Ensure your business is compliant – Part II

May 20, 2020 by

How a part-time CFO will ensure your business is fully compliant

The CFO Centre will provide you with a highly experienced senior CFO with ‘big business experience’ for a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. This means you will have:

One of Canada’s leading CFOs, working with you on a part-time basis
A local support team of the highest calibre CFOs
A national and international collaborative team of the top CFOs sharing best practice (the power of hundreds)
Access to our national and international network of clients and partners

With all that support and expertise at your fingertips, you will achieve better results, faster. It means you’ll have more confidence and clarity when it comes to decision-making. After all, you’ll have access to expert help and advice whenever you need it.

In particular, your part-time CFO will help you to ensure your business is fully compliant.

Compliance is hugely beneficial to any organization but it is by no means a one-off exercise. It takes time, energy and money to ensure it works effectively.

Your part-time CFO can bridge the gap between money and risk and handle both legal and compliance issues for your company to ensure risk is managed and the bottom line is optimized.

That lifts an enormous burden from your shoulders, leaving you free to focus on the core activities of your business.

Our regional teams of part-time CFOs and our national collaborative network have all the latest regulatory knowledge at their fingertips.

There are many aspects of compliance but by way of a summary, your assigned part-time CFO will work with you to:

Ensure that your financial statements and annual returns are completed and filed on time.
Ensure that employment and related payroll taxes are completed and filed on time.
Use our national collaborative network to access information related to specific compliance issues for your industry.
Ensure compliance with all GST/PST/HST and other statutory filings.
Read and interpret bank/invoice finance covenants and ensure compliance.
Introduce HR checklist and sign off compliance.
Check insurance coverage, relevance and make sure paperwork is complete.
Ensure that all returns are accurate and up to date with CRA

Conclusion

When you allow a part-time CFO to lift the considerable burden of compliance from your shoulders so that you are no longer being sidetracked into time-consuming compliance activities, you are free to focus on the core activities of your business.

You can be confident that your part-time CFO provides an expert level of support in managing compliance functions and risk.

He or she will help you to cut back on expensive infrastructure so that compliance is managed in a cost-efficient way.

Critically, your CFO will give you peace of mind, leaving you free to concentrate on growing your business.

Protect your company now!

Unless you have an up-to-date compliance programme, your company is at risk. Allow one of The CFO Centre’s part-time CFOs to help you to ensure your company is fully compliant. To book a free one-to-one call with one of our part-time CFOs.

Hiring Best Practices: What to Look for When Hiring a Part-Time CFO

July 11, 2019 by

Are you looking to hire a CFO that will oversee the financial side of your business?

As you start to consider what to look for in a CFO and who would be the best fit for your business, your first instinct might be to interview full-time candidates only. However, you’ll be missing out on the many benefits that qualified, part-time CFOs bring to the table.

The Benefits of Hiring a Part-Time CFO

Immediacy for Urgency

When the needs of a business are urgent, it is usually easier and quicker to hire a part-time employee to help out, instead of instigating a full-time position. Given the nature of their role, part-time CFOs can act quickly on fulfilling specific needs, whether it is identifying business pain points or ways to make the business more profitable. Although you may only request your part-time CFO to work once a week, they will be ready to help whenever you need them, and they are always just a call or email away.

Financial Leadership

Other than solving immediate challenges, a part-time CFO can also act as a strategic business partner and help grow your business in a sustainable way. For example, they can prepare financial forecasts, develop annual plans for revenues and expenses, and assess the competitive landscape and long-term cash flows. As a result, this would help free up any business owner’s time, so they can focus on other aspects of the business.

Affordability

Aside from solving a company’s short and long term goals, one of the biggest benefits of hiring a part-time CFO is that you can have access to an experienced CFO at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. A full-time CFO delivers all the benefits of a part-time CFO but at an increased cost and financial commitment, and most SMEs do not require that skillset or experience every day of the week. Instead of investing in extra recruitment and hiring costs to find a full-time candidate, your business can reap the benefits of a part-time CFO who has practical, financial, and strategic skills to offer.

