CFO Consulting Partners

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Crisis Leadership – What To Do Now?

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At CFO Consulting we serve the needs of Boards of Directors, CEOs and CFOs. We provide senior-level C suite and Board services to small and mid-sized public and private companies. In this current environment of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are focusing on helping Executive Management and Boards navigate through this crisis.
The following presents some thoughts for your consideration:
  • Prepare for talent disruption by considering interim executive resources, and by evaluating how functions are operating virtually. Parts of the accounting and finance function may be operating effectively in remote locations, while others may require intervention.
  • Bolster liquidity by understanding and managing your short-term credit, cash, and performance needs. A strategic focus when combined with well-thought through tactical plans to drive operational and cash flow improvements, including a 13-week cash forecast, should provide sound direction.
  • Increase communication with your critical stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, auditors, regulators, and the SEC. It is said that one should err on the side of over communicating. In times of crisis, we suggest that this is truer than not.
  • Review and manage all risks in the organization to ensure that a less obvious risk doesn’t catch the organization off guard and hinder recovery or growth plans.
  • Conduct a cost reduction review of all areas of the company. This may be a time to take cost reduction actions that may have been postponed during good economic times.
  • Review your financial reporting to make sure it continues to serve the needs of the company during times of distress. It is said and I paraphrase, if one can’t measure the results of an action, then we don’t know if the action produced the expected result. There may also be specific reporting issues that come to the fore, such as asset impairments and going concern analyses.
CFO Consulting Partners can advise you in all of the above areas of crisis management.
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For more information, please contact one of the following:
Ashish Bali, Senior Advisor, who authored this article. Ashish is a former Deloitte CFO and a member of several boards; he has hands-on experience in the above areas. abali@cfoconsultingpartners.com, 609.309.9307 x741
Allan Tepper, Sr. Managing Director, who edited the article and has crisis management experience. atepper@cfoconsultingpartners.com, 646.650.2028 x701
David DeMuth, Sr. Managing Director, who leads the Turnaround & Restructuring practice. ddemuth@cfoconsultingpartners.com, 609.309.9307 x700

Strengthen Your Financial Position With Our Turnaround Service

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We are proud to introduce our Turnaround and Restructuring practice to you. Our services are designed to help all companies improve their financial positions and rebound from the negative effects of Covid-19. Examples of services include:

· Restructuring debt

· Diagnosing issues quickly

· Producing 13-week cash forecasts

· Developing action-oriented short and long-term plans

· Producing timely dashboards

· Project managing cost reductions

Who are we?

CFO Consulting Partners is consulting firm comprised of CFOs and other senior financial executives. We provide a suite of CFO services and have the experience and horsepower to put your client’s business back on track. We formed our firm in 2006, we are 25 consultants strong and our sole focus is helping companies become stronger.

Please let us know if we can arrange a Zoom meeting with you and/or your team.

For further information on this service, click on the link below for our Turnaround and Restructuring services one pager:

Turnaround and Restructuring Services

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Turnaround and Restructuring Services Managing your business during and after COVID-19

The Turnaround and Restructuring Services group of CFO Consulting Partners can provide its expertise to your crisis management team with a roadmap that can define and identify cashflow and cash management needs. We’ll work with your team to develop agility and improve decision making to address key issues resulting from the Covid-19 crisis. Additionally, our services would include detailed financial planning, an assessment of operations and processes, and assistance in the areas of communications to employees, customers / clients, the board of directors and other key stakeholders.

Our experienced team of senior-level financial professionals can provide independent, objective support to business owners, BODs, CEOs and CFOs on funding, liquidity, tactical execution, and other issues to improve cash flow and financial performance.

