As businesses develop the first ‘growing pain’ is often getting the basic book-keeping/ invoicing done – and an ‘accounts person’ is recruited. That leaves the Owner with the ‘higher level’ financial issues and ultimately the decision may be taken to recruit a full time, qualified, Finance Director. But what about that time in between – when the business owner is spinning plates and trying to handle some potentially critical finance issues but doesn’t want to add to the overhead?
It’s worth looking at what those issues are (to realise how critical they could be). They might include:
- Working on the longer term plans of the business and what the financial implications of those would be
- How to fund the business – long term and short term
- Negotiations and managing relationships with banks and other suppliers of funding
- Stepping back from the business to look at financial controls – the key drivers of the business and how to monitor those
- Producing internal reports on performance – and working to improve it
- Working with the rest of the team about how the business is doing financially and how to improve it (including austerity measures)
- Producing reports for investors, shareholders or lenders
I have found that even large businesses are reluctant to engage a qualified FD for this type of work (and there are suppliers of part-time FD’s also) – but actually I have been able to provide valuable support on an interim basis to the degree really needed.