A sudden cashflow crisis highlighted that the accounts department had not been correctly showing in the accounts what money was due in, giving the directors a misleading picture. We were called in by their auditors to review the internal controls and processes, and to set up monthly management reporting to make sure that the directors always knew exactly how much money was due in, and when it was due, putting them back in control of their business.

This £1.7m business had been "stuck" for a couple of years, with net profits reducing despite increasing turnover.

By engaging the directors to spend some time reviewing their business model and creating the new year budget, we systematically reviewed each area of the business and were able to show them how over £100k could be added to the bottom line by the end of the year with just small changes to sales, gross margins, labour efficiency and a review of overheads.

By running the business to the plan over the year, and reporting against it monthly, the directors were focussed on achieving this improvement and knew what needed to happen to hit the target profit.

This client had been making quite good profits in the boom years, but during the recession work was getting harder to win. Before we became involved they were getting basic management accounts from their tax accountant, but they did not show them exactly what the real issues were.

We quickly uncovered the issues of previously undetected declining profit margins, excess overheads and a neglected revenue pipeline.

By analysing what clients and types of work were most and least profitable they could quickly change the focus of their marketing, and negotiate better terms with suppliers that better reflected the market conditions. The effect of this was to improve the gross margin % by almost 10%.

With a renewed structured focus on marketing and setting targets for the pipeline, revenues recovered and became more predictable - enabling the directors to drive the business forward.

This client operated over many branches round the country, but did not get figures on revenue, gross and net margins by branch and did not compare monthly figures to a budget. Consequently the directors did not truly know how profitable each branch was, or how gross margins varied across the business.

Going into a recession this was critical in order to control the business and be able to predict cashflows. We set up multi branch, cross divisional reporting so that the performance of every division and branch was clear. Very quickly the directors were able to see exactly where the issues were and take action to fix them, and by knowing the margins at every level were able to put together a forecast for the year. Not only did they gain control of their business and are now making more money, but the bank now have increased confidence in their business because they can see monthly how the figures are being controlled

This client had clear ambitions about clearing both his commercial mortgage and personal mortgage within a short time frame, but wanted to be as sure as he could that his business was as robust as it needed to be to achieve this.

By setting clear business targets, creating a business plan and budget, everyone now knows what needs to be achieved monthly to keep them on track to achieve their target. We monitor the gross margins, customer and product mix profitability to make sure they are maximising and marketing for the most profitable work.

This client had bought a competitor, but who was located several hundred miles away from his main business. The internal controls and financial management of this company were poor, so we were engaged to sort the book keeping out and prepare monthly management accounts. In particular there were major issues with how the VAT had been calculated and reported to Customs.

Once the management accounting started the director was able to start turning the business round, seeing where to focus attention, where the profitable products and markets were, and sorting the problem areas of the business. We resolved the VAT issues and discovered that there was a significant amount of VAT that had been overpaid to Customs - we were able to recover this money for our client.

This business was then sold on for a substantial profit, the financial management information playing a key role in the due diligence process and ultimately in getting the best price for the business.

We were called into this client because their previous accountant had not been able to fully understand or report accurately on their gross margin, with reported margins varying monthly within a 20% range. On a turnover of over £7m, this meant that they did not know what their true gross margin was within £1m, and this was having a major impact on the ability of the company to predict and control cashflow, and to have the confidence to expand.

Over time we stabilised the gross margin to regularly being within a 1% range, working closely with them to understand the way that stock and work in progress worked, and engaging the sales and delivery teams in understanding the margins from the point of sale through to completion of a contract. From this point the company went to grow their turnover by 60% in the following 2 years.