How financial consulting activities are carried out – 7 main stages
As with any other complex intellectual process, consulting is a long and phased procedure.
Preliminary stage – the choice of a consulting company. You need to choose a company as carefully and thoroughly as you choose a clinic for treatment. The future of your business depends on it.
The main selection criteria are experience, professionalism, the number of closed projects, the level of specific consultants.
Stage 1. Conclusion of an agreement with a consulting company
The contract is the main document regulating your relationship with consultants. The signed agreement will allow you in the event that the contractor fails to fulfill the task set to demand money back.
The contract must indicate:
terms of work; a full list of services provided and their cost;
terms of early termination of the agreement;
duties of the parties.
Large companies often conclude long-term contracts with consultants, according to which financial advisers check the company’s financial affairs with a certain frequency – say, once every six months or a quarter.
Stage 2. Setting goals and objectives
After signing the contract, you need to finally decide on the long-term goals of the event and current tasks. It is advisable to make a detailed ToR with points and sub-items. Such a document disciplines the performers.
Stage 3. Financial diagnostics of the state of the company
Diagnostics of the current financial status of a company is an obligatory stage of consulting.
The doctor does not begin treatment without knowing the cause of the disease. Consultants do not develop a “rescue plan” without finding out how cash flows are moving in the enterprise.
Financial audit allows you to find out how efficiently the company uses its resources, what is the level of competitiveness of the object, how the company fulfills its obligations to contractors and the state. Having ordered tax advice in the framework of financial consulting or as an independent service, the company’s management will find out how the situation is business with tax deductions and how to optimize the tax burden in the framework of the law.
Stage 4. Forecasting and planning the future development of the company
Competent financial analysis – the basis for planning the future activities of the company. On this basis, consultants will make an economically reasonable forecast and, if it is unfavorable, will take measures to stabilize the current situation.
Step 5. Search for options to eliminate the shortage of working capital
If the company has a shortage of working capital, consultants will develop a set of measures to eliminate it.
Possible ways:
optimization of current costs – the introduction of a savings mode, the elimination of unprofitable industries, the dismissal of idlers;
obtaining loans;
investment attraction;
issuing shares, bonds or bills;
a radical change in the financial structure of the company.
As each commercial project is unique, the ways of overcoming the financial crisis are also unique.
Stage 6. Optimization of document flow and internal reporting system
Among the tasks of consultants is the guidance in the enterprise of a complete order with document flow. If necessary, the internal reporting systems are modernized and automated, effective control of expenses and income is introduced.
Stage 7. Providing a report on the work done to the customer
The final stage of the process is to provide the customer with a detailed report on the work done. But do not forget that every document must be supported by visual results. Only after achieving the long-term goal of financial consulting can one judge its success.
