Our Services
Tailored finance business partnering services to help grow your profits
We have a complete range of services we can offer to help your business grow, organised into the 4 areas below.
Pick and choose what you require based on your business needs and budget - we're confident we'll soon become a vital member of your team. Or equally if you're not sure what you need, but know you need some help - please get in touch for a no obligation conversation.
Your part time Finance Director (FD)
Nick can act as your part time Finance Director, providing your business with the insight, experience and skills you need, without the expense of a full time employee - an ideal solution for most SMEs.
Most Small and Medium sized Enterprises can neither afford nor require a full time Finance Director - so who will help guide the MD through the critical finance side of running their business? That's where an experienced part time FD can be instrumental in helping your business both survive and thrive.
We can work alongside you, offering:
- help and guidance on the financial health of your business;
- reviewing the completeness, feasibility and funding of your growth plans;
- creating bespoke financial forecast models to plan for growth and working capital requirements
- management and oversight of your in house finance team;
- preparation and/or review of management accounts and budgets;
- advice on costs savings or growth opportunities;
- advice and help with financing;
- implementing and evolving processes, systems and governance procedures suitable for your company size as you grow.
- advising on an exit plan and overseeing a sale process
Your Non-Executive Director (NED)
It can be lonely at the top - where do MDs turn for advice and help when they need a sounding board for their ideas and problems? That's where a Non-Executive Director (NED) comes in.
Nick can act as your NED, providing you with an experienced person to turn to on all matters. A NED does not have managerial responsibility for any particular area of the business - this differs from being an FD who is responsible for the finance function and all that attaches to it.
A good NED doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but is a good listener who can help you work through your ideas and issues based on their experience. Having spent time as an MD, FD and NED in his career, Nick is well placed to offer this service to companies across a broad spectrum of industries.
Chemistry is key for a NED role to be successful, so please get in touch and we can start the conversation.
Consultancy
We can offer a variety of finance based consultancy services, for one off projects or ongoing support.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Bespoke Financial Forecast Models
- Integrated Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow forecasting models tailored to your business goals via its revenue and cost drivers. In our opinion this is absolutely critical for any business.
- Management Accounting
- design and production of management accounts to give you critical and timely insights into the performance of your business
- Funding advice
- help on how to fund your business via either Equity or Debt, and help obtaining financing
- Financial Systems & Processes (inc Governance)
- advice on how to get efficient and robust processes in your business, on appropriate software
- Help creating or transitioning your company
- Guiding you through the Companies House process, and advising on all other aspects e.g. bank accounts, VAT, PAYE, Corporation Tax etc
- Cashflow Management and Forecasting
- Cash is critical - whether you are trying to fund growth or want to understand what resilience your business has, every business needs to understand the impact of their plans or scenarios on their cash position, short and long term. We can help with putting in place the controls and models to give this insight, as well as advising on how to put in place the right funding.
- Exit planning
- helping you understand the options and create an exit strategy. We can also advise you through a sale process.
- or... [insert your project here] - what challenges or opportunities do you need help with?
Bookkeeping & Accounting
For smaller businesses we can help with the more transactional elements of finance too,
acting as your bookkeeper or accountant.
Raising invoices, reconciling bank statements, posting expenses, running your payroll and preparing and submitting your quarterly VAT returns via MTD - let us help you focus on delivering your service to your customers.
We can work with your existing software or recommend one to you if you are currently accounting offline.
As well as bookkeeping, we can provide you with periodic management accounts, reviews and advice to help you understand your business performance and plan ahead.
As a certified FreeAgent practitioner, we can help you manage your accounts via the bookkeeping software FreeAgent.
FreeAgent is a great tool - not only is it simple to use (with all the bookkeeping features you'd expect), but it can also complete and file your annual accounts and corporation tax if you are classed as a Micro-Entity, keeping your year end costs down, aswell as your personal self assessment return.
Furthermore, it's free if you have a NatWest, RBS or Mettle bank account.
We can help you set up or transfer to FreeAgent, and then provide either
- Co-Pilot services - providing an overview service where you do your own day to day bookkeeping, with us on hand to ensure you are accounting in an accurate manner and helping to ensure you complete your stautory obligations (e.g. VAT returns, corporation tax returns, annual accounts, payroll submissions).
- Pilot service - the above, plus we do your day to day transactional bookkeeping for you - raising invoices, reconciling bank transactions and recording expenses.
We are also a certified Xero Partner. Xero is ideal for slightly larger organisations who have more complex accounting needs and require more features or want more integrations with other software.
As a general rule, FreeAgent is great for small businesses up to circa 10 employees mainly providing services. Over that number, or if you are a product based business with stock, or you want multiple integrations with other cloud software, it is worth considering Xero.
Through Xero we can also file your annual accounts (Mirco-Entity and Small), corporation tax and self assessment returns.
If you are unsure, we can help you make the right choice. If you already use either software, transferring on to our partner dashboard (FreeAgent) or XeroHQ (Xero) is very straightforward.
Communication with Jackdaw Four Finance is both secure and easy via our Client Portal, keeping you both safe and informed.
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