Funding and Liquidity

  • Evaluate liquidity position
  • Prepare cash flow projections: best case, expected case, worse case
  • Assess working capital including vendor and customer management
  • Evaluate long term financing for potential loan restructuring
  • Provide introductions to new sources of financing
  • Utilize bankruptcy protection via our legal partners as a last resortTactical Execution: restructure to right size your business
    • Streamline business processes and eliminate non value-added work
    • Evaluate overhead structure including human capital
    • Assess project, product and customer profitability
    • Support renegotiations: contracts, vendor agreements, leases, utilities
    • Identify and implement cost reduction and margin improvement opportunities
    • Develop KPIs and executive dashboards including cash for better decision makingStrategic Assessments
  • Budgets, forecasts and 3 to 5 year business plans
  • Capacity and facility rationalization, location strategy and operating leverage
  • Evaluate information technology platforms and opportunities
  • Evaluate competitive environment and opportunities
  • Guidance on the strategic positioning of your company via M&A activity.
  • Buy-side or sell-side support
  • Introduction to private equity, investment banks, venture capital and wealth manager

 

For more information, please contact David DeMuth ddemuth@cfoconsultingpartners.com or Allan Tepper atepper@cfoconsultingpartners.com, or call David at 609-309-9307 x700

Allan Tepper Speaks on M&A: Update Post Covid 19 with Kathy Boyle of Chapin Hill Advisors

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Chapin Hill Advisors’ panel of experts shares insights on what deal flow is taking place, what is stalled and what opportunities are out there. Listen to our experts: M&A attorney, Dennis O’Rourke w/ Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP; Ron Lehman, MD Bruderman Brothers; Keith Dee, President Osage Advisors & Allan Tepper, co-founder CFO Consulting Partners take us through their views on the current state of affairs. What deals are going forward, which ones are in triage; are PE firms going to add to their portfolios and more. Moderated by Kathy Boyle. The link for the video can be found here.

Nine Things to Consider in This Financial Crisis

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CFO Consulting Partners, a financial management consulting firm, is closely monitoring the business impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to help you make business and cash saving decisions in these very uncertain times. Below are eight points for consideration:

1) If you need to lay off employees, it is important to first investigate the latest federal and state employee-related requirements, including those related to unemployment and paid time off.

2) Conserve cash by deferring tax and mortgage payments under initiatives that have been or may be enacted at the federal and state levels.

3) Review expenses for non-critical functions that can be reduced.

4) Contact your insurance broker in regard to Business Interruption Insurance.

5) Start or increase the frequency of your cash forecasting process.

6) Manage working capital more aggressively to free up cash.

a. Inventories: Reduce raw material and finished goods inventories to reflect the downturn in top line activity during the crisis.

b. Receivables: Accelerate collections activities; reassess credit lines as customers come under cash constraints; consider increased cash discounts and shorter payment terms to accelerate cash.

c. Accounts payable: Reach out and partner with key vendors, they may be willing to work with you; work with your local utility providers for support (i.e., rates, terms, …).

7) Use this interruption in business activity to strategically plan for the future when the spread of the virus has been curtailed and the economy recovers. How are the markets in which you purchase and sell likely to be different from the way they were before the crisis?

8) Improve use of technology to allow employees to work remotely.

9) Consider using temporary staffing firms to substitute for employees who become ill.

CFO Consulting Partners has experience in all of the above areas. If you would like to know more about our capabilities, email or call Allan Tepper at atepper@cfoconsultingpartners.com, (646) 650-2028 x701, or David DeMuth at ddemuth@cfoconsultingpartners.com, (609) 309-9307 x700.

