Management Accounts for SMEs: What Should They Actually Tell You?
If you receive a set of management accounts every month, what do you actually do with them? For many business owners, management accounts arrive as a pack of financial information containing a profit and loss account, balance sheet, cash figures and perhaps a few KPIs. But receiving management accounts is not the same as having […]
Finance Function Review: What Does a Well-Run Finance Function Look Like?
As a business grows, its finance function often develops in response to immediate needs rather than through deliberate design. A spreadsheet is introduced to solve a particular problem. A manual approval process is added because the accounting system cannot quite do what is needed. One person takes ownership of a task because they happen to […]
How to Use Xero Budgets to Forecast Profit, Tax & Dividends: A Practical Guide
Most business owners have their bookkeeping running smoothly. Bank feeds are connected, invoices go out, bills get recorded, and the reports look tidy at month end. So why bother building a budget in Xero on top of all that? Because your bookkeeping only tells you what has already happened. A budget tells you what you […]
The finance function is changing. Here’s how we’re changing with it
AI is now firmly on the agenda for growing businesses. Most SME founders know they cannot ignore it. They hear about AI in board meetings, webinars, LinkedIn posts, podcasts and investor conversations. There is a growing sense that businesses that fail to understand it will fall behind. But knowing AI matters is not the same […]
AI risks every CFO needs to understand – and what to do about them
AI is already embedded in most businesses. Not in a big, transformational way but in lots of small, everyday decisions: The challenge is that governance has not kept up, and that creates risk. We recently recorded a podcast episode with Rebecca Steer from Keystone Law, where we talked about the legal and commercial realities of […]
Why Your Business Can’t Afford to Skip a 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast
Be honest: cash flow forecasting is rarely top of your to-do list. In fact, most founders only really think about cash flow when something feels tight. The problem is, by the time it feels tight, it is often already too late.That’s where a 13-week cash flow forecast comes in. It gives you just enough visibility […]
5 Financial Ratios Every SME Founder Should Track to Protect Business Health
Running a growing Small to Medium sized Enterprise (SME) can feel heroic. You are making big decisions daily, balancing growth with risk and keeping the whole operation moving. But even the most capable founder should not rely on instinct alone. Your real business superpower lies in understanding your financial ratios. These five essential financial ratios […]
What investors really look for in a scaling SME
Securing investment is often a critical step in fuelling growth for an SME. But when founders start preparing for funding, one question comes up time and again. What do investors actually look for? While every investor has their own lens, there are some common financial and operational signals that consistently indicate stability, scalability, and long-term […]
Twelve Festive Finance Gifts for 2026
Between Christmas and New Year, business often slows to a gentler rhythm.There is space to think and breathe. For many founders, there is finally time to look at the numbers that usually sit on the back burner. This year we decided to share a Christmas gift with you. Twelve short but very useful clips from […]
5 Signs You Might Need a Finance Director (or Fractional FD)
A founder friendly guide for growing SMEs Growing a business is exciting, but there comes a moment where the numbers feel different. They get bigger. Faster. Harder to keep on top of. This is usually when founders begin wondering how to stay on top of it all. They start thinking about whether it might be […]