By Sue Hirst – Director, CFO On-Call The reports that come out of your accounting system tell the final story about how successful your business operations were. It makes sense to ensure it’s set up as well as possible, to give the best opportunity to learn how well you’ve done and how you can do […]
Category: Blog
6 Smart Ways to Get Better Credit Terms From Your Suppliers
By Sue Hirst – Director, CFO On-Call One of the key factors in good cash flow is how you manage your Accounts Payables i.e. suppliers who give you terms to pay. A key measurement in managing this, is knowing your average Accounts Payable Days. This is the number of days, on average, it takes you […]
How To Stop Being The ‘Meat In The Sandwich’ Between Customers and Suppliers
This diagram shows the average number of days this business is taking to collect from its customers (green or top line), as well as the average number of days it is taking to pay its suppliers (red or bottom line). We can see this business is paying its suppliers much more quickly than its customers […]
Your Grey Hair Is An Asset To Us!
by Sue Hirst – Director, CFO On-Call I recently met with an accountant in his early 50s who said he felt like he was ‘over the hill’ for many people looking to recruit an accountant. I’m sure this isn’t news to you if you’re in this age bracket and job searching. It made me think […]
How To Stop Customers Using You As A Bank
By Sue Hirst – Director of CFO On-Call Some customers will use you as a bank if they can. Better to use your goods and/or services and not pay until they have to. Here are some suggestions to speed up payment. The Quick & Easy way to See Who Owes What Once you have […]
How to Package your Knowledge as a CFO Consultant
Are you thinking of offering a CFO Consulting service to SMEs? If your answer is yes – have you thought about how to deliver your knowledge gained over many years to your clients? Most SMEs don’t know what a CFO is and if you’re thinking of calling what you offer Accounting, you will probably be […]
12 Ways To Collect Unpaid Business Bills
By Sue Hirst – Director of CFO On-Call Doesn’t it just give you the @?%&s when you’ve delivered a great job or product and customers don’t pay you on time? Unfortunately customers don’t always do the right thing, so you need to factor this into your business management. One of the most important factors relating […]
How To Stop Wasting Money In Your Business!
by Sue Hirst – Director, CFO On-Call The easiest way to stop wasting money in your business is to use a simple tool – a Budget. When/Why should businesses review their budgets? Budgets should be reviewed monthly. This can be done by entering a budget into accounting software and printing an Actual versus Budget […]
It’s Not About The Turnover… It’s About The Leftover!
By Sue Hirst – Director, CFO On-Call Have you ever wondered why your business isn’t as profitable as you would like and keeps running out of cash? Despite your great efforts at making plenty of sales… it just doesn’t seem to end up on the bottom line! The problem is the big gap between sales […]
NOW Is The Time for Exit Planning
Anyone can create or build a business. But how do you exit the business successfully? The decision of whether to exit your business or not, is never a simple decision. Most business owners hesitate or even procrastinate when making decisions about succession and transfer of business ownerships. It’s natural to avoid thinking about matters that […]