Our approach and style are guided by a number of key principles and beliefs. These include
Business is about making sales, but it needs to maintain liquidity, while sustaining profitability and growth.
Budgets are dependent on company wide performance. If circumstances change, your budget will also. You're working together as a management team to deliver a business, not a departmental plan.
Reporting should be as much, if not more about the future than the past, i.e. what does it alll mean? It should also seek to promote cohesion among the management team and keep focus on delivering results.
The Finance Team should support and engage with the business.
It's all about cash. Liquidity needs to be managed in detail. We tend to first look at things in the order of (a) cash (b) sales, and then (c) profitability.
The balance sheet should be perpetually reconciled. Month end should take no more than a few days tops. Year end audit and sign off of accounts should be completed no later than month two of the new year.
Communication. Keep communicating, but deal in facts, don't be an alarmist.
People, not systems, are responsibile. Responsibilites cannot and should not be allowed to be abdicated onto systems.