“If you are not staying on top of your money, you are putting your financial well-being at risk.”
Suze Orman
Routine health check-ups help assess your physical well-being. The same goes for financial health check-ups.
This blog takes an insightful analysis of why financial check-ups are necessary and how they benefit your business.
Are Your Finances Healthy? Let’s Have A Check-Up!
A financial evaluation of your business dissects every single aspect, including:
- Your current debts
- Your financial assets
- Outstanding loans
- Miscellaneous expenses
Knowing your financial status gives you the power, freedom, and knowledge to devise your future strategies and make appropriate investment decisions.
Is financial planning tough to implement? Not really. No matter how your business is structured, you can implement a plan that fosters sound financial health if you are guided by lessons from the past, advice from the present, and a keen eye toward the future.
Why does your business need a financial health check-up?
The above question is pointless because a financial health check-up needs no rhyme or reason to justify its necessity. Nevertheless, the recent pandemic and the uncertainty it has unleashed on an already unstable economy are likely to be felt for many years to come.
Conducting a financial health check-up is a necessity now, more than ever, because it can help gear your business for any inevitable ups and downs the future holds. There are many reasons to hire a business consultant company to run a check-up, such as:
- Identifying persistent issues in cash flow in your business.
- Knowing your debts and arranging experts for debt management.
- Understanding how a price increase or new investments will impact your savings.
- Assessing your finances to ensure a comfortable retirement life.
- Getting professional advice and a holistic evaluation of your finances.
- Understanding your company’s financial infrastructure through the eyes of a professional.
There are probably a dozen more reasons to get involved in a financial health check for your business. Whatever the reason, this process can only be beneficial, no matter how much it costs. Let's explore what you gain from a financial business health check-up.
Top Business Consultant Company Lists Down the Top 8 Advantages of Financial Health Check-ups
Better risk management
Supply chains must understand the financial risks that their trade partners, suppliers, and customers face. It is equally vital to know the financial situation of everyone with whom you do business, even if you have to back up receivables through bank letters of credit. This will help ensure your partners, suppliers, and customers can pay you.
Furthermore, to avoid becoming stuck with goods that cannot be moved, you can also maintain a healthy level of inventory management. You can keep risk at a reasonable level by increasing inventory to create a buffer or decreasing it to avoid being left with unmovable products.
Liquidity & solvency
How substantial are your cash reserves? How many of your assets can be converted into liquid cash, if the need arises? By analysing liquidity, you can determine the short-term prospects of your company by its ability to meet its immediate obligations. Financial health check-up helps simultaneously evaluates your business solvency, which is equally vital as liquidity. Your company's solvency demonstrates if you are strong enough to meet your future debt payments.
Strategic rethinking
Financial check-ups help you realign your strategies when the business scenario fluctuates. It helps you:
- Focus on cash-to-conversion cycles
- Adjust capital investments
- Ask suppliers to extend payables
- Covert fixed costs to variable costs
- Reduce hiring freezes
- Redistribute labour
It is better to be well-prepared than shift the burden to another part of your business when the inevitable happens.
Check your net margin
Without a doubt, your ultimate aim is profitability, as is the same for any business. Of course, your creditors and investors will help keep your business afloat for as long as possible. However, without net profitability, your business will disappear into oblivion. Only an in-depth financial check-up will highlight the actual state of your net profitability. It will tell you the consistency of your net margins, based on which you can make your decisions.
Know your creditworthiness
Banks and any financial institution will offer loans or even accept your loan proposals only if you are creditworthy. To evaluate and set financial goals, you should regularly check your credit score regarding your purchasing power and borrowing limit. A reliable business consulting company will help narrow your credit score and highlight your purchasing power and borrowing limit.
Plan for the future
Financial check-ups help plan your financial journey based on scenarios that align with your company. Depending on the organisation's current state and desired future, the shift could be minor or drastic. It could involve expanding existing operations, refining existing processes, or introducing new products and services.
Cash flow is essential for a business to operate, and maximising it can ensure you have enough resources to keep your business running. Investing in new employee initiatives can help to keep your company competitive and aligned with your new direction.
Improve operational efficiency
Your operational efficiency is the pulse of your business. It reveals much about your financial health, future prospects, financial competence, and cost control management. The basic operational profit margin is calculated after deducing your products and services production and marketing costs. If your results are good, it is a sign that your business will sustain for a long time and has the potential to overcome problems.
Understand vital metrics
During triggering events, it is important to track your Key Performance Indicators or implement a tracking system via a dashboard. Your decision-makers need real-time data to identify trends, opportunities, changes, and potential risks. A financial health check-up will look into metrics like:
- Cash figures
- Retention rates
- Sales figures
These metrics will help you recover quickly during triggering events.
Wrapping up
It is crucial to know what your business is worth today and how you can increase its value in the future. Only an in-depth financial check-up will let you see every detail and allow you to take the necessary steps to keep your business flying high.
Get in touch with Fortius Consulting to gain a range of business consultancy services in the UAE, including grading management, finance management, and taxation.