CFO Consulting Partners Reaches Its 14-Year Milestone

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In 2006, David DeMuth and Allan Tepper formed CFO Consulting Partners. We focused on addressing the senior-level accounting and finance needs of companies whose accounting firms could no longer adequately address these needs due to independence issues. Eric Segal joined the partnership in 2009 to extend its capabilities to Financial Services and Insurance. Our firm began by providing fractional CFO services and that continues as a core service today. Over time, we added new capabilities including: M&A buy and sell-side services, private equity services, management and supervision of assurance processes, finance and accounting process improvement, finance transformation, SEC, regulatory and BOD/internal reporting.
Over the years, we built expertise in a broad range of industries, including banking, FinTech and other financial services businesses, business services, manufacturing, healthcare, technology, real estate and nonprofit.
As we reflect on what we have achieved since our inception, some notable accomplishments stand out:
  • We have developed significant expertise in helping companies achieve their business and accounting & finance goals, including buying and selling businesses, raising capital, strengthening internal controls, improving cash flow management and developing growth plans.
  • Clients have benefited from our all-senior-level financial management team who have “been there, done that.” Our people have held CFO or Controller positions in large and small companies, most are CPAs from major firms and have advanced degrees.
  • Clients have been aided by our firm-wide team approach to problem solving. Clients have access to the expertise of all of our team members to diagnose and solve problems.
  • Clients have prospered from having a boutique firm that moves quickly and has the depth of knowledge and experience to meet their needs.
  • Finally, we are proud to say that our clients recognize us as the “go-to” firm for CFO services provided to the community banking industry.
As we celebrate our 14th year, we want to thank our clients, referral sources, partners and team members. We simply wouldn’t exist without your support.
We look forward to continuing to serve the needs of small and midsized companies, and we are proud of the benefits we offer to our clients.

 

Thank you.

 

Allan Tepper, Sr. Managing Director, CFO Consulting Partners
(646) 650-2028 x701
 
David DeMuth, Sr. Managing Director, CFO Consulting Partners,
609-309-9307 x700
 
Eric Segal, Managing Director, CFO Consulting Partners
609-309-9307 x702

Newsletter – June 2018

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Eight Red Flags that your Board Financial Package is Failing to Support Board Needs

Allan Tepper, CFO Consulting Partner LLC

One of the goals of boards is to oversee the financial performance of the company or companies to which they are associated. Informative, transparent financial statements are necessary for boards to discharge those duties. If your board financial package lacks one or more of the following, there would likely be a deficiency in the board’s oversight function.

– The financial package should contain the three basic financial statements – P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow. The benefits of the P&Ls and balance sheets are fairly well known; however, the cash flow statement may not be as well known. The cash flow statement answers the question, “Where did our money go?”

– The package should contain accounts receivable and accounts payable agings.

– Critical notes to the financial statements should be included to explain complex accounting transactions.

– The P&L and balance sheet should be compared to budget.

– The package should contain reasons for variances from budget, and if it does, the explanations should be business reasons, not accounting reasons.

– The package should list the capital expenditures during the month and show how they match up against the capital budget.

– The package should contain key business drivers.

We suggest CEOs and board members speak to a financial management consulting firm to evaluate the adequacy of their board packages. Such firms can review your board packages and make targeted suggestions for improvement.

Newsletter – May 2018

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Is Your Finance Department a Cost or Profit Center?

Allan Tepper, CFO Consulting Partner LLC

To begin, I will define cost and profit centers, using my definition developed after leading accounting and finance functions for over twenty-five years.

Cost centers need to be efficient and be doing critically important tasks. From a company perspective, cost centers need to keep their costs at the lowest possible level while functioning at a highly effective level.

Profit centers have all the same attributes as cost centers, but produce revenue, thereby adding profits to a company’s bottom line.

Well-run finance departments have profit center elements. Although finance departments, as a unit, are not true profit centers because they do not directly produce revenue, they have many positive bottom-line attributes. Finance functions aid other cost and profit centers to be more efficient and effective and incentivize them to work cross-functionally as a team.

There is an often used phrase called a “strategic CFO.” That person would primarily focus on making the whole company stronger. I believe it follows that a goal for all companies should be to make the finance department function more like a profit center than a cost counter.

Examples of how finance departments become strategic include:

– Perfect the closing process so the books are closed quickly and accurately after month end, and time is available for analysis.

– Make the budgeting and reporting process part of a company’s DNA.

– Work with the various company units that feed information to the accounting department in order to make the information accurate and at the proper level of detail.

– Provide analyses that allow for action-oriented decisions. An example would be an analysis of the profitability of various business units. Another could be customer profitability analysis.

– Have the capability – systems and people – to meet the normal demands of all stakeholders on a timely and accurate basis.

– Spearhead merger and acquisition projects.

In summary, well run accounting and finance functions have significant attributes that help improve the bottom line of the whole company. A discussion with a C-level financial management consulting firm should provide insights on how to transform an accounting function from a cost to a “profit center.”

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