Flexible & Customizable Work

Flexibility is becoming more acceptable in today’s business landscape, allowing for part-time CFOs to fit right in with their varying schedules. Once you hire a part-time CFO, they will take on a variety of different tasks, based on what and when you need them for. Depending on the part-time CFO’s experience, they can also cater to different business markets and fulfill various needs. Overall, this results in an efficient solution for both parties, where clear roles and responsibilities are established and no time is wasted.

Open & Honest Dialogue

An advantageous quality that most part-time CFOs (and part-time employees in general) have is their ability to be candid with their employers. You can expect a qualified, part-time CFO to challenge you in ways that a full-time employee might feel uncomfortable doing. An employee’s honesty and transparency tend to lead to meaningful discussions that push businesses towards their goals and bring clarity in times of confusion. Since part-time CFOs are independent workers, you can also confide in them about any departmental issues you may be facing.

Expertise in Local and International Markets

Depending on your business needs, you may require a part time-CFO who is familiar with the local and international markets – companies such as the CFO Centre provide access to a network of local, national and international teams to support a diverse variety of needs that an individual CFO cannot offer. There are also over 60 experienced part-time CFO’s to choose from who have expertise in various sectors.

Finding A Suitable Candidate

There are many qualities to look for in a CFO, however, we have outlined some of the most important below:

Big Picture Thinking

A CFO who can see beyond the numbers would be a valuable asset to your company. This individual would be able to interpret data in a meaningful way and provide analysis that encourages positive growth for the company.

Communicative Team Player

Considering that a part-time CFO will not operate within a consistent schedule, they should be able to communicate often with others and provide extensive detail whenever necessary. It is also important that they are a team player who gets along with other employees, otherwise, they will not be able to work efficiently and successfully with your team.

Multi-Faceted Experience

To make the most of your part-time CFO’s skill set, you should consider how much experience they have with different companies and within various industries. Individuals with an impressive range of previous experience can provide valuable perspectives on different problems, strategies, and goals that other employees may fail to see.

Life-Long Learner

Ideally, your part-time CFO should be excited about building upon their skills and developing their career, to ensure that they stay up-to-date in their respective fields. Without this attitude, your business will not be able to grow and progress from a financial standpoint.

Interested in hiring a part-time CFO of your own? Browse our selection of Canada’s most qualified, part-time CFOs.

Understanding Business Risk – How to Avoid the Road to Ruin

September 4, 2018 by

Entrepreneurship means taking risks, such as launching new products, entering new markets, or using new processes. Because this involves uncertainty, there are always chances that things will go wrong.

Our experience at the CFO Centre has been that the most successful companies take the time to understand the downside of the risks they take, and then find a way to compensate for those downsides.

As the CFO Cente’s book “Scale Up” says, a lot of business owners spend an unhealthy amount of time worrying about what might go wrong, but don’t have a formal risk management framework in place. One of the most dangerous positions to be in is not knowing what might harm you. That’s why “Scale Up” suggests starting with a comprehensive risk analysis, to identify potential risks to your business.

This post talks about how you can understand the risks your company faces, and develop a way to manage those risks.

Why is business risk analysis important to you?

Business risk analysis is an essential part of the planning process. It reveals all the hidden hazards, which occupy the business owner’s mind on a subconscious level but which have not been carefully considered and documented on a conscious level.

Not understanding the risks your company faces can bring your company to its knees, as a 2011 report, ‘The Road to Ruin’ from Cass Business School revealed.

Alan Punter, a visiting Professor of Risk Finance at Cass Business School, said the result of a detailed analysis of 18 business crises during which enterprises failed revealed that directors were often unaware of the risks they faced.[1]

“Seven of the firms collapsed and three had to be rescued by the state while most of the rest suffered large losses and significant damage to their reputations,” he said.

“About 20 Chief Executives and Chairmen subsequently lost their jobs, and many Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) were removed or resigned in the aftermath of the crises. In almost all cases, the companies and/or board members personally were fined, and executives were given prison sentences in four cases.”

