance are there to help them succeed, they’re considerably more likely to involve us.
🎯 Make Yourself Someone They Want at the Table
I’ve spent much of my career working to move Accounting and Finance beyond traditional reporting and compliance responsibilities.
Those responsibilities remain essential. Accurate financial reporting, strong internal controls, and sound accounting practices aren’t optional.
But they’re the foundation, not the limit of what we can contribute.
We have an opportunity to help shape decisions before they become transactions, financial results, and ultimately historical reports.
That requires initiative.
It requires us to get outside our departments, develop relationships, learn the business, ask better questions, and help solve problems.
And sometimes it requires the courage to speak up, challenge assumptions, or offer a different perspective when it would be easier to remain silent.
Influence doesn’t happen because someone changes your job description or adds you to the organizational chart.
It happens because people recognize the value you bring.
And for me, there’s one particularly good way to know you’ve succeeded.
People start calling Accounting and Finance before they make decisions, not after.
They’re not calling because a policy requires it. They’re calling because they believe your involvement will make the decision better.
That’s when you’ve become a genuine business partner.
So stop waiting for someone to offer you a seat at the table.
Get out of your office. Introduce yourself. Ask questions. Learn the business. Offer ideas. Build relationships.
Make yourself someone the organization doesn’t want to make important decisions without.
And there had better be coffee.
These ideas are explored in greater detail in my book, Leading Beyond the Ledger: How Lessons from Modern Finance Drives Strategy, Innovation, and Growth, particularly Chapters 5, 6, 8, 10.5, and 11
Ready to lead beyond the ledger? 🚀
Read more in my book! Here on Amazon!
Follow us on:
LinkedIn – Not Just A Bean Counter
A note on AI: The ideas, opinions, stories, and occasional bad accounting jokes in this article are my own. I use ChatGPT as an editing tool to help with grammar, organization, and clarity. I’m an accountant, not a writer. Accounting good. Grammar bad.
