For most organizations, there is a need to move from basic accounting to "real" financial management. Traditional approaches to managing finance (rooted in accounting) are subjective and unreliable. For example, the primary accounting metric is earnings. Earnings can be a very creative type metric, here today, gone tomorrow.

We need to impose discipline upon the organization that is rooted in value. Unlike accounting which fails to measure and report value, finance has its roots in value. In its simplest form, value is created by generating free cash flows, not Net Income! Unfortunately, many organizations are under the impression that as long as Net Income is going up, we are creating more value for the owners of the organization. This is a false assumption that you need to break.

Right now you are probably making most of your financial decisions based on a set of financial statements. Financial Statements are very limited in their application for decision making since they do not measure and report on those things that create value. Therefore, you need to focus more attention on how value is really created. This requires placing more emphasis on those parts of finance that add value:

• Performance evaluations that go beyond traditional ratio analysis such as non-financial metrics (Balanced Scorecards)
• Continuous processing of competitive intelligence so that your organization looks at the outside world and thinks strategically
• Creating an overall budgeting process that is value-added by linking budgets to strategic planning within your organization
• Capital budgeting procedures that have good economic assumptions through the use of multiple attribute decision analysis and option pricing

One way to understand this challenge is to think in terms of both financial and non-financial measurements. And at the same time recognize that accounting information relies on historical or past measurements. We need a "balanced" approach if we expect to have real financial management. This requires both financial and non-financial measurement. It also requires looking back and looking forward. The goal is to build a system that provides information from the following four sources:

I invite you to accept this challenge of putting real finance into your organization. This is the foundation behind my services - creating value through great financial management.

You can easily learn about "real" finance by tapping into some of the resources offered on this website. Click Here for a summary of free resources available on this website. Click Here to download a powerpoint brochure.

To learn more about my services, visit these web pages:

Basic Financial Support
Value Based Finance
Performance Measurement
Competitive Intelligence
In House Training
NonProfit Finance
Small Business Owners

Partnerships

In order to provide a full range of services to meet your needs, I may partner with other consulting firms, such as Resources Global and the Alliance for Corporate Wealth.