Finance professionals should be planning for stricter SEC cybersecurity preparation and disclosure rules experts told CFO Brew.

The SEC proposed new amendments to its rules in March 2022 that would compel public companies to “enhance and standardize disclosures” about their cybersecurity, requiring faster disclosure of “material cybersecurity incidents” and updates about those reported incidents, as well as disclosure of cybersecurity risk response plans and board cybersecurity expertise.

“Today, cybersecurity is an emerging risk with which public issuers increasingly must contend,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a March 2022 statement. “Investors want to know more about how issuers are managing those growing risks.”

These new rules are a significant shift in how public organizations report cybersecurity risk, one expert told CFO Brew.

“The government, the SEC in particular, has started to really focus on companies by saying, ‘Who is in charge of your cybersecurity program? And so if something happens, and there is a cyberattack, who do we blame for this cyberattack?’” Amy Bahls, CFO at the National Cybersecurity Center, a Colorado-based cybersecurity education nonprofit told CFO Brew. “It’s going to be really important.”

However, in general, “the level of cybersecurity awareness and competence is multiple factors better in the EU and in the UK than in the United States,” said Daryl Crockett, CEO of data security consulting firm ValidDatum and a consulting fractional CFO. Continue reading here.—DA

Besides the ever-present concern about possible layoffs, finance workers also find themselves facing another existential threat: automation. Human labor certainly could be better used in ways other than crunching numbers in Excel, but that’s not necessarily comforting for those sitting in soon-to-be-automated roles. Experts tell CFO Brew reskilling isn’t impossible, and employees should be asking their finance leaders for help.

The prospect of certain parts of finance being automated has caused a stir in sectors like accounting, where much of the number-crunching could be allocated to robots. A February survey from Gartner found that more than 40% of finance roles will be reshaped into new positions or lost entirely due to technology between now and 2025.

Fear not—as Geraldine Garaud, director analyst at Gartner, told CFO Brew—technology is never going to fully dispose of people, and may allow us to cross more boring tasks off our to-do lists. “We’re leaving the technology to run the transaction,” leaving mundane things out of workers’ to-do lists, she said.

One of the first areas where automation has had an impact is financial reporting. With the use of automated reporting tools, companies now turn to technology to generate financial statements. But as CFO Brew has reported, that doesn’t mean that the reporting manager role has ceased to exist; it’s now focused instead on more of the project management side of gathering information, and the increasing (and shifting) requirements coming from the SEC.

The process functions—such as order to cash, procure to pay, record to report—are where technology could have the biggest impact, Garaud told CFO Brew. “Those roles are completely going to shift, the transaction processing piece is going to go to the technology angle.” Continue reading here.—KT

Cost accountants are the most in-demand role among companies looking for finance and accounting talent according to recent Robert Half data.

In fact, there’s real demand across the board for folks with hardcore technical accounting skills according to Robert Half’s Finance and Accounting Trends 2023 data. Finance managers, compliance officers, financial analysts, and accountants and auditors round off the top five highest-demand roles for companies seeking finance talent, according to Robert Half.

That need for technical accounting skills seems to run somewhat counter to the popular idea of finance professionals as organizational strategists and influencers, but the demand makes sense to Brandi Britton, global executive director of contract finance and accounting at Robert Half.

“The finance roles always appear sexier because you’re making strategy and you’re influencing,” she said. “But tactical accounting roles help the organization run and are the most necessary roles within the company.”

A lot of organizations are also growing their finance teams to meet post-pandemic challenges; 62% of companies are hiring for new finance and accounting roles, according to Robert Half’s analysis of job postings, company websites, and placement data. Additionally, 34% are looking to fill existing roles.

“In the pandemic, a lot of organizations scaled back,” said Britton. “As we’ve come out of it… they’ve seen an opportunity to expand the finance role because those roles can help identify growth opportunities, or mitigate and reduce costs and expenses.”

Filling those roles is extremely challenging. Robert Half found that 89% of companies are facing challenges in finding skilled talent.

That is benefiting finance and accounting professionals with the right skill sets. According to Robert Half’s 2023 Salary Survey, 46% of companies are increasing starting salaries for finance talent, 34% are offering signing bonuses, and 33% are giving new hires hybrid work options.—DA

Stat: $3.8 billion. That is the price tag on JetBlue’s proposed takeover of Spirit Airlines, which the Department of Justice has now sued to block. The merger would have created the fifth-largest airline in the US. (CNBC)

Quote: “To believe this would happen without this kind of gaming going on is ridiculous.”—Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen, on the way some companies skirt overtime rules by misclassifying some hourly workers as “managers.” (the New York Times)

Read: Compensation actually paid: how a new SEC rule is giving a more accurate picture of top executives’ pay packages. (the Wall Street Journal)

Look beyond: Someone slammed the reset button on the economy, and it’s time to get strategic. Let ADP’s new 2023 Business Trends and How a PEO Can Help webinar help lead the way. Register here.*

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