The Panics of 1820, 1837, 1857, 1877, and 1893. The Great Depression of the 1930s. The present.

Economic crisis keeps playing out under all-too-similar scenarios that revolve around speculation and greed. CFOs can count on it as one of the few certainties of life, along with death and taxes. We'll come out of this one -- we always do -- but in the meantime (and nobody will speculate just how long that time will be), there are actions that finance executives can take to help lead their companies into a brighter era and maybe even help them to become better, stronger organizations in the process.

The challenges and opportunities facing finance today fall into three buckets: cash, costs, and confidence. Ninety-six percent of CFOs surveyed by Deloitte Consulting LLP say that during this year they will focus on maximizing cash flows and improving investor confidence. Consulting with and keeping providers of capital well informed of company plans is also a major priority this year. The survey points to a major squeeze on employment levels and investments in 2009; 90 percent of CFOs plan to reduce operating costs, and 77 percent plan to reduce capital spending.

The first place to look for cost savings is payroll, and many companies have already severely slashed their workforce. CFOs must be strategic about where to cut back, according to Jeff Schwartz, principal, human capital, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "Understand first of all where the most valuable employees in the company are," he says. "And finance should remind HR that this is a good market in which to obtain critical talent. But the downside is that your stars are out in the market, too. Poaching goes on in critical skill areas, including finance. It almost runs counter to the notion that when companies are trying to cut back, they need to find ways to create strong relationships with top performers."

Cost cuts are often well justified. "In the past seven or eight years, a lot of companies got a little bit fat during good times, so there are a lot of places where people are looking to cut costs," says Sanford Cockrell III, national managing partner, Deloitte’s U.S. CFO Program. "This crisis has created an opportunity for CFOs to do some things they've been wanting to do but have seen meet resistance because of flush times, such as implementing either very specific or enterprise-wide cost-cutting programs."

Businesses are focusing on finding opportunities for improvement in procurement, receivables, and payables. "Companies are reevaluating accounts payable and receivable policies and looking at customer policies. CFOs are putting on a different hat if they're dependent on downstream supply chains," says Cockrell. "If their suppliers don't have the ability to access the credit they need, some organizations actually have to act like banks to keep strategic suppliers in business."

RMJM, headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, is one of the world's largest international architectural and design firms. It has tightened its cash processes substantially, according to Richard Bailes, divisional CFO, based in the U.S. "We're more proactive internally on the receivables side, and when we're expecting a payment in, say, 30 days, we have someone contact the client about a week in advance to ask if they're ready to make the payment and what form the payment will take. There's much more detail at this level now to make cash flow and cash conversion processes more efficient."

To meet new cash flow goals, Bailes has spread more responsibility among other members of the finance team. "Project managers now sit alongside project accountants, who have much more accountability and responsibility for the full cycle of billing and receiving cash," he says. "We find, as a result, that there is a lot more weekly dialog and formal weekly discussion to make sure that all of our ducks are in a row and that there's no duplication of effort."

At Armstrong International, a global, family-owned company that provides energy management solutions, CFO Steve Gibson's commitment to spreading the cash is a concept is so strong that he uses money as a visual aid. "Most people think that profits are more important than cash," says CEO David Armstrong, "but not everybody has a finance background. Steve is constantly reminding people that cash drives the enterprise. In fact, at one time we had been losing money on a venture every year for about six years. He brought the executive team together and put a $100 bill in the middle of the table. He told them that this was how much the company was losing every minute on that venture and started to talk about ways to control expenses. They kept looking at that $100 bill and doing the math. The moral is that this was a very visible, dramatic way to drive home the point."