Five Strategies To Strengthen Your Company?s Financial Management

Too many businesses wait until a crisis occurs before they start to focus on improving their financial management. Often, by that time, it can be too late. By setting aside an hour now to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your company's financial management activities and systems you can save a lot of time and aggravation. It can also help increase your profits, and at the end of the day that is what it is all about.

The following are five strategies that will help you start to build a strong financial foundation and build value in your company.

1. Set up a financial control system

The first thing you need to start with is a control system so that there is consistency in your process and procedures. A control system is designed to prevent and detect errors in your daily activities. For example, is there is a standard way of processing your receivables, payables and inventory? If there are no standard guidelines to follow, there is probably no control system.

2. Have daily access to your account information

Make sure that you can access your account information every day; it is invaluable to managing your cash effectively. With most banks providing internet access at a reasonable cost, there is no reason not to have instant access to account information.

3. Manage your cash components

Concentrate on managing your three main cash components: accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventory.

Let's take a look at each component:

Accounts Receivable

Make sure your credit and collection system is working efficiently. Any excess investment in accounts receivable increases the need to borrow more money to avoid a cash flow deficit. That means that if you are carrying excess receivables you are probably carrying excess debt and you have a direct cost of having to carry that extra debt in interest payments. Even if you finance the receivables through internal equity, there is still an indirect cost; the opportunity cost of using that equity elsewhere which could include expanding your inventory to increase sales, reducing debt or earning interest on cash balances.

Your accounts receivable collection period defines the relationship with the cash flow process. Every month you should be calculating your collection period and comparing with previous periods and relating those results to industry averages. Any material differences should be investigated.

Your credit policy can influence your cash flow and earnings. Longer credit terms can increase sales and earnings, but any decision to offer more liberal terms requires an estimate of the trade-off between the cost of the larger investment in accounts receivable and the bottom-line benefits of a higher sales volume. Remember that increasing your credit terms will bring in less credit worthy customers which can increase your bad debt expense. You can, however, use price increases to offset more liberal credit terms.

When you develop a receivable policy, consider the following:

  • Check the financial health of customers before offering them credit. Consider obtaining cash on the first order.

  • Do not make your invoice terms too generous.

  • Charge interest to customers who pay late.

  • Give discounts for early payment.

  • If you are offering discounts, the terms should be attractive enough to encourage customers to take the discount. This can also serve as an early warning signal; if a customer doesn't take the discount, or all of a sudden stops taking the discount, then you may want to investigate further before extending credit as it could be a sign of financial trouble.

  • Do not wait longer than 30 days for a late payment before you take action; you need to minimize your company's exposure to bad credit. Put it into dollar terms, if you have a $1,000 bad debt write-off and a 10% profit margin, you need to generate an addition $10,000 in sales just to make it back.

Inventory

First, keep in mind that because of carrying costs such as warehousing and insurance it is more expensive to carry inventory than to carry accounts receivable. That is, reducing an investment in inventory provides you a larger bottom-line benefit than a comparable reduction in accounts receivable because you are also reducing the carrying costs.

As with your receivables, it is important to complete a monthly analysis of average inventory held in days. Compare to previous months and industry averages and investigate any material difference or change.

A periodic inventory count is a fundamental requirement; any items that are overstocked should be investigated.

A sales forecast is vital, without it you lack the necessary management information for inventory control.

Your target inventory investment should equal your normal investment for core sales plus a built in safety stock (for example if a re-order is delayed you want some extra stock on hand) plus some amount for any anticipated growth in sales.

You can use the following equation to determine your economic ordering quantity: SQRT (2SO/CP) where

SQRT = square root


S = anticipated annual unit sales


O = fixed costs per order


C = annual inventory carrying cost, as a % of a products purchase price


P = unit purchase price for product

Note that the above equation attempts to minimize inventory cost by answering the question of how much and how often you should order inventory. It is not perfect; the equation does not take into account volume discounts and assumes that your demand is constant. However it is a tool that can be used to help in your decision making process.

The following are 10 questions you can use to review you inventory process:

  • Do you have a sales forecast? Do you compare forecast to actual sales and adjust the next forecast accordingly?

  • Do you know which items account for 80% of your sales? These items should be managed closely.

  • How fast can you get inventory?

  • How do you order inventory?

  • How much inventory do you order? Do you order extra just to save a few extra cents?

  • Do you know the cost of holding your inventory?

  • Do you rely on just one or two suppliers?

  • How frequently is inventory analyzed to determine obsolescence and makeup?

  • Do you have a policy of determining what is obsolete inventory and how and when to get rid of it?

  • Do you have an inventory reporting system to provide the necessary tracking information?

    Accounts Payable

    Although you want to stretch your payables as long as possible, much like you offer attractive discounts to your buyers you should also take supplier discounts as often as possible if the terms are attractive enough.

    Make sure your payables are tracked on a regular basis - such as weekly - and that your payment system runs smoothly.

    As with receivables and inventory, complete a monthly analysis of your accounts payable and compare to previous periods and industry averages. Any material difference or change should be investigated.

    Make sure vendors understand your company in case there is a situation where you need to stretch your payables. You need a plan to deal with those situations where you may have an unexpected spike in your payables.

