Budgeting and Planning

September 26, 2015

This is real world business planning, how to actually develop a plan to run your business and stay on track to meet your goals. Proven from some of the world’s most respected companies.

CFO Network has deep experience with business planning. We have made a good living for more than a quarter century working with business owners to help them set aggressive yet achievable goals and objectives for their business.

Our process starts with your goals. What are you trying to achieve in your business? This often times starts with an understanding the potential of the business. Most business owners have an intuitive feel for this. Next we start the process of building out a revenue forecast, then understanding what spending and investments need to be in place to support that revenue. Finally, we take a look at the feasibility and impacts of the plan. How much cash will this growth require? How many new people per quarter will we need to hire? How does this plan impact the balance sheet? These are just a few of the examples of all the parameters we will be evaluating.

Developing a plan is one thing, but how to use it to stay on track and execute is another. At the heart of all of this is a very powerful custom spreadsheet model developed by our experienced financial analysts that is architected around what we call the value drivers of your business. These are the key metrics for what drives growth and profitability in your business. This model is a powerful tool that links your income statment, balance sheet and statement of cash flows together. You can change one of the value drivers and instantly see the impact on revenue, profitability, assets, liabilities, cash flow and many other important metrics. This model will forecast out your business for 3-5 years. Once we get that nailed down the next step is to take year one and develop a budget by month. We will then load that into your accounting system so we can have budget-to-actual reporting as we move forward. That is the framework we use to help our clients stay on track to the plan.

Businesses who plan are the most likely to succeed. It’s not about trying to predict the future. It’s about taking control of your future. Having a strategy, setting goals and objectives and putting in place a plan are all critical first steps to getting everyone rowing in the same direction. Read HERE for more on why business planning is a worthwhile investment.

This is just one example of how CFO works with our clients to become a critical strategic partner. As you can see, we deliver much more than you’d expect from a typical bookkeeper, accountant or even Chief Financial Officer. We specialize in understanding what truly drives profitability for your business. We take it upon ourselves to go find that data in whatever systems they reside. We analyze it to be in position to make recommendations that have real impact. We work with you to learn how you like to see the information, help you understand it, and the best way to act upon it. All for a price you can afford because we were built from the ground up to serve small and medium businesses.

Contact us today for a free consultation. We would love to talk to you about how to affordably get your business to where you know it can be. We can help you get there.

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