But it also should be seen as vital to talent retention, according to a new report from insightsoftware. The company talked to 439 finance professionals across organizations with more than 500 employees and found that more than a quarter of Gen Zers and Millennials are likely to leave their employers due to an outdated financial system. The problem is greatest at the largest companies, which tend to have complex legacy infrastructure: 27% of financial workers of all ages at firms with more than 5,000 employees say they’re likely to leave for a tech upgrade somewhere else.

The motivations behind why workers may be looking for the door go deeper than just wanting to use something new. More than half of finance professionals said outdated tools make it tough to do their jobs efficiently. More than a quarter said that their top frustration was having to put together “time-consuming workarounds” to do things in legacy systems. Seven in 10 say their top priority is reducing manual errors. And while this doesn’t automatically translate to a desire to use AI, 39% of those surveyed said they’re confident in using AI tools for functions like forecasting and automated reconciliation. 

It’s already extremely tough to find financial talent. Recent data from Robert Half indicates 86% of finance and accounting leaders have had challenges hiring and retaining qualified accountants, while 26% have had to outsource compliance tasks because they’ve been unable to hire. 

While companies are putting money toward overall tech transformations anyway, financial leaders need to make sure that upgrades to their systems are included. The year so far has been rocked by an unstable economy, something that many AI software platforms are tailor-made to help navigate. It makes the best business sense to add a system that helps not only better forecast the future, but also ensure there are qualified financial professionals to make the best decisions for the future of the business.

If you like what you read here, you can easily share it online and on your social media pages. This newsletter, and all previous editions of Forbes CFO, can be found on our website here.

Until next time.

But even if politicians in Washington don’t feel any urgency to end the government shutdown, small businesses that have even tangential dealings with the federal government are feeling it deeply, writes Forbes senior contributor Rohit Arora. The small businesses with federal government contracts, Arora writes, are expected to continue work even though they are not getting paid. Businesses that rely on federal grants, or are located near shuttered federal sites, are not getting what they expected. And companies in need of capital from the Small Business Administration aren’t able to get it because the SBA loan program is halted. Even if the government gets back in business this week, the impact will be felt for quarters to come. Analysts estimate the last government shutdown at the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 reduced economic output for the next two quarters by $11 billion.

The government shutdown is also halting regular government-produced reports on jobs, hiring, prices and spending. Forbes’ Brandon Kochkodin runs down some of the indicators people tend to use during government shutdowns. Some of them seem fairly fact-based, like payroll processor ADP’s monthly report on private sector job growth and the Conference Board’s Help Wanted OnLine Index. But some—including the hemline index (shorter skirts mean a better economy) and the men’s underwear index (since it can’t be seen, men won’t buy new underwear when the economy is bad)—seem to work, but be more based on coincidence. 

Another useful indicator is the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which measures confidence in current and expected home sales conditions. Kochkodin writes the indicator showed an upwards jump in October—37, on a scale from 1 to 100—likely coordinated with the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower baseline interest rates last month. However, 37 is not a great score; anything above 50 means that more homebuilders say conditions are good than poor.

However, the federal government does not measure how consumers feel about the economy, and a recent AP-NORC poll shows wide-ranging pessimism. Only 32% of Americans have a positive view of the economic outlook. And while 59% said they were holding steady in their financial situation, only 12% were getting ahead. Grocery prices and housing costs ranked as the two major sources of stress, and nearly half of all respondents said they have little or no confidence in their ability to find a good job if they needed one. 

The changes under consideration by the Trump Administration, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, include removing IRS career attorneys from the loop in criminal cases. These career attorneys stopped Trump officials from several controversial changes, like attempts to revoke tax exempt status from universities. Pulling career attorneys further away from criminal investigations also would mean that the administration could file more politically motivated charges.

Forbes senior contributor Howard Gleckman writes that such a move is likely to threaten the IRS’s credibility. The agency is supposed to be a nonpartisan tax collector, which is a key reason why IRS commissioners generally serve in terms that span presidential administrations. It also opens the door to more tax fraud. If IRS-CI is spending all of its time on investigations of Trump’s perceived enemies, it will be much easier for bad actors to slip under the radar. Gleckman also points out that Trump’s budget reduces funds for IRS-CI by a third, meaning there will be fewer investigators overall.

IRS-CI is not the only place in the agency seeing big cuts. According to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, key departments including submission processing, accounts management, field assistance and return integrity compliance have all seen staff reductions of between 17% and 19%, writes Forbes’ Kelly Phillips Erb. The inspector general’s report looked at how well the federal government handled tax filing season, and posted generally high marks. But the large staffing cuts make the office wary about how well the IRS will do with tax collection in 2026 and beyond.

But while supply is going up, demand is dropping. According to the International Energy Agency, global demand is most likely falling because of poor economic conditions in many countries around the world, more efficient vehicles, and growing electric vehicle sales.

Corporate culture continues to be important, and it comes down to the behaviors exhibited by business leaders. The best are ones where employees at all levels have input in decisions that are made and are always looked to for feedback.