‘Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is reality’ I’m guessing that you’ve heard this phrase before – but what does it mean in the real world: Well, I’ve seen too many businesses spending their time chasing low-margin orders, giving larger discounts, extending terms – all in the misguided belief that such activities would.. read more →
Let me tell you another story: Many years ago I went to work at an organisation as a factory accountant (I love factories) for a technology company. Part of the role involved the cross comparison of large tables of data to find discrepancies between the factory systems and the financial systems – Yawn! My predecessor.. read more →
Pareto is your friend Pareto was a wonderful guy. He left us with that wonderful 80/20 rule that seems to apply to just about everything. A few examples: 20% of your customers provide 80% of your income. 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your products. 20% of your people add 80% of the.. read more →
Some years ago I was contracted to an international FMCG. There had been a change of management and the new team was not sure of the financial status of the business. I’d been called in to drive the year end close and get the books square. The US boss was in town and we had.. read more →