“One of our main goals was to identify whether these failures were random or had elements in common.”

“And our conclusion? To quote Paul Hopkin of Airmic, the Risk Management Association that commissioned the research: ‘This report makes clear that there is a pattern to the apparently disconnected circumstances that cause companies in completely different areas to fail. In simple terms, directors are too often blind to the risks they face.’”

A lot of business owners spend an unhealthy amount of their time worrying about what might go wrong but don’t have a formal risk management framework in place. It is dangerous not knowing what might go wrong.

What are the risks facing your business?

Business risks can be broken up into the following:

Strategic risks – risks that are associated with operating in a particular industry
Compliance risks – risks that are associated with the need to comply with laws and regulations.
Financial risks – risks that are associated with the financial structure of your business, the transactions your business makes, and the financial systems you have in place
Operational risks – risks that are associated with your business’ operational and administrative procedures.
Market/Environmental risks – external risks that a company has little control over such as major storms or natural disasters, the global financial crisis, changes in government legislation or policies.[2]

The ‘shoot, fire, aim’ approach favored by many entrepreneurs is great for making things happen quickly but often jeopardizes the long-term stability of the business.

What is needed is balance.

Once the business understands the risks, it means that it can move forward decisively and confidently. It’s hard to do this when there is a cloud of confusion hanging over the business.

Where to start?

You need to assess your business and identify potential risks. Once you understand the extent of possible risks, you will be able to develop cost-effective and realistic strategies for dealing with them. Consider your critical business activities, including your staff, key services and resources, and the things that could affect them (for example, illness, natural disaster, power failures, etc.). Doing this assessment will help you to work out which aspects of your business could not operate without.

Identify the risks

Look at your business plan and determine what you cannot do without and what type of incidents could have an adverse impact on those areas. Ask yourself whether the risks are internal or external. When, how, why and where are risks likely to occur in your business? Who might be affected or involved if an accident occurs?

Assess your processes

Evaluate your work processes (use inspections, checklists, and flow charts). Identify each step in your processes and think about the associated risks. What would stop each step from happening? How would that affect the rest of the process?

Analyzing the level of risk

Once you’ve identified risks relating to your business, you’ll need to analyze their likelihood and consequences, and then come up with options for managing them. You need to separate small risks that may be acceptable from significant risks that must be managed immediately.

You need to consider:

How important each activity is to your business
The amount of control you have over the risk
Potential losses to your business
The benefits or opportunities presented by the risk

Conclusion

By managing the company’s risk profile and the risk profiles of the shareholders the whole business can be brought into alignment and can operate as a unit rather than as a set of individual parts.

This is actually one of the most critical roles in any business and your part-time CFO will support and guide you through the process.

At the CFO Centre, our CFOs have an intimate understanding of every conceivable risk that growing businesses face. This means that we can help you build a much stronger business by knowing how to navigate through the growth stages of the business cycle confident that you are equipped to meet the challenges as they present themselves.

It is never possible to eliminate all risks in a business, but it is possible to create a framework and implement systems which lower your exposure to risk. That, in turn, allows you to focus primarily on growing your business.

Knowing that you have a framework in place to mitigate risk means that you can free up time and mental energy.

Lower your risk today

Let one of The CFO Centre’s part-time CFOs help you with business risk analysis. To book your free one-to-one call with one of our part-time CFOs just click here.

[1] ‘The Road to Ruin’, Punter, Alan, Financial Director, www.financialdirector.co.uk, Aug 18, 2011

[2] Source: https://toolkit.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au

Become a world class leader with a strategic plan

March 27, 2017 by

By Chris Carl
Regional Director at The CFO Centre

A part-time CFO is to an SME what a doctor, a physical trainer, and a world-class coach is to a superstar athlete. The superstar athlete will always be good – but they will only be great if they are healthy (the doctor makes sure of that), they are in great physical shape (the trainer takes care of that) and that they can compete at a world-class level (the world-class coach takes care of that). In a business setting, the CFO Centre refers to these same three levels of conditioning as Business Support (being healthy), Operational Skills (getting in great physical shape), and Strategic Planning (competing at a world class level).

