Small Business Consulting

Profitability Planning

We meet with our clients periodically to identify drags on profits, such as excess overtime and inflated insurance premiums. Our clients are encouraged to prepare budgets and hold themselves accountable for adverse variations. By treating businesses at arm's length, we stress that a solvent and positive cash flow at the business level is the only long-term plan for personal financial well being.

Loan Application

Many clients find their business growing faster than accumulated profits can support. This often leads to expensive equipment leasing deals and imprudent discounting of accounts receivable. Often such clients are candidates for SBA or other consolidating asset based loans which would decrease overall interest costs and decrease demands on cash flow. We work with several banks in the New Orleans area to package such loans. Debt management is an important skill we bring to our business clients.

Budgeting

Some clients tend to resist budgeting. Many feel that because the future can not be known, why bother. Here is what we tell them.

To budget is to learn the plumbing of your business. You learn the links between sales, cash flow, profits and inventory.  Further, budgeting removes the last minute apprehension associated with personnel additions, or down sizing, asset acquisition and helps remove emotional barriers to executing business tough decisions.  Budgeting is an early warning system to measure the effect of future events as they unfold, rather than waiting until too late. Our accounting software reports budgets with a percentage variance from plan and reports negative variances in a consistent fashion, whether as a revenue or expense item.