Understanding Financial Considerations

Posted on: 14 June 2019

Do you want to grow your small business, but aren't sure how to get where you want to be? Many owners and managers spend sleepless nights and overworked days trying to shepherd their company to the next level.

There is an easier way, though. Have you considered hiring a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) service to provide affordable financial direction for your growth project? If not, here are four of the best things an outsourced CFO service can do to get you to the next stage. 

Financial Strategy

For some companies, growth comes unexpectedly and organically. For others, it requires skill and strategy to find the next steps. Either way, though, you need to manage your growth — pushing and pulling back as well as keeping it going in the right directions. A CFO is more about future strategies than they are about the minutiae of daily financial operations, so their focus will be on how choices contribute (or fail to contribute) to growth over the next few years. 

Forecasting

Forecasting involves using past and current data to make projections about your company's future. It projects things like future revenue potential, future expenses, growth rates, product line rollout, and risk factors. Forecasts and expectations — both short- and long-term — are used in conjunction with strategic plans to accomplish the goals of your business.

System Design

Growth, new product lines, expanded appeals, and larger operations all call for continuous improvement in systems. Your financial software, for instance, may be fine at your current levels of use, but it may not be able to expand to keep up with growth for the next few years. Other systems — like accounting department operations, approvals, inter-department cooperation, and manufacturing methods — benefit from a CFO who can look to the future instead of the present.

Report Interpretation

The accounting department or a controller can create financial reports every month and analyze them for certain aspects. But a CFO is trained to use reports for larger research purposes. They can look at income in certain product lines or geographic regions to find useful patterns. They can determine where are the best places to cut costs and where you need to put more investment. They can also see how financial statements will look to future suppliers, banks, creditors, and potential partners.

Which of these services from a CFO will bring the most value to your company's plans? Whether you need a long-term strategy, redesign of your current systems, or the ability to see patterns in your data, hiring a CFO — even part-time — will bring long-lasting benefits.