Are you Covering the Key Functions of a CFO in your Business?
Are you Covering the Key Functions of a CFO in your Business?
In a larger business, one of the most important components of an executive suite is the Chief Financial Officer, or CFO. The role of a CFO is essential to the success of a business, as their role is to oversee the financial aspects of a business.
This encompasses monitoring finances and trends within the business, supporting management to make forecasts and plans, managing cash inflow and outflow and reporting on revenues achieved compared with targets. They can alert management to any potential issues that may arise, as well as helping management to capitalise on areas where they are performing strongly.
These functions are vital for a business of any size, but a small business may not have the scope to have a CFO on staff full time. Without having someone within your team solely focusing on these matters, financial issues may arise more quickly and become more difficult to solve, particularly if no one member of your team has a level of expertise on financial matters.
For those businesses, it’s wise to outsource the functions a CFO would perform. At Alexander Spencer, we’ve developed our ‘Your Virtual CFO’ service, which provides a range of support services bundled together to ensure that your business is performing at the maximum financial efficiency.
Acting as your Virtual CFO, we engage with your internal executive team either monthly, quarterly or twice a year. In these sessions, we cover a range of issues within your business to make sure your financial position as a business is secure and to encourage your business’s growth.
The Virtual CFO service will cover the following:
Identifying and focusing on key drivers of revenue, margin and overhead cost analysis
Efficient management of cash flow to provide cash for saving or investing in growth
Growing your business into a valuable and saleable asset
Marketing activity and effectiveness
Operational efficiencies, including work-in-progress and workflow
Financial indicators including debtors, inventory, stock turn as relevant to your business
Risk and taxation issues
Team efficiencies, knowledge management, morale and safety
We will provide financial reports on your business’s performance at each of these meetings, along with our commercial experience to empower you and your team to interpret the information and make informed, expert decisions about your business going forward.
Ultimately, having someone perform the role of a CFO, whether it’s within your business or outsourced provides you as a business owner with the knowledge and security that the financial aspects of your business are being handled with the utmost care.