Why profitable businesses still run out of cash
Profit and cash answer two different questions. See how cash becomes tied up in working capital, why growth consumes it and what never appears in the profit figure.
Insights
Practical answers to the finance questions owner-managers run into before anyone thinks about a CFO.
Finance for owner-managed businesses
Cash, reporting, forecasting and the point at which a business needs CFO-level input. Written for the person running the business. The approach behind them comes from more than twenty years of finance leadership across owner-managed, privately owned and investor-backed businesses, and is the same judgement applied in The Pelican Finance Health Check.
When does a founder-led business need a CFO?
Rarely a question of turnover. The signals that decisions have outgrown the information behind them, and the full range of options short of employing someone.
What should good management accounts actually tell you?
Producing management accounts and using management information are different activities. What reporting should let an owner see, and the decision it should point to.
What a fractional CFO does that your accountant usually does not
Your accountant is probably doing their job well. It is a different job. Where compliance ends and forward-looking financial judgement begins.
Why finance automation often fixes the wrong problem
Automating the reporting pack makes the final step faster. It does not fix information that was already late, entered twice or inconsistent. Where financial information actually starts, and what is worth changing before you buy anything.
If one of these has raised a question about your own numbers, The Pelican Finance Health Check is a fixed-fee review of what is working and what to fix first, and fractional CFO support covers the ongoing version of the same judgement.