1. You don’t have time
Your business is growing. There are not enough hours in the day. While you spent an hour trying to work out why your bank balance didn’t reconcile or building a spreadsheet that models different ‘cost prices’ against different suppliers. Could your time have been better spent doing something else? Developing new products or services, sales or just getting some well earnt Netflix (or sleep) time?
Outsourcing your finance team to a Finance Business Partner (FBP) will take care of all the reconciliations, accounts, report and whip up any spreadsheet your heart desires.
2. Covid – (let’s think bigger)
After the year that was 2020, if there was one message that came out loud and clear to me, it is that “cash is king” One week business was as usual and next so many businesses had to completely shut down. As a business owner you need to be on top of cash even though you are spending 105 hours a week working on your business. A FBP knows and controls your cashflow status at all times. You could be in Officeworks sitting on the ergonomic chair of your dreams (it’s like sitting on a cloud). So you call your FBP and ask if you can have it. They will instantly know if you can or if you’ll have to wait until next month.
3. Tax-ing
So, you’ve engaged an accounting firm to at least lodge your taxes before, but do they give you real advice and useful strategies on how to ‘put money aside’ to pay the tax man? Some FBP have the resources to review and tweak some things that will potentially land more of that hard earned money in YOUR pocket.
4. Accountability
Your Finance Business Partner is available to help you set your financial goals and break them down into monthly targets. At each monthly or quarterly catch up they will hold you to these targets, challenge you and keep you accountable to them. A culture of accountability makes a good organization great and great organization unstoppable (quoted by Henry Evans).
5. Picking up trends and things to save and earn more
“Did you know your profit margin on cakes is double pastries, when you consider all costs including labour. You are already selling out of cakes every day, maybe we should revisit your strategy and focus on cakes as there is potential to double your revenue in a month based on the trends in the numbers I am looking at.” Accountant said to client.
On top of sending you some financial reports each month a finance business partner will also take some time to analyse and raise any opportunities or trends they find. If it’s critical they won’t even wait for the next chat, we’ll pick up the phone or send you a little note so you can pivot or change your tactics asap.
These are just 5 ways to use your finance business partner and increase your bottom line. The best thing is you get an accounts team, management accounting team, financial advisor, CFO and tax team for one fixed retainer.
A finance business partner is a relatively new concept in the world of accounting and finance and is usually reserved for large corporations with big finance team budgets. To be perfectly honest it’s not a skillset that comes naturally to Accountant’s so is (very) rarely done well. By definition it’s “a real and active partnership with operations and management. Their role is to be a trusted advisor and add value that will assist in decision making”.
That means you can pick up the phone and ask anything like “how much should I spend on a team breakfast?” or “if I was to change supplier what would my profit increase by?” or “can I pay myself an extra $5k this month?”.
Financial decisions happen all day and having a finance business partner to support you along the way could be the answer to a bigger and better 2021.
If you’d like to chat more introduce yourself to us [email protected]
