Financial control: It’s not rocket science

Since starting my business in January 2021, primarily to help SMEs and start-ups to establish financial controls in their business, one of the most common questions I am asked is: “What do you actually mean by ‘Financial Control?”

Initially this caught me out writes Adrian Goodman (pictured), managing director of PPX Consulting. Before setting up my business, I had worked in finance for most of my adult life. My career included multiple director-level positions, advanced finance projects and roles at very large businesses where financial controls were understood and accepted as key elements of the business.

When I began working with smaller organisations, there was rarely an internal finance team and the business owner was often preoccupied with meeting customers or working on the product offering as opposed to the peripheral elements of the business such as finance, strategy or business development.

I was frequently asked why financial control is necessary and how it adds value to the business. Many of my clients were under the impression that as long as they had engaged the services of an accountant, the finances of the business were taken care of.

I started my business with the explicit intention of helping smaller businesses to achieve the same level of financial control that I had engineered at larger businesses.

I made this decision in 2019, after my then-employer announced that they were entering administration, shortly after my appointment, and that my colleagues and I were out of a job. This happened a few weeks before Christmas so you can probably imagine the degree of anguish in that room.

I still maintain that this could have been avoided had financial control had been monitored and prioritised so I set out to help as many businesses as possible avoid the same fate.

Instrumental in this mission was my Four Points of Control framework, a control mechanism I devised and implemented at many businesses. Follow this approach meticulously and it is almost inevitable that financial control is achieved. The make-up of the mechanism also answers the question many of my new clients were asking.

Financial control is established by asking three questions about your business and answering them objectively: