It’s the goal of every strategy-minded CFO: Secure finance a seat at the table when it comes to growth decisions, strategy decisions, and — without question — M&A decisions.

However, it’s a goal seldom realized. According to finance executives, faulty collaboration between finance and sales may well be the primary trip line that prevents finance from taking on a broader business partner role.

When it comes to gleaning best practices for augmenting finance collaboration, certain industries may prove to be more fruitful than others. For example, today few industries can boast of a stronger sales/finance collaboration than IT enterprise software.

“More so than other companies, software companies cannot afford to have auditors reverse a transaction after we have closed revenue out. The software recognition rules are so strict — and customers have been trained to ask for things up front — that if the sales team is not collaborating with finance, everyone ends up unhappy,” says Earl Fry, CFO of Informatica, a $500 million software company specializing in data integration solutions.

According to Fry, what may seem like an innocuous customer request frequently isn’t.

“The customer may be asking for something that is economically sound, but from a revenue recognition standpoint the salesperson could end up deprived of their commission,” explained Fry, who says that transactions are commonly audited in light of their hefty price tags. The developer, who closes hundreds of deals annually, estimates a typical transaction’s value at roughly $300,000.

Meanwhile, Fry says that Informatica’s finance team is also “joined at the hip” with the developer’s legal team, which is also involved in helping Informatica salespeople close business. In fact, each year at Informatica’s annual sales meeting, the company’s finance and legal teams hold a joint session with sales to review negotiation best practices.

“Finance understands that it’s not about saying ‘No.’ It’s about communicating how to make a deal work and how trust can be achieved up front,” explains Fry, who says that Informatica’s finance team has frequently received kudos from seasoned members of the company’s sales team.

“We tell them that if you want an order to go through well, and maximize the amount of commissionable revenue to you, here’s what you need to do!”

At Informatica, when it comes to finance, sales is all ears. ###