The Four Elements of Financial Management
Planning
Identifying the steps that align with your company and personal objectives.
Have you established and solidified your Vision and Mission Statement? These serve as a guiding light to your entire organization providing a road map to achieving your short-term objectives and your long-term goals, and more importantly, paint a picture for everyone on how they each play an important role on the journey. You can make these objectives and goals as big and audacious as your motivation and spirit guides you!
Controlling
Ensuring all departments and employees are following the plan.
Now that you and your employees know where you're heading, how will you (and they) know if you're on the right path? How will you answer the question, "Are we there yet?" or "How much longer?". Controlling is not so much about cutting costs and eliminating redundancies, but is rather about setting appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) with leading and lagging indicators (metrics) of accomplishment and achievement.
Organizing & Directing
Defining the resources necessary to effectively carry out the plan?
Resources go beyond your materials, inventory, and tools. You'll need to review your staff, roles, budgets, funding, technology, equipment, outsourcing, and more. You may have to get rolling with baby steps while you put all of your resources into place over time, but you do need a solid understanding of the full breadth of resources that will be required before you can reach the ultimate destination.
Decision Making
Making informed decisions during each element of the planning process.
Okay, so you've got your BIG GOALS! Each element of Financial Management requires generating ideas, but before you can plough ahead, you'll need relevant research, information, and metrics so you can continuously review, tweak, or change direction... all with your amazing destination in mind. Strong and confident decisions will always coincide with the planning, controlling, and organizing elements of Financial Management.
Financial Management & Consulting Services
Financial Statements
A company's financial statements consist of the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and the Statement of Cash Flows. They are used to analyze the company's financial strength and determine the financial health and value of the company. In addition to yearend financial statements, they are required if applying for credit or financing. We can prepare accurate Financial Statements for your business at any time they are required for decision making purposes.
Pocket CFO ~ Virtual CFO
Ready to go beyond bookkeeping basics? Do you want to take your business to the next level? Now that your books are in order and you have accurate financial data, it's now time to use that information to strategically grow your business. You can either hire a full-time, in-house Finance Manager or CFO, or I can be your company's "Pocket CFO" for a fraction of the cost. I can also manage and support your administrative and accounting teams to streamline their processes.
Key Performance Indicators - KPIs
Helen has led management teams and departments in creating their Balanced Scorecards, including defining their vision, developing KPIs, choosing the best metrics, and drilling down to the individual employee level, then rolling it out across the organization. It's AMAZING how a strategic Balanced Scorecard forces extreme focus resulting in exceptional growth. You can start BIG with your entire company, or SMALL with one department.
Budgeting & Monitoring
Small businesses frequently ignore the annual budgeting process believing "it is what it is" and that is true until you're no longer satisfied with the status quo. If you are motivated to increase your bottom line (aka profitability) you should create a budget at the start of each fiscal year and then monitor your progress each month. We will assist you with the entire budgeting process and can also report on your Budget to Actual to make sure you are on track to meet your targets.
Financial Research & Planning
Make wise decisions! Entrepreneurs are known for coming up with great new ideas or additional service/product offerings. Before diving in head first, you'll want to base your decisions on sound financial information. Let us know what you're toying with or already planning to implement. We will research the potential financial impacts and provide you with a Cost-Benefit Analysis. We can research alternative options for comparison.
Custom Training Solutions
Do you want to lower your bookkeeping costs and do a lot of the basic recording of transactions yourself? Or, do you have clerical staff that look after the day-to-day A/R and A/P? Whether you wish to outsource only higher-level bookkeeping to a 3rd party or hand everything over to your Accountant at the end of the year, we can provide customized training options for you and/or your staff and assist with implementing processes so your business is more self-sufficient.