    You should re-evaluate you vendors on a regular basis to make sure you are getting the best value.

    4. Budget

    It is fundamental, you need to plan for growth and you need to forecast for problems. You need to prepare a budget. Besides completing a budget for expected sales, you should also complete a budget for a disaster situation, like your sales are cut in half. The benefit is very straight forward; it forces you to ask yourself how you will be able to keep the company running in such a situation. It will also point to areas where you may be able to save money right away and free up cash flow. It's like having a disaster plan; you only have to act on it when disaster strikes, but it is much easier to concentrate when you do not have a crisis at hand.

    5. Develop a strong relationship with your Bank

    Devote attention to building relationships with your bank. Always keep them up to date on where your company stands. If you hit a difficult patch it is much easier to get your bank on board if they understand your business. Contrary to opinion, banks do not necessarily jump ship as soon as you fall into trouble. They are willing to work with small business through tough times, and gaining their trust to do so is much easier the more confidence they have in you and your company. They way to accomplish this is to be transparent in your dealings and to give them timely financial information.

    Use you bank as a resource for cash management. There are products available that can increase your cash flow, or arrangements that can be put in place to increase your interest returns. But you still need to make sure they are cost effective.

    About The Author

    Jeff Schein is a CGA and offers consulting, advice and coaching in the areas of business planning, business modeling, strategic planning, business analysis and financial management for new ventures and growing small businesses. Visit www.companyworkshop.com or mailto:jeff@companyworkshop.com

    In The News:

    • pen paper and inkwell


    cat break through


    Developing Your Management Style

    One thing a lot of us don't do in sales... Read More

    3 Innovation Keys - Do Your Innovative Efforts Need More Power?

    Recently, I attended a webinar with nearly 400 other Chief... Read More

    Assertiveness Helps Accomplish Everything

    When trying to get something accomplished, assertive behavior is the... Read More

    Organizational Capital in Politics, War, Sports and Business

    Intangible Corporate Assets such as Organizational Capital, Blue Sky and... Read More

    Unlock the Hidden Creativity of Your Employees

    To release creativity in employees, managers must get involved in... Read More

    Meeting Your Meeting Expectations

    "To get something done a meeting should consist of no... Read More

    Success at Work : People Skills : Dealing with New Ideas

    Re-organizing, re-engineering, re-training, down-sizing, outsourcing, changing-changing-changing. Organizations today think they... Read More

    3 Ingredients of Highly Profitable Organizational Change

    As waves of organizational change sweep across the business landscape,... Read More

    Terrible Meetings - Ten Ways to Spot Them!

    Sometimes, better than giving advice about how to run things... Read More

    A Facilitators Guide to Running a Stakeholder Analysis Workshop

    This facilitator's guide to running a stakeholder analysis workshop is... Read More

    Plans & Goal Setting - Kicking winning Goals

    Kicking Winning Business Goals The competition for business... Read More

    The Myth Of Relationship Selling Revealed At Last

    The second you quit being the 'best deal' for your... Read More

    How to Delegate Effectively

    ACCOUNTABILITY: Delegation is not complete unless subordinates are held accountable... Read More

    When Change Is In the Wind...Heads Up!

    In these days of takeovers and mergers, of downsizings and... Read More

    To Thine Own Self Be True--Its Better for Business: What Arthur Andersen Would Say to His Company

    As a child, you probably heard, "to thine own self... Read More

    5 Awesome Actions of Highly Creative Leaders!

    How many times have you wondered why you are unable... Read More

    Human Resources: The Misidentified Subject

    Interest in the field of human resources has exploded in... Read More

    10 Ways To Work Through A Business Slowdown

    In running any kind of business, it's inevitable that sometimes... Read More

    Innovation Management: The Time Factor

    Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

    The Power of the Contract in Performance Management

    An essential step in managing the performance of salespeople is... Read More

    Check Your Communication Skills

    Use this check list to assess your communication skills.Focus* Do... Read More

    Is Your Management Style Assisting or Hurting Your Business?

    Many times business owners can have significant differences in management... Read More

    CEOs And Boards Are Locked In A Spiral Of Doom

    American CEOs are dropping like flies. Boards, armed with new... Read More

    Innovation Management - idea selection and valuation issues

    Innovation is different and distinct from creativity in that it... Read More

    Leadership Skills

    Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors are working at... Read More

    Jack Welch--Success Is Getting Back Up on the Horse

    A few months ago I had the opportunity to spend... Read More

    Performance Reviews That Actually Improve Performance

    Employee performance reviews are one of the most dreaded tasks... Read More

    The Higher You Go

    The higher you go, the cooler it becomes. Really? Let... Read More

    Gossip And Rumors And Hearsay, Oh Why?

    In the Wizard of Oz, it was "Lions and tigers... Read More

    Executives and Emotional Self Awareness

    A major problem impairing an executive's performance is his Emotional... Read More

    Toxic Bosses

    What's everyone's favorite topic around the water cooler? Bad bosses!... Read More

    Office Politics

    Office politics! It's just another way of saying: "The employees... Read More

    Corporate Governance for Business Owners

    It is clear that good Corporate Governance is in the... Read More