Insights

Clear thinking for stronger business performance

Practical perspectives for founders and management teams, drawn from corporate finance leadership and hands-on business ownership.

Cash Flow

Profit is an opinion; cash is a fact. Most SME cash pressure comes from timing, not trading.

A rolling 13-week forecast, updated weekly, shows the pinch points early enough to act on them.
Debtor days, deposit terms and payment runs usually release more cash than cost cutting does.
Separate the structural gap from the seasonal one before considering finance or an overdraft.

A forecast is a decision tool, not an annual formality. Its value lies in how quickly it is revised.

Build from drivers — volumes, rates, utilisation, headcount — rather than last year plus a percentage.
Run a base, downside and upside case so the board discusses ranges, not single numbers.
Compare forecast to actual every month and record why the variance happened; accuracy compounds.

A fractional CFO gives a growing business board-level finance judgement without a full-time salary.

Typical engagements run one to four days a month, covering reporting, cash, planning and lender or investor conversations.
The role is distinct from a bookkeeper or accountant: it is forward-looking and decision-focused.
Most value appears in the first 90 days, through clearer numbers and a credible plan.

Growth that outpaces working capital is one of the most common causes of SME distress.

Model the cash cost of growth — recruitment, stock, WIP and payment terms — before committing.
Know your contribution margin per job or contract so you can grow the profitable work deliberately.
Set a small number of gateway metrics that must hold as volume increases.

A dashboard nobody acts on is decoration. Six to ten measures, owned by named people, beats fifty.

Pair each financial measure with the operational driver behind it.
Report weekly on the few things that change weekly; leave the rest to the monthly pack.
Define every measure in writing so the number means the same thing to everyone.

The useful AI work in small businesses is unglamorous: reading documents, extracting data, drafting replies.

Start with a repetitive, high-volume task that has a clear right answer and an easy check.
Keep a human review step wherever the output touches money or a customer.
Measure the hours saved before extending the approach to the next process.

Automation pays when it removes rekeying between systems that already hold the data.

Connect the ledger, payments and payroll first; reconciliation is where the hours disappear.
Automate the exception reporting, not just the happy path.
Document the process before automating it — automating a broken process just breaks it faster.

Strategy becomes real when it is costed, resourced and visible in the monthly numbers.

Translate each strategic priority into a budget line and an owner.
Review quarterly against evidence, and stop the initiatives that are not earning their place.
Align the reporting pack with the strategy so progress is impossible to miss.

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