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Financial coaching
Regular one-to-one sessions with Peter Allen on cash flow, margin, pricing and the figures you make decisions from, worked through in your own numbers until you can run them yourself.
Run by Andy Jackson and Peter Allen · AAT licensed · ICPA member · FreeAgent and Xero partner
- Cash flow you can forecast yourself
- Margin by job, service or customer
- Prices that cover the work and a fair wage for you
- One hour on the figures every month
Six areas, in your own figures
Understanding your numbers
What your profit and loss and balance sheet say, in plain words. You open the management accounts, see what changed and know whether it matters.
Cash flow rhythm
A rolling forecast you keep yourself, updated on a fixed day, so you see a tight week six weeks out. Deposits, payment terms, and VAT and PAYE set aside as they come in.
Margin decisions
Gross margin by job, service or customer: which work makes money, which does not, and what to do about it.
Pricing
What your price has to be to cover the work, the overheads and a fair wage for you, and what a 5% discount does to the sales you need.
Monthly review
One hour in the same slot every month on last month’s figures, with the same four or five numbers, the same questions and written actions.
Planning ahead
A budget for the year broken into quarters, with a hire, a van, a tax bill or a price rise on the timeline, then checked against what happened.
Every session
Sessions run monthly for cash flow work, and every two months where the focus is understanding the numbers.
A few questions and the current figures, sent a few days ahead.
Last session’s actions: what got done and what did not, and why.
The numbers: what moved and what it means for the next quarter.
The issue in front of you: a price rise, a late payer, a hire or a tax bill.
Two or three actions with dates, checked at the start of the next session.
Break-even
A business with £12,500 of monthly overheads and a 45% gross margin keeps £45 of every £100 of sales once the direct costs are paid. It needs £27,778 of sales a month before it earns anything.
At a 50% margin the same overheads need £25,000 of sales: £2,778 a month, or £33,333 a year, less. Knowing the figure tells you by the 20th of the month whether it is a good month.
Sales needed to break even, a month
| Monthly overheads | £12,500 |
| At a 45% gross margin | £27,778 |
| At a 50% gross margin | £25,000 |
| Less in sales needed, a year | £33,333 |
An illustrative example. Every figure is invented.
Prices
Financial coaching
- Sessions with Peter Allen on a rhythm set with you
- Measures agreed in the first month and reviewed at 90 days
- Billed monthly, with no minimum term
Know Your Numbers
- The handful of numbers that run the business, in your own figures and plain English
- A budget built backwards from the profit you want to take out
Questions about financial coaching
Is financial coaching financial advice?
No. Sessions cover your business figures: cash flow, margin, pricing and the management accounts. Pensions, investments, mortgages and personal debt are regulated advice, and Buzz is not authorised to give it. If one of them comes up, we name it and refer you to an authorised adviser, a tax specialist or an insolvency practitioner.
Do I have to be a Buzz Accounting client?
No. You can keep your own accountant. The bookkeeping needs to be current enough for the figures to be real, and if it is months behind, the first step is bringing it up to date, with your accountant or with us.
Who runs the sessions?
Peter Allen, co-founder and Financial Director of Buzz, who prepares management accounts for a living. Sessions can cover retentions, work in progress, seasonal VAT or a bad debt.
Are sessions confidential?
Yes. What you say in a session is not shared with your team, other clients or the accounting side of Buzz unless you ask us to share it.
Should I choose coaching or Business Pulse?
Choose coaching if you want to read and run the figures yourself. With Business Pulse, Buzz produces the management accounts and the forecast and reviews them with you.
Talk to us
Tell us about the business and which level you are looking at, or book a 30-minute call.
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