Welding & Gas CFO Club Recap October 2023

The Welding and Gas CFO Club is intended to be a member-led group where financial professionals in welding & gas distribution can come to share experiences, best practices, and ideas. We celebrated our one-year anniversary since starting the CFO Club with our meeting on 10/25/23. We’re happy to have had six meetings throughout the year, getting together once every two months.

Discussion Recap

Topics discussed during our October 2023 meeting include:

• Health insurance best practices
  • Alternative funding options for savings, such as self-funding, group captive and level-funding
  • Current medical and pharmacy trend
  • Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) strategies
  • Executive level benefits
  • Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs)
  • GAWDA Ancillary Benefit Program – 10% savings
  • Medical carrier loss ratios – break-even is about 80% for the carriers
  • Affordability Rule
• Reporting
  • Key items everyone tracks
  • TIMS vs other systems, including bolt on programs, such as PowerBI, Diver
  • Leading indicators – many are challenged to find
• Bonus discussions
  • Payroll provider pros and cons
  • More detailed Member Roster, with areas of expertise and ERP systems, to allow for between meeting assistance/interaction
  • A Member Roster was sent out for everyone to update

Thank you to everyone who has participated. It’s our members that keep the discussions strong and the content relevant. As always, please reach out to Tony Hopkins if you have any ideas on how to make the CFO Club better or know of anyone you think would appreciate joining the crew.

What We’re Up to With Our Clients:

• Reviewed Distributor Customer Contract specifically for use when the distributor is making a cylinder connection at the customer site, limiting their liability
• Saved GAWDA members $100k+ on their ancillary benefit offerings with the new program
• Conducted a machine guarding evaluation on a new Dry Ice machine

Tony Hopkins

Executive Vice President

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Tony has also realized that talking a good game is not enough. The true mark of a professional is execution. Horton achieves this through a process which consistently delivers on promises made and holding themselves accountable. “Once a plan is established, we are committed to plan execution. Our team functions as an extension of our clients operations; we are just as invested in their success as our own – their goals are our goals,” says Tony.