In this episode of The Diary of a CFO, I sat down with Sharon Barboza, Manager of Digital Services at Citrin Cooperman Advisors. Sharon is a licensed CPA who has spent decades on every side of finance, as a public accountant, a controller, a small business practitioner, and now as a senior NetSuite consultant helping growing companies redesign how their finance operations actually work.
We talked about the five most common reasons ERP implementations fail and how to avoid each one. Why accounting is always brought into the conversation too late and what that costs in delays and redesign. The client who discovered a Bulgarian subsidiary one week before go-live. Why a 78-tab forecasting spreadsheet was the breaking point that made her rethink everything about efficiency. How to handle change resistance from team members who are afraid the new system will make them unnecessary. When it makes sense to leave Excel and when Excel is still the right tool. How to build a roadmap that designs for where the business is going, not just where it is today. And how one client ended up switching all their bank accounts to JP Morgan after seeing how seamlessly one integration worked.
This episode is brought to you by Fispan. By embedding banking services directly into ERP and accounting software, Fispan streamlines financial workflows, reduces costs, and enhances efficiency for businesses of all sizes. Learn more at fispan.com.
Connect with Sharon Barboza: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-barboza-b8b9249/
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🎬 Video chapters:
00:01:31— Welcome to Diary of a CFO
00:02:43 — Sharon’s Journey Into Accounting
00:05:35 — The Unexpected Turn Into Consulting
00:07:25— Navigating Career Transitions
00:10:44— Bouncing Back From Career Setbacks
00:13:10— What Goes Wrong in Finance Functions
00:15:50— Breaking the Excel Habit
00:19:24— Getting Accounting Involved Earlier
00:20:10 — Advocating for Accounting & Embracing Change
00:24:02 — A Project Sharon Is Proud Of
00:26:51 — Managing Banking as Companies Grow
00:29:05 — Streamlining Banking Inside the ERP
00:32:37 — When Business Growth Outpaces Finance
00:33:17 — Building Systems for Future Growth
00:34:46 — Getting Stakeholders Involved Early
00:36:16 — Why Your ERP Is Part of the Foundation
00:38:00 — Life Outside of Finance
00:39:33 — Final Thoughts & Where to Find Sharon
00:40:20 — Closing the Episode
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