Why Your Small Business Needs a CFO
4 Ways Hatcher CFO can Help Fill Financial Advisory Roles
Launching your business with an experienced team of professionals who excel in their given roles gives your organization a very high likelihood of achieving success. However, that scenario is rarely the case. In reality, it’s a few key stakeholders who wear multiple hats and do what is needed to get the job done.
While it may not be economically feasible to have a full staff of specialists, it’s still important to leverage the advisory services of experts in order to ensure your business’ finances are in order and to encourage optimal performance throughout your organization. There are experts available for any business or industry segment but since there are financial implications to every business decision made we are going to focus on the role of outsourced financial solutions. Thankfully in today’s age, there is no shortage of credible and well-established professionals capable of stepping in to fill that void for a very cost-effective investment.
Four ways Hatcher CFO has helped fill an expert financial advisory role for clients include:
Bookkeeping - bookkeepers create critical data by recording the necessary financial transactions for your business. These include all debits (costs) and credits (income) generated by the business.
Accounting - accountants take the data created by bookkeepers and convert that into financial statements. These include balance sheets, income statements and statements of cash flow that are then utilized by upper management in the decision-making process.
Controllership - controllers oversee members of the finance team as well as analyze the financial statements created by the accountants. Reporting directly to the executive team, controllers ensure the business is profitable and the overall company finances are in order before consulting with upper management.
CFO - as a critical member of the executive team, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) provides expert strategy and direction for the organization. This guidance will be firmly rooted in sound financial principles and what can realistically be achieved based on the business’ capital resources.
With your business’ financial house in order, it becomes much easier to forecast, plan and strategize the future direction for the business. Because you have an accurate and detailed understanding of your finances, you’re able to set realistic goals and establish management accountability to get you where you need to go.
The benefits of goal setting have been well documented but it’s important to reiterate that by setting specific goals you will be able to better measure success. When they are tied to financial benchmarks they provide the clearest picture to all levels of management of the impact of meeting or failing to meet the set goals.
But in order to establish these clear benchmarks - ones that are realistic and move the business in the proper direction - there must be a solid foundation of financial measurements to build upon. Furthermore, these organizational goals will be built upon departmental goals which are built upon individual goals. Therefore, being able to utilize credible data at the most basic level will have ripple effects throughout the entire organization.
The internal benefits of having these financial functions handled by outsourced experts are evident but there is also the external credibility that is a byproduct of this type of organizational structure.
Being able to communicate your business’ vision clearly and articulately to people like potential investors can significantly increase the likelihood of not only securing additional capital but being able to effectively manage the investment to meet your long-term goals. There is also the added benefit of being able to more aggressively negotiate terms with vendors because you know exactly how aggressive you can be with pricing.
With Hatcher CFO able to serve as that expert advisor to your business, isn’t it time to start putting the proper financial structure in place? Contact us today to discuss how.