Finance and Accounting

Finance and Accounting

  • How difficult is it to reduce the costs and improve the efficiency of the finance function?
  • Are you concerned about having the appropriate balance of controls and that they are not constraining the business?
  • Can you align finance with the business to provide an effective performance management and challenge mechanism?

CFOs are struggling to meet the increasing and competing demands of the business, particularly in the current economic climate. The compliance burden has grown, the finance function is subject to increasing cost pressure, whilst the demand for more and better management information challenges the function to do more at lower cost.

CFOs are juggling three agendas; Insight, Efficiency, Compliance and Control, and turning to us to help them strike the right balance. They want to secure the finance function to support the business during the downturn, but lay the groundwork to build a high performing function for the future.

Providing insight

The downturn highlighted the need for businesses to be able to access effective management information to help them make critical decisions, like where to reduce costs and which customers/products are the most profitable. It revealed weaknesses in the ability of many finance departments to provide this insight not only to drive performance, but also to communicate with the market. As we move forward, insight will continue to be the key to helping businesses stay ahead of changing conditions.

Driving efficiency

As finance looks towards a future of doing more with less and with increased compliance demands also threatening to create sustained cost challenges, finance needs to find more and more innovative ways to ensure process and organisational efficiency. Now is the time for finance to be helping the business understand the operational decisions required to improve its financial position.

Maintaining compliance and control

Being accountable to the business and to the financial community, CFOs have put compliance and control at the top of the agenda. For many, responses have been tactical rather than strategic. More deeply embedded and sustainable solutions are now required. Flexibility to respond to any future regulatory change is also increasingly important.

How we can add value to your business

Our team of professionals can provide you with the necessary support to meet these challenges and can help the CFO meet the increasing and competing demands of the business. Specifically, we can help you in the following areas:

Finance Function Effectiveness

We can assist you in an end-to-end Finance Function Transformation, including restructuring, establishment of new accounting policies and manuals and implementation of high-end solutions. This will enable for:

  • simpler and standardised processes
  • clear ownership and an end to duplication of activities
  • consistent ways of working between finance and other functions

Performance Management

We can assist the organisation to revisit and reengineer the planning, budgeting and MI reporting framework, by providing industry benchmarks and best practice solutions. You will benefit by having in place:

  • long term planning and a financial programme
  • excellent, reliable and fast management information (MI)
  • efficient and reliable budgeting and forecasting

Costing

We can assist you in implementing full scale costing exercises, measuring the effectiveness of cost cutting initiatives and adopting alternative costing practices and methodologies. This will allow you to:

  • have less pressure in cutting costs
  • identify cost cutting opportunities
  • create a fair unit cost and have accurate product and business line margins
  • have reliability on the profitability of your customers

Treasury & Working Capital

Our core offerings are Cash and Liquidity Management, Receivables Management, Collection Management and Working Capital Optimisation. These services will help you to have:

  • effective and efficient use of cash
  • available cash and better use of liquidity
  • working capital rationalisation and proper cash flow scheduling

Financial Reporting & IFRS Advice

We can assist you in streamlining the consolidation procedures by implementing IT reporting tools, supporting you also with IFRS related matters. This will help you to:

  • report more information more quickly
  • respond to multiple GAAP reporting
  • align legal (statutory) and management reporting structures
 

Our team is available to meet with you to discuss your concerns and to find the appropriate solutions for your business.