The highly experienced and successful part-time CFOs from The CFO Centre can help make a company flourish in every respect. From increased profitability, to growth through financing or mergers and acquisitions, to increased happiness in the C-suite and all employees, a part-time CFO can literally help perform miracles. But, these results can only be achieved through sound business practices and a great strategic plan. A successful experienced CFO, that costs only a fraction of a full-time CFO, can make all of these happen.

This article (part 4 of 4) discusses developing and implementing a Strategic Plan to make your company able to compete in any market.

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Strategic Planning

In our final comparison to becoming a world-class athlete, regardless of how strong an athlete you may be, you will never compete at a world-champion level without a great coach. That coach helps you develop your plan to get to the top of the podium – from taking stock of where you stand today, to figuring out what actions might hurt you if not attended to, to laying out a timetable to achieve each part of your overall goal. That coach ensures that you have all of the right resources around you that you will need to win that championship, he/she does a lot more than sit on the sidelines and clap when you perform well.

In business terms, to be able to achieve all of your business goals, (and maybe some you thought were beyond your wildest dreams) you need a Strategic Plan. Don’t confuse this with a wish list. A Strategic Plan involves setting very high goals but it also requires taking stock of your current situation, identifying the risks you need to overcome to achieve your goals, a step-by-step path and resources required to get you there, and a definitive timetable for each step to make sure it all happens. Once in place, it also requires execution.

At The CFO Centre, we believe the highest value we can bring to any client is to help them develop, and execute a “Strategic Plan” that takes the company well beyond what the CEO even thought possible. By following the path of the four key elements, a part-time CFO will bring financial abundance to the company. At the CFO Centre, we define these 4 key elements as:

Strategic Planning can sound lofty and somewhat irrelevant to a company that is in the trenches every day just fighting to survive. But it is exactly what the company needs to get them out of the trenches and on to a much better playing field. A Strategic Plan is like a roadmap and without one, the company will wander aimlessly without direction. And when communicated properly, it helps great alignment and purpose within an organization.

For example, one company I worked with as an investor had world-class technology to help other companies optimize cleanliness and environmental compliance in a manufacturing setting. The small management team was very strong and had great breadth between technical, marketing and financial experience and skill. And while they knew they had a world-class technology, they could not generate the marketing and sales dollars sufficient for them to access and educate the larger customers they desired. By selling to smaller customers, their unit sizes were smaller and they had to keep prices (and therefore margins) low just to be able to make the sale. The result: they were losing money or barely breaking even month after month and year after year.

When I met them through a fellow investor, I found a team that was capable, very focused on getting the job done, and who really knew exactly what they wanted in the long term. BUT, they were stuck in a low margin rut and couldn’t find a way out. So I suggested we take a few more hours out of their life for a few weeks and develop a Strategic Plan.

This plan had to be real, but it also had to lay out a path for them to get to point that they could be selling this amazing equipment to the large customers who needed it most. We sat down and recorded all of the possible goals (crazy ones and real ones), and we looked at all the things that could stop us. While there were many small issues we solved, or developed a plan for, in this process, one of the best examples of how a great Strategic Plan could work was in deciding how to increase product awareness and sales to the desired customers.

Everyone at the company felt that they needed to bring on a couple of top-notch sales people who could cover the continent. The problem was that, just like a full time CFO, highly qualified experienced sales people are expensive to employ full-time and for this company the selling process could take up to a year. That was an added overhead the company just could not afford. So instead we looked to how we could leverage the skills of others and decided that if we could possibly find distributors who already sell products to our desired large customers, maybe they could be our conduits to sales.

So we laid out a plan, and a timetable (the most critical element is that you MUST have a timetable). We decided that we wanted a distributor in 50 States and 12 provinces. I suggested to the team that we set a goal of 1 year to achieve this and I was almost laughed out of the room. “Impossible” they said. But, not wanting to leave and still wanting to become an investor, I asked them not to think about it as 50 new distributors in the US and 12 in Canada a year, but rather 4 distributors in the US and 1 in Canada each month. I suggested that by breaking this seemingly insurmountable plan down into bite sized pieces that not only might we get there, we might just get there faster than we think.

