The firms, which are offering Chief Financial Officer (CFO) services to their clients, are doing so, based on market feedback from surveys conducted by companies such as CCH, MYOB, Smithink2020 and others. These have indicated a significant number of SMEs require a wider range of services to be supplied to them.
Surveys and Reports Conducted
In the CCH survey, completed in April 2013, the response from the 1,040 SME operators interviewed, indicated that SME operators require greater assistance in:
- management of costs;
- management monitoring;
- business plan preparation;
- assistance in raising capital or loan funds; and
- expansion advice.
CFO services that can be initially offered may include:
- Ongoing review of working capital requirements.
- Analysing the debtors, stock, work in progress and bank accounts.
- In-depth review of the monthly financial accounts that have been prepared on a management basis. Establishment of appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the business, then monitoring those KPIs each month.
- Advising business owners and senior management of any adverse financial performance, which has been revealed from the KPIs.
- Preparation of a comparison of actual financial performance to budgets.
- Alerting business owners and the management team of any trends, different from those originally planned for the business.
- Assistance in the preparation of business plans.
- Supplying in-depth project cost reviews.
- Undertaking insurance reviews.
- Reviewing government grants that might be suitable for the business.
- Undertaking an annual valuation of the business, so this can be taken into account in the determination of the overall wealth position of the client.
- Assistance in meeting clients’ long-term targets.
This article was written by Peter Towers o ESS BIZ Tools.
You can find further information at www.essbiztools.com
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