Having a solid plan for financial management is critical for business owners. Factors such as inflation, workforce uncertainty, rising interest rates, pressures from competition, among others, can all lead to uncertainty for business owners. To stay ahead of the curve, it is important to analyze financial data. Business owners should know where cash is being generated and used, how costs of goods sold and operating expenses are trending, and how the balance sheet portrays the company’s overall health.
Strategic Investment
Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is a strategic investment for many profitable firms, regardless of business size. It is an essential part of business management that helps inform management how much money the company should spend on operations and how much revenue they will generate in the coming months. It can also help develop a plan for improving business performance, help increase profitability, aid in investment decision making, help assess risk, and identify potential compliance issues.
FP&A vs. Accounting
FP&A differs from a typical accounting department in that accounting is primarily concerned with processing accounting transactions such as billing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and monthly close entries. Accounting then typically provides a summary of past results. In other words, it is working in the past. FP&A certainly does in-depth analysis of how money is being spent against a budget, but it also focuses on what is coming next. Will future sales be sufficient to provide enough revenue to meet projected expenses? Are expenses trending in line with projections? Do unforeseen expenses tend to recur? How is the health of the company impacted by anticipated results?
The average base salary for a Finance Manager with 4-6 years of experience in the Denver market is $100k. This does not include any benefits or bonus costs, any onboarding or training costs, and certainly does not consider the impacts of attrition. With the cost of FP&A professionals being so high, budgeting and forecasting in house has become less accessible for small and mid-size enterprises.
Why Augment Finances
Augment Finances brings more than 30 years of progressive Financial Planning & Analysis experience. We have worked for some of the world’s most profitable companies in a variety of industries, have experience with industry standard planning tools and have spent years building trusted relationships with executive business partners. We want to share this FP&A expertise with you in a form of an A to Z managed service where we take care of all the service aspects, including the human and software elements. We tailor our models to your business and work directly with your leadership team to build the assumptions that will be used in the budgets, forecasts, and analyses. We listen and provide feedback to ensure we build a plan and a reporting package that is realistic, transparent, measurable, and dynamic.
We treat every customer like they are our only customer. And the best part is that for most of our customers we deliver this at a fraction of the cost of just one full-time employee.
Want to learn about the specifics of our services and solutions, and how they help small and mid-size businesses? Click here!