WinterView Group

WinterView Group can tune-up your Business Operations to insure that your team is using the best practices, tools and methods used by successful companies.

The symptoms below are opportunities to improve performance. 

Check for these warning signs in your organization:

• No Cash Flow. There is never enough cash to pay bills.  You always find out you have less on hand then you thought.
  

• Customer & Client invoicing is slow.  It’s the 15^th of the month and you still don’t know what last month’s sales/revenue was.  Product companies should know the sales number on the first of the month.  Service companies by the fifth of the new month.

•  Customers Do Not Pay on Time.  Who in your company is responsible for making sure you get paid?  Increases to the  DSO ratio and the number of past due accounts are signs that the collection effort may be slipping and need to be sped up. Sales and senior account executives must be proactive in collecting the cash.
  

• Slow Closes.  Your books and financial statements are not final within ten days of month end.  By the fifth day you should have flash results available.
  

• Duplicate Payments to Vendors.
  
• Are you paying the same bill more than once?  This is often a sign of lack of proper approval procedures, poor training, or circumvention of the controls that most software applications have to prevent this.

• Staff Turnover. Where there is churn there is trouble.  These are often signs of burnout, poor management and lack of leadership by the senior financial executive.

• Timely Follow-up and Response. Accounting is a straightforward science.  The department must be able to provide timely and logical answers to questions.  Reports and responses that create confusion rather than clarity are a red flag.

• Manual Entries. The cost of basic accounting software and systems is lower than ever.  If the accounting staff spends all of its time entering data into Excel spreadsheets, it may be time for a new process or complete review of the systems being used.

• Restatement of Financial Statements.  Does your staff consistently tell you they found errors, in prior month’s data?

• Outrageous Audit & Accounting Fees.  High fees, not related to special events, can be a sign of poor preparation and lack of attention to detail during the year.  Close every month like it is the end of the year makes the end of the year just another month.

• Drawing the Line on Revenue Recognition. Sales should be aggressive about order flow.  Accounting should be aggressive about proper revenue recognition practices.  Both sides need to be clear what activity needs to occur for sales income to be recorded.  These practices should not be subject to negotiation or reinterpretation every month or quarter to achieve a desired income goal.