Are you convinced that you need help running the financial side of your operations, but you’re not sure what position you need to fill?
As a business owner, you’ll usually know when the time is right to bring in external support. As your organisation grows, there will be plenty of tasks that will quickly become too much for you to handle – and let’s face it, why would you want to spend your precious time crunching the numbers when you could be actively promoting your products and services, managing key accounts, and focusing on leading your staff?
The question is, is now the right time to bring in a CFO? (And could you afford to?)
Or will your accountant provide you with all the financial insights you need at this point in your company’s evolution?
Should you hire a CFO as well as an accountant?
The answer really depends on the role that needs to be filled.
Your accountant is primarily responsible for preparing and filing your annual company accounts and tax return. They may also do your bookkeeping, process your payroll and VAT returns, and may even prepare a set of management accounts.
A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) will make sense of your financial data. They will interpret the historic numbers in a way which will not only inform you how the business has performed in the past, but how it may perform in the future. They will approach the financials from a more strategic standpoint, and their value is best demonstrated when they are looking ahead on your business’ behalf, whether it be through the annual budgeting process, the preparation and review of your 3 or 5 year plan, or helping you understand the financial consequences of your business decisions.
Think of your accountant as the person whose aim is to work out what’s happened after the event, and your CFO as the person who can take to the reins of your finances along the way, constantly steering you towards making better financial decisions that will help you achieve your goals.
CFOs are constantly looking at the bigger picture.
If your business is turning over £1million or more – and/or you are concerned that your finances are not under control or require expert analysis in order to support your sustainable growth – we would recommend bringing somebody into the fold who has specific financial expertise that goes beyond the remit of a traditional accountant.
You cannot expect to replace your accountant with a CFO. They are still an important part of your team. But you can expect to gain more insight and gain a better understanding of your business’ financial position by bringing a CFO on board.
The top-line benefits of instructing a CFO
A CFO will provide essential support that will help you:
- Budget for new hires, new acquisitions, and investments in people, plant and equipment
- Improve your cashflow visibility
- Better manage any company debt
- Develop financial forecasts that can help identify any gaps or shortcomings in your strategy that might prevent you from achieving your objectives
- Rest easy knowing that the financial element of your business is in experienced hands!
Don’t need or can’t afford a permanent CFO? There’s another option…
Good CFOs are worth their weight in gold – but they do come at a price. If you are an SME, you are unlikely to need and probably are unable to afford the salary an experienced CFO would expect. You may feel like you’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place; you want to move forward with their help, but you’re worried about the expenditure.
Employing a full-time CFO is not the only route to improving your company’s finances. More and more businesses are outsourcing this vital work to a part-time Finance Director (FD).
Equipped with all the skills and experience they need to add tangible value to your business, part-time FDs can hit the ground running, delivering the top-tier advice you’d expect from a full-time CFO – without the same overheads.
This is precisely what the team here at Dartcell can offer: invaluable insight and expertise, on more flexible and affordable terms for the average small to medium sized business. Contact us today to discuss our services in more detail and discover how our part-time FDs can best support you.
If you need more convincing, you can learn more about how one of our outsourced finance directors might fit into your team in Part One and Part Two of our series on this very subject.
And don’t take our word for it; have a look at what our satisfied clients say about how we have helped them.