Purpose The concept of the high-performance organization (HPO) receives much attention nowadays. To create and sustain an HPO, all parts of the organization must contribute, especially the finance function, whose relations with every part of the organization mean that it can be regarded as the spider in the organizational web. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach This study develops the high-performance finance function (HPFF) framework based on the HPO framework, a scientifically developed and validated approach to transforming organizations into HPOs. Based on an extensive literature review, potential characteristics of an HPFF were identified and subsequently linked to factors in the HPO framework. Subsequently, using a questionnaire and statistical analysis, these potential characteristics were clustered into five HPFF factors that showed a significant positive relation with the finance function’s performance. Findings The five HPFF factors are: Finance Function Improvement, IT Focus, People Development (of financial professionals working in the function), Role Clarity (for each of the various types of role in the function) and Strategic Role (of the finance function in the organization, especially in supporting management). Originality/value The HPFF framework is a practical improvement framework based on a solid scientific foundation. It also fills the current gap in the academic literature on how to develop HPFFs, thus giving the frameworks described in practitioner literature a robust scientific grounding.

One of the most important staff units in an organization is the finance function, as this function maintains the relations with all parts of the organization and operates at a management team level. Therefore, this function needs to transform itself into a high-performance finance function (HPFF). Unfortunately, finance functions encounter many barriers before they can start this transformation. In this article, the research question “What are the most important barriers which have to be dealt with in order for the finance function to start its transition to a high-performance finance function?’ is addressed. For this, a review of the professional literature (as no academic studies could be found on the topic), a small-scale survey among finance professionals, and Delphi research with 14 highly experienced finance experts were conducted. The results of the research were the following Top 10 of barriers of most important obstacles: 1) inefficient and not integrated business processes; 2) data not (yet) in order; 3) insufficient leadership and insufficient will to change; 4) no culture of change and improvement in the finance function; 5) inadequate ICT systems; 6) lack of buy-in from the business for the transformation; 7) insufficient knowledge in the finance function of the business; 8) not the right capacities/people/skills in the finance function; 9) insufficient/unclear business objectives and priorities; 10) business managers do not sufficiently manage the analyses and insights provided by the finance function.

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