My skills and experience as a Chartered Accountant enable me to improve both the relevance and impact a coaching conversation will have with a client.

This was amply illustrated during a coaching conversation with a client in the hospitality industry.  Since purchasing the business eight months previously, the client had implemented strategies that had lifted sales by around 20%.  Notwithstanding this increase, the client lamented this was not being reflected in the cash flow of the business, which was extremely tight.  The client wanted the answer to the simple question – The business is trading at record levels but where has all the cash gone?

 In response, I was able to use my experience to help the business owner understand the cash flow cycle of the business, which describes the movement of cash through the business.  The business owner needed to implement a reporting mechanism to monitor on a weekly basis the movement of cash in the business.  The review must go beyond looking at the bank account balance to regularly reviewing the cash that has come in and gone out as well as forecasting what is to come.

From our conversation, the business owner identified three key areas that had drained cash out of the business:

1.    Carrying too much stock

2.     Funding the repayment of the vendor finance to purchase the business

3.    Investing in improvements to the kitchens