So you are planning to increase your prices again?

Good idea. How much do you need on average?

• Do you increase prices by the same percentages across the board?
• Does the main client get an increase above average or below average?
• What are your competitors doing? Can you find out?
• How many clients do you think you will lose? Are they happy with you?
• Is your service vital?
• Is your monthly cost material for them?
• Should you price up by 10% and force your clients to make a decision, go out to tender?
• Or should you price up by 2% - 3% a quarter until annual inflation is down below 5% again..

Would you like to have someone in your team watching your back and thinking about these questions and making sure at least some get answered before you “decide”.

Making good decisions in business is often about having the right team around you to help you with the tough decisions, the ones that really matter, those decisions that might literally make or break the company.

At times like these you are probably more likely to need someone to be tracking the key costs in your business and regularly updating your forecast for this year and next.

• Do you have a good handle on your actual costs and the trends?
• Do you have a financial model that makes sense?
• Is your company’s financial reporting up to date?
• Does your financial reporting include a forecast for this year and next?
• Is your monthly information “bank ready”?

If the business is going to need funds then the sooner you know this, the more time you will have to find the cash you need.

The FD4 pitch…… In times of uncertainty, the value to an SME of having input from a finance director as part of top team will increase. At FD4 we believe that business owners benefit from having a balanced team to help think through the big decisions.

Hiring an experienced finance professional can bring in years of commercial experience. Maybe someone that can remember the times of high inflation and high interest rates in the 80’s and 90’s.

At times like these, having an experienced finance director looking over your numbers might help you sleep at night..