Haywards Consultancy Services is a dedicated branch of Haywards Accountants who specialise in helping businesses better manage their money.
All our experts are qualified accountants with extensive experience from corporate and commercial backgrounds. We provide a wide range of management services which include an outsourced Financial Director, finance function and Business Management Information solutions to business.
Being based in the North West of England, we are ideally located to support local business as your only finance resource, or work with your existing staff to provide complete financial support. Our Financial Director programme allows for strategic business planning to improve performance and avoid financial difficulties.
For over 20 years we have delivered proven results to businesses based in the North West. Our services include cashflow management, improved funding facilities, meaningful and timely management accounts, budget and business planning, and strategic planning. All of which ideally complements our statutory accounts and compliance service.
Our range of services are as follows:
Our outsourced finance department provides an all inclusive finance function for your business. This ranges from bookkeeping and processing through to production of management information, interpretation of your company finances and KPI’s, strategic development and board meetings.
Typical Services
Our typical services could cover:
- Processing of sales and purchase invoices
- Credit control management and processing of payments
- Management accounts and financial information
- Strategic finance director management
- Cash flow and budget management
- Statutory accounts and compliance
- Payroll
- Assistance with year-end audit (if applicable)
Why do I need an outsourced finance department?
There are numerous reasons why businesses need an outsourced finance department as opposed to just statutory compliance that is provided by most accountants. These include:
- Control of your business and management of cash and costs
- It is a cost effective way to free your time to do what you do best, develop your business
- It develops a proactive, rather than reactive approach to your business, therefore potential threats will be identified and dealt with earlier
- Review of financial information and KPI’s will allow management to make timely and effective business decisions that would increase profitable growth
- There are a large number of business that need the role of an effective Finance Director, however find the costs involved to be prohibitive. Haywards Consulting can assist with this by providing a cost effective solution.
- Our role as an outsourced Finance Director would be to assist you by working alongside key management and the managing director to guide the decision making process based on the financial implications involved in that transaction.
Role of a Haywards Finance Director
The role involved by Haywards Finance Directors would include:
- Review of management accounts, budgets and cash flows. More importantly however, understanding the detail behind the numbers
- Attend and have a key input at board meetings and/or management meetings
- Present the financial implications of management decisions and proposals on the business (for example capital expenditure)
- Manage relationships with key stakeholders, these could include shareholders, banks, auditors and factor agencies
- Oversee all compliance areas such as year-end audit (if applicable), statutory accounts, payroll and RTI reporting and VAT compliance
- Assist in key strategic planning and forecasting
Why employ a Haywards Finance Director
By not employing a Finance Director, this could hold the growth of your business. Typically a business owner is an expert in their field, not finance and accountancy. As such, by outsourcing their Finance Director it allows an expert in the field to run this whilst you do what you do best, developing your business.
Most accountants only provide statutory information, or if they are providing management accounts, they are presented in a statutory format. A Haywards Finance Director will work with you and assist your company’s growth and development. Reliable information will ensure that you can manage profit margins accurately, which is key when producing a tender for new work.
We will help you to regain control and establish a better relationship with external stakeholder and lenders (such as your bank).
Finally, a Haywards Finance Director will assist in the main driver in a business – cash, by taking advantage of settlement discounts, chasing cash collection and reviewing the most cost effective methods for purchase of capital assets.
The role of a company secretary is both varied and highly important for a company. A fully qualified company secretary demand salaries of upwards of £50,000. Haywards Consulting can provide this service to you for the fraction of the cost.
Why do I need a company secretary?
Why does a company need a secretary? Under the Companies Act 2006 it is a legal obligation placed on the officers of a company to maintain statutory records and fulfil a range of compliance and reporting duties, which are either overlooked or misunderstood and therefore not given full priority, and as such neglected.
Implications of non-compliance
Failure to comply could lead to fines, and sometimes imprisonment. In addition, persistent failure to comply can result in individuals being removed from the Register and banned from acting as an officer of a company.
Role of a Haywards Company Secretary
Haywards Company Secretary can provide a range of services that include:
- Maintain and hold the statutory books
- Prepare and file the company’s Annual Return
- Manage filing deadlines for year-end accounts
- Assist with changes in statutory data and share structure accordingly
- Attend and minute board meetings and prepare all resolutions accordingly
- Provide a Registered Office facility
- Use of Haywards Nominees Limited, our sister company, to act as the Company Secretary
The most common reason for a business not performing as it should or being in distress is that the principals involved do not have the necessary skills to identify the problems, until it is too late.
An Independent Business Review is a powerful tool that that can strengthen your business and increase profitability and associated cash flows.
Who needs an Independent Business Review
The review is designed to assist business achieve their potential through effective management. The review is focused generally on a company which is either not doing very well or under-achieving.
Due to the cost involved in the review, typically the business would engage the service directly, rather than being requested by a fund provider. It is however becoming more common for banks to request this for extensions to overdrafts, or HM Revenue & Customs when the business has applied for a Time to Pay Scheme
Why do I need a review?
Our review is designed to analyze the financial health of your business. Typically the results will highlight weaknesses in financial systems and help to identify ways to increase profits through efficiency and cost identification.
What are the benefits?
Our experience has highlighted that the review will assist in:
Improved efficiency through identification of cost savings Identifying weaknesses in systems and provide suggested remediation strategies to mitigate control risks Direct business focus on areas of potential business stress and define suggestions to develop these areas
Then What?
The review is designed to last for typically two days. We will discuss these findings and suggest some options available resulting from the report.
Why do I need to review my company?
Should your business find themselves in a period of distress, timing is essential and any delay in seeking the most appropriate advice can reduce the options available. Viable businesses are often closed down due events that, with the right intervention at an early stage, could have provided them with a stronger future.
Insolvency isn’t necessarily the only option available and failing business can be saved with timely and correct advice.
Who are Haywards Consultants and how can they help me?
Haywards Consultants are Business Recovery specialists. They can assist by identifying the early warning distress signs that individually may not highlight an issue, however collectively cause stress on the business.
Typically these signs will be a combination of cash flow problems, declining profits, high level of gearing, poor credit control and poor credit history leading to increased borrowing and/or problems obtaining credit.
It is therefore of benefit to intervene at an early stage and early financial management information will assist in identifying ways to stabilize cash flows, resolve relationships with customers and suppliers and install systems to reduce the risk that the problem reoccurs in the future.
You are not alone
As a principal of a business it is essential that you remember you are not alone. It is our aim to provide you with sound advice and quality information and through our partnership with Corporate Insolvency Practitioners, are able to plan and implement a full working solution. The aim is to provide you with options and thereafter the support you will need to achieve the necessary results