Growing a business can sometimes feel like you’re juggling pins.
You’ve got investors, vendors, employees, and customers all vying to be your top priority. Often, as you ramp up revenue and try to please everyone, a critical piece gets overlooked. I’m talking about your financial system.
If you’ve already got a financial team and a CFO, you might think you’re ready to roll. But as you enter a rapid-growth phase, you might wake up and realize you are still juggling those pins, except now they’re on fire and you’re riding a unicycle balanced on a tightrope tied between two angry bulls.
Here’s how you know it’s time to scale your financial system before this nightmare becomes your reality.
1. Your CFO is wearing too many hats
Your CFO should be providing essential insights and invaluable intel to give you the confidence behind every decision. If your CFO is overwhelmed with day-to-day bookkeeping and reconciling endless transactions, buried under a pile of spreadsheets, then it might be time to scale up the financial team.
Delegate the day-to-day financial micro-managing and free up your CFO to partner with you on strategic decisions to grow the business.
2. Financial Bottlenecks are, well, Bottlenecking
Is your finance team slowing you down? Are you waiting forever to get a report, finalize budgets or approve vendor payments? It may be time to kiss QuickBooks goodbye and invest in your financial software. Upgrade your systems with advanced accounting software or an ERP to better manage data and automate processes.
3. Your forecasts are about as accurate as the meteorologists on the news.
If you’re in a fast-growth stage, you need real-time data to stay ahead and not collapse like so many companies do when scaling. Financial projections and analysis and outside consultants (as they say, a guest for a while sees a mile) can help you make the best decisions with the data you have. No more guesswork. You can’t afford to misjudge the bull’s next move while juggling fire on its back. That would be... ouch.
When scaling your business, you can’t afford to leave your financial system in the dust. Don’t let yourself wake up riding a wild bull. Make growth exciting and ride the wave with confidence, armed with data and proactive insights, with a solid CFO guiding you towards the future.
