What We Do

We consult in three inter-related and inter-dependent areas:

1. Accounting Management
2. Financial Management
3. Strategic Planning

Businesses are more likely to succeed when all three areas are embraced and fully utilized within the management framework.

Accounting Management

Internal Controls

As the business grows, what is often overlooked are the internal controls needed to insure that the business gets everything it paid for and receives payment for everything it sold. Good iInternal controls also keep employees honest and enable leaders to delegate financial responsibility and accountability.

We can help you design and implement:

1. Inventory/unit control procedures
2. Payable processing and disbursement procedures
3. Cash management procedures

Accounting Management

Staff Development

Growing businesses require more sophisticated accounting systems and a larger and more highly trained accounting staff to manage them. Very often, you will need to upgrade the competency level of your existing staff or hire additional skilled personnel. . We can assist you here by:

• Improving and documenting procedures
• Providing individual coaching
• Providing training workshops and seminars
• Define staffing requirements and their roles and responsibilities
• Assessing new prospective hires

Financial Management

Financings and Debt Restructuring

As businesses expand or contract, there may be a need to expand credit facilities, pursue different types of credit or restructure existing credit lines. We can assist clients in:

1. Renegotiating existing credit lines
2. Establishing new lender relationships
3. Restructuring credit facilities to suit different types of borrowing needs and taxing considerations
4. Assessing overall credit needs now and in the future

Financial Management

Mergers and Acquisitions

Businesses often face opportunities to grow through acquisitions or mergers. When those opportunities come along, we can help you:

1. Assess the opportunity
2. Assist in the negotiation and due diligence phase
3. Assist in arranging the financing
4. Help plan and execute the business integration phase.

Most business owners will at some point consider the sale of all or a portion of thier business. We can help business owners:

1. Develop and execute an exit strategy
2. Position the business for sale or ownership transition
3. Develop a leadersip succession plan
4. Structure the financig for various ownership transition strategies

Strategic Planning

Planning is the process by which organizations make decisions. We provide strategic decision-making services to help businesses focus their resources in areas that will give them greater opportunities for success. The licensed technology we use, Chart Your Own Course®, benefits businesses and their stakeholders by:

1. Providing a structure for identifying and developing a competitive edge over the competition
2. Empowering and motivating management
3. Creating a consensus and clarity of purpose consistent with long-term goals that define success
4. Focusing marketing and other business resources
5. Anticipating and then resolving problems
6. Increasing the odds for business and personal financial success

We also help businesses take on a Larger Purpose, which can become a powerful context for growth and success.

We offer these services as a planning team facilitator or as a business coach.

Chart Your Own Course® is a registered trademark of Applied Business Solutions, inc

Who Can Use Our Services

Companies that gain the greatest benefit from our services may be experiencing these events or circumstances in their life cycles:

1. Rapid growth or decline
2. Competitive pressures or product commoditization
3. Loss of profitability
4. Increased receivable dilution
5. Poor inventory or receivable turnover
6. Cash flow or liquidity concerns
7. A merger or consolidation opportunity
8. Changes in management
9. New business or division launching
10. Loss of a key financial person

Companies may also see the need for:

1. Ongoing counsel and advice in strategy and finance
2. Greater sophistication in their internal controls
3. Improved financial reporting
4. A more effective accounting department
5. Getting the right information to make important decisions

Accounting Management

Financial Reporting

Do you know how your business is doing? Can you tell whether all of your initiatives are on track? Reporting results is a necessary part of managing a successful business. Very often financial statements are prepared for the financial community and are not very useful for managing your business. Having the right reporting can help you:

• Focus in on key cost centers that are affecting the bottom line
• Gain insight into solving critical operational problems
• Measure the success of your management team and their initiatives
• Understand the true costs of your products, services, channels, marketing programs and other important areas of your business

Good financial reporting starts with understanding of the business and economic model that drives profitability and then developing the right chart of account structure to capture and organize the data. We can help you design and implement:

1. An appropriate chart of accounts
2. Data capturing systems
3. Departmental, product line, divisional reporting
4. Costing systems
5. Key indicator tracking systems