After much debate, not only did we agree to give this a try, but with everyone being so busy we asked everyone on the team to contribute just a little bit. That meant sharing our plan with other customers and contacts, getting on line to research who might be out there, and start making calls. The admin assistant of the company drove the process by recording and organizing everyone’s efforts and new contacts daily, and by doing lots of outreach on her own as well. The team developed financial terms that were good for the distributor that would also be great for the company, and the sales manager found a draft Distributor Agreement that was only 2 pages and had the lawyer sign off.

In month one we signed off on 2 of the 5 that was our goal, and in month 2 we got 4 of 5. The numbers increased every month and by the end of month 10 we had a distributor in all 50 States and 12 provinces in Canada. We achieved this “unachievable goal” in 10 months instead of the year – even when the team thought getting it done in a year was impossible.

The result of setting the strategic goal to eastablish a network of Distributors was the company increased the value of the average sale from $20,000 per sale to $125,000, margins increased from 20% per sale to almost 50%, and the customer profile went from a privately owned business with under $5 million in sales to 80% of customers now being listed on the Fortune 500 – and three of them on the Dow 30.

To be fair, there were lots of fits and starts to get to this point, and there were times that it all seemed like it would come crashing down. But, by having that strategic plan to keep going back to and to measure themselves by, and by having a month to month plan of something achievable rather than a one year plan that seemed impossible, the Company did achieve what seemed like impossible goals. And today the same team is still working their butts off to continue growing the company – but they smile a lot more than they used to – and they know their now larger paychecks can be cashed.

There are dozens of stories like this from our CFOs at the CFO Centre. Strategic Planning may seem like fluff when you can barely make payroll next Friday. But in reality, a strategic plan is exactly the tool that a company with great products or services needs. Whether you are barely breaking even, or making millions in profit, EVERY company will grow and improve with a well developed, and well executed, Strategic Plan. The part-time CFO is the perfect resource to help an already busy team make this happen.

____________________________________

Chris Carl has a 30-year career growing manufacturing based companies with novel technologies both as start-ups and within Fortune 500 companies. Having held both CFO and CEO roles, he has raised a combined $500 million in debt, mezzanine and equity financing in private and public companies listed in Canada, the US and Europe.

The CFO Centre provides highly experienced, part-time CFOs to small and mid-market organizations at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. We are committed to helping companies work through complex financial issues, in order to maximize profit and provide senior financial leadership.

Our global team has over 400 CFOs across 13 countries; our services include business and strategic plan development, financial reporting, cash flow management, internal control, risk assessment and mitigation, training and development, and negotiations.

www.thecfocentre.ca
1-800-918-1906 or email: [email protected]

A Part-Time CFO Adds “Bottom Line” Value to a SME

March 21, 2017 by

By Chris Carl
Regional Director at The CFO Centre

The highly experienced and successful part-time CFOs from the CFO Centre can help make a company flourish in every respect. From increased profitability, to growth through financing or mergers and acquisitions, to increased happiness in the C-suite and all employees, a part-time CFO can literally help perform miracles. But, these results can only be achieved through sound business practices and a great strategic plan. A successful experienced CFO, that costs only a fraction of a full-time CFO, can make all of these happen.

This article (part 3 of 4) discusses how to improve your financial fitness through improving your Operational Skills.

Operational Skills

To continue with the analogy of a becoming a world-class athlete, one needs to be healthy to be able to perform, but to operate at a high competitive level you also need to be continually improving your level of top physical fitness.

In business terms, you need to ensure that your business is healthy by making sure critical business tasks are done correctly and not falling through the cracks. You also need to know that your current operations are running smoothly and at peak financial performance. The best news is that this does not require added cost. Instead, and without fail, improving your Operational Skills will always add tremendous value to your profitability.

