After a period of growth, you may be wondering whether or not it’s time to hire a CFO for your small business. On the one hand, CFOs offer top level financial advice and expertise that can take your business to the next level, but on the other, they are expensive and you may not be ready to commit to an in-house hire. Enter: outsourced CFOs.
An outsourced CFO works part-time with you, and usually remotely. This means that you have access to expert financial guidance as and when you need it, without the commitment or cost of an in-house hire. For many small businesses, this is a convenient and affordable option that can really take them to the next level and transform their profit margins.
Let’s take a look at how an outsourced CFO can drive up your profits and transform your business.
As your business grows, you will need to take on more team members and the cost of this can be very difficult to manage. Timing is crucial. If you hire new staff too early, you put your cash flow in jeopardy. However, if you hire too late you will antagonise your existing staff by overworking them and compromise the quality of service your customers receive, too. A virtual CFO can optimise your hiring process by helping you to understand when it makes financial sense to hire and when to hold back.
Whether you currently have debt or it’s part of your growth strategy, an outsourced CFO will prove instrumental in helping you to manage your credit well.
A significant amount of debt can really eat into your profits. An outsourced CFO will create a debt reduction plan to get you back on track and maximise your margins.
Meanwhile, if you anticipate going into debt prior to a period of growth, your CFO can devise a strategy to mitigate the risks and optimise your liabilities to help you achieve your goals.
Many business owners create a budget, only to get side-tracked and forget all about it. An outsourced CFO can not only help you to craft a realistic business budget that supports your goals, but analyse your actual reports in order to track how well you are sticking to it. This data can then inform future planning, help you make well-timed investments and allow you to create more accurate financial forecasts.
In order to maximise your profits, you need to keep your costs as low as possible without compromising your business. An outsourced CFO can help you to implement efficient cost control by identifying costs that you can reduce and carefully tracking your variable expenses. This gives a significant boost to your bottom line as well as improving your cash flow.
A lot changes as your business grows. If you fail to prepare properly, you might find yourself face-to-face with a financial disaster. The financial acumen of an outsourced CFO is invaluable when you are preparing for growth. Their vast experience allows them to offer expert, impartial advice, act as a well-informed sounding board and help you avoid financial pitfalls.
If your business needs financial guidance but you’re not yet ready to hire an in-house CFO then outsourcing is a fantastic solution. This gives you access to top-level financial advice that will steer your business towards success without breaking the bank, thus maximising your profit margins.