Much more
than Bookkeeping

Do you know the biggest cause of business failures? If you said cashflow, you’d be wrong. It’s actually businesses growing too quickly. Which itself is weird, great success causing failure?

Look at it this way, when you grow rapidly, it’s hard to keep up with everything you need to do from both a financial point of view and compliance. There will be staff costs, invoicing issues, bigger overheads and everything else you didn’t know you had to think about. Bringing in a Virtual Finance Director early will help you put all of the correct processes in place from the start. So, as you grow you won’t have the “what do I do now??” panic attack that usually comes.

You’ll know from the start your margins and what your prices need to be to make sure that your business is viable long term. A virtual FD will set Key Performance Indicators as well as help monitor performance against them which gives you peace of mind.

Finally, and most importantly for any new business, you don’t have to worry about the financials! You can focus on what you want to do! You didn’t set up a business to worry about what’s in your bank. You set it up because you know you’re good at what you do. So, go do what you’re good at!

Most people will want to know what turnover they want to achieve. Most SME’s will always look to that magic £1m mark. Yet the goal in itself is hard to make happen. With a Virtual FD, they’ll be able to start developing full management accounts to help them make decisions. They’ll also be able to start delegating to senior management based on the clear stepping stone targets to reach that £1m turnover.

Working capital is always a problem in businesses where there’s high growth. A good FD will help put a structured reporting tool in place to help forecast when trouble is coming. They will also have financing options that they have in their back pocket for occasions just like this.

This usually takes one of two forms: an MBO (Management Buy Out) or an MBI (Management Buy In). This is where a Virtual Finance can save you so much time. When looking at buying a business, there are some key things that need to be done. First of all, you need to do your due diligence. Do the numbers stack up? Are the processes in place? How much work will in be if not? All things a Virtual FD will answer.

Then it’s negotiating payment. You guessed it, they do that as well. What about liaising with the solicitors on your behalf? Check. Can they help you plan for the changes that need to be made? Of course!

Then we hit the little known fact about what they do. When you’re looking at buying a business, unless you have vast amounts of cash sat in the bank, you’ll need funding. A good Virtual FD will have contacts to help you get the best possible funding.

Now you know a bit more about what they can help with, the question you should ask yourself is “do I need one?”