At the CFO Centre, we reference operating at peak day-to-day financial performance as “Operating Skills.” If the four key Operating Skills are at peak performance, that means your company is operating at peak performance and you are therefore ready to handle any growth, or new projects, that you may desire for your business. These Operating Skills include (click on the links below for more information):

By assuming leadership for the Finance function and by implementing these key Operational Skills, a part-time CFO provides the business owner with TIME to focus on the business and CASH through a focus on operational efficiencies, by providing timely analysis and insights on the business to drive profitability and better cash and working capital management. Having more TIME and CASH, two much needed resources for any SME, eliminates some of the stress of operating your business and allows the business to be physically fit and healthy for the next level of growth.

As any owner or senior executive of a small to medium sized business knows, “cash is king.” That doesn’t mean sitting in the safe counting your money, but rather being constantly aware of your day-to-day cash flow. If something unexpected occurs, or you suddenly have a new opportunity that you must decide on quickly, you must be able to access, and to trust, the cash flow information of your company quickly.

In my experience working with SMEs, with clients or that I have run myself, it is an inability to access internal cost information quickly, and to be able to believe in the information you are getting, that can really slow a CEO down.

As an example, if you are running a business averaging $1 million per month in sales, and you get a call to take on $100,000 per month of new business at a 25% gross margin can your company handle this? Do you have an internal cost reporting system that allows you to accurately determine if this will be profitable for you? At the surface, the answer seems obvious: who wouldn’t want $25,000 more margin each month? But there are many things you need to know before you can say yes, such as:

How does the new business affect expediting of current sales?
How many more people do I need to fulfill this business?
Do I have enough working capital to manage the new receivable?
How many months of setup is required and at what cost before I start to see incoming cash?
Could taking on this business reduce the quality of the products or services I am already selling?
What is the credit risk of this new receivable?

The list of questions you want to be comfortable with is extensive but the point is made: without having Operating Skills that are in top financial fitness, you may spend hours trying to figure all these things out, and even then, you might make the wrong decision. But, the opposite is also true. If you have great Operating Skills and you trust them completely, not to mention having a part-time CFO who is a phone call away to share ideas with, you can make this decision in good conscience and feel great about the decision you just made. Does your finance function have the leadership and skillset to help drive your business forward? See how your finance functions rates (take the F Score).

While this is but one example of thousands to choose from, the point is clear. If your Operating Skills are in great shape, you will be able to make new decisions quickly and accurately. Just as importantly, while you are getting these systems in top shape, your part-time CFO will find areas where cash flow can be improved, and profitability will be be increased. This is just one of the ways that a part-time CFO will pay for themselves, or more likely, generate new profitability and cash flow far in excess of the cost of he or she being there.

____________________________________

www.thecfocentre.ca

1-800-918-1906 or email: [email protected]

How a Part-Time CFO Keeps a SME in Top Health

March 14, 2017 by annbeldia

How a Part-Time CFO Keeps a SME in Top Health

^*Small and Medium Enterprise

By Chris Carl

Regional Director at The CFO Centre

The highly experienced and successful part-time CFO’s from the CFO Centre can help make a company flourish in every respect. From increased profitability, to growth through financing or mergers and acquisitions, to increased happiness in the C-suite and all employees, a part-time CFO can literally help perform miracles. But, these results can only be achieved through sound business practices and a great strategic plan. A successful experienced CFO, that costs only a fraction of a full-time CFO, can make all of these happen.

This article (part 2 of 4) discusses how to ensure your company is in top health through Business Support.

Business Support

To become a top performer in any field, you have to be healthy to compete. As an athlete, that means not being sick and also being in great health in every measurable way. As a corporation, it means you must have all of the fundamental requirements of running a business under good control.

One of the many ways a CFO can bring value is to run a health checkup of your business to ensure it is strong enough to grow and to compete. For all companies, “financial health” can generally be thought of in four categories:

Compliance reporting to owners, government agencies and financial partners
Tax and legal planning
Outsourcing of professional assistance and support services where required
Banking and Investor Relationships

Chances are that most of these areas of your business are already pretty strong, but like a chain and many other things in life, the business is only as strong as its weakest link. At the CFO Centre, we call these activities “Business Support.” Enhancing these areas of your business may not seem like they can increase sales or customer satisfaction, but in fact, it is critical for these parts of your business to be in great health to allow you the freedom to have the resources available to support your customers.

While a part-time CFO will have a mandate that is much broader than these financial health-check issues, a great CFO will naturally take a look at these areas of the business to make sure everything is functioning well.

Most businesses require access to some sort of funding assistance to foster growth and innovation. This funding can take the form of a conventional bank loan or line of credit, convertible debentures from private investors, government assistance programs, or common or preferred equity being issued to existing or new shareholders. Though there are many variations of financing available, to be successful in obtaining access to such funding quickly and at the lowest possible cost, the business must be seen as financially healthy.

Making sure that the balance sheet is healthy is a great place to start. Are assets greater than liabilities? Are current assets greater than current liabilities? Once these are in good shape, are the four categories listed above all performing well?

As I have shared with partners, employees and clients over the years, when accessing new funding, it is not enough to have a good idea and be in relatively healthy financial condition to ensure you successfully attract new funding. Rather you need to be “better” than the other 5 or 10 companies your funding source may be looking at.

As an example, if you are talking to a great investor who likes your business idea, you need to remember that investor is likely looking at several other opportunities as well. That means you are competing with others who you can’t see. A great CFO will help you make sure that by being in great financial health, and by having top-notch reporting systems, that you will score very highly in the investor’s eyes against that unseen competition. Why? Because a company that operates smoothly, reports accurately and on time, and has all of the “financial health” issues well covered, is a company that is ready for the challenges that the new opportunity brings.

And of course, the opposite is also true. If your company is good at these things, but not great, you will always have trouble crossing the finish line with these investors because there will always be a company that does have these things under top control that will be viewed as better than you – even if your idea might be better than theirs.

Maybe it is time to ask yourself, “Is my company in as strong a financial health as it should be?”

Your part-time CFO will take on the oversight of the day-to-day tasks for these parts of your business and they will help your current accounting group (whether one individual or a whole team) modify their current processes to make sure they are performing at a top level that is competitive. Usually, this does not involve doing more work, but instead making sure the work is prioritized and is being done right the first time around. This may include automation or outsourcing that strengthens processes, increases expertise and improves profitability.

Do you want to be a world-class competitor and grow your business to its full potential? One of the easiest and most sound ways to get there is to make sure your company is in great health. And there is no one who is better suited to make sure that happens than a CFO.

And, while the CFO will have many more responsibilities than just examining the financial health of the company, an experienced CFO can make this work, and everything else that is required, on a part-time basis. I believe your company can derive its highest possible value by hiring an experienced, world-class CFO who can manage these things at a fraction of the cost of a full time employee.

Is it time for you to find a Part-Time CFO?

____________________________________

Chris Carl has a 30-year career growing manufacturing based companies with novel technologies both as start-ups and within Fortune 500 companies. Having held both CFO and CEO roles, he raised a combined $500 million in debt, mezzanine and equity financing in private and public companies listed in Canada, the US and Europe.

www.thecfocentre.ca

1-800-918-1906 or email: [email protected]

Category: Strategy

Ensure your business is compliant – Part II

How a part-time CFO will ensure your business is fully compliant

Conclusion

We’re here to help

Hiring Best Practices: What to Look for When Hiring a Part-Time CFO

The Benefits of Hiring a Part-Time CFO

Immediacy for Urgency

Financial Leadership

Affordability

Flexible & Customizable Work

Open & Honest Dialogue

Expertise in Local and International Markets

Finding A Suitable Candidate

Big Picture Thinking

Communicative Team Player

Multi-Faceted Experience

Life-Long Learner

Understanding Business Risk – How to Avoid the Road to Ruin

What are the risks facing your business?

Conclusion

Lower your risk today

Become a world class leader with a strategic plan

A Part-Time CFO Adds “Bottom Line” Value to a SME

How a Part-Time CFO Keeps a SME in Top Health