Business Advisory Services
Business success relies on effective business strategy and planning, and meticulous management and measurement of financial performance. Developing the right strategic plans and implementing strong financial reporting processes is essential if you want to optimise and grow your business.
Matthews Steer Accountants and Advisors is a community-focused chartered accountancy and business advisory practice, aligned with CA and CPA, that has a track record for providing business advice that supports clients’ growth and innovation. The team at Matthews Steer have built their reputation as trusted, reliable, knowledgeable business advisors for 30 years. Our remit extends far beyond traditional accounting services. We are business development innovators, dedicated to helping local businesses achieve strategic, results-driven evolution.
Our Business Advisory Division assists business owners to build a foundation, map their future, and transform their efforts into wealth.
The Matthews Steer Business Advisory Team will accompany you on your business journey from the day you conceive your innovative start-up, through the growing pains and financial challenges, to the moment you achieve your dream of selling up, or passing on your business to the next generation.
Our Business Advisory services to clients include:
- Strategic planning and development.
- Implementation of accountability.
- Corporate governance guidance.
- Establishing structured business and personal financial goals.
- Establishment of advisory committees and boards.
- Succession planning.
- Coaching and mentoring.
- Mergers and acquisitions advice.
- Strategic financial analysis and recommendations for profit maximisation, improving business performance and monitoring.
- Restructuring and asset protection strategies.
- Three-way forecasting, financial analysis and cash flow management programs.
- International subsidiary management, and reporting.
- Financial management reports.
- Virtual CFO services.
- Distressed business turn-around services.
- Government grants and tax incentives applications and advice.
- Financial education via the MS Catalyst program.
- Strategic direction setting via the MS Strategic Focus program.
- Product and cost analysis.
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS GRANTS
Matthews Steer’s knowledgeable, strategic team can help you leverage government funding to develop the skills, knowledge and capabilities your small/medium enterprise needs to grow and achieve its full potential.
MATTHEWS STEER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
MS Catalyst Program
Matthews Steer’s Catalyst Program helps our clients to understand how their business is performing, and prepares them for a structured growth program. Our Catalyst Program comprises a series of quarterly advisory committee meetings with an independent team that truly understands your business, who will provide you with fresh insights and strategies for growing your business.
We tailor Catalyst meetings to meet your individual business needs, enabling you to:
- Gain insight into your business’ performance.
- Identify business trends and opportunities.
- Identify issues and take corrective action.
- Enhance your decision making.
- Create action plans for the development of your business.
- Assess performance.
- Achieve positive outcomes.
3-Way Forecasting
While traditional financial forecasting is limited to profit and loss statements, at Matthews Steer we believe 3-way forecasting is the only way to gain a complete picture of the financial health of your business.
Incorporating a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement, our 3-way forecast model enables you to assess the profitability of your business, the health of your balance sheet, and your cashflow now and throughout the year ahead.
Our 3-way forecast assists you to evaluate the impact of important business decisions on your profitability and your future cashflow position, empowering you to make financial decisions with confidence.
Virtual CFO Services
Many small to medium sized businesses face demanding – and constantly evolving – financial challenges. And, while they would benefit from the insights of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the cost of appointing a full-time CFO is prohibitive.
Matthews Steer’s Virtual CFO services are designed to provide businesses with hands-on assistance from experienced, qualified professional accountants. Virtual CFO assists our clients to strengthen their financial systems and processes through:
Data integrity: Our team works closely with yours each month to verify the integrity of your financial data, reviewing your financial records, ensuring that financial information is recorded accurately, and that procedures and systems are in place and working effectively.
Business Analysis: Our team undertakes a monthly analysis of key ratios and trends within your business, identifying strengths and weaknesses, benchmarking performance against forecasted budgets, and identifying strategies to get things back on track where required.
MS Strategic Focus Program
At Matthews Steer we believe the stories in our clients’ numbers provide the key to unlocking their financial goals.
Tailored to the specific needs of your business, and delivered via a combination of financial analysis tools, stakeholder surveys, industry/market research, and workshops, our strategic focus workshops guide our clients through a tried and tested evolution program designed to set the strategic direction for your business.
Following our Strategic Focus Program Workshop, we will produce a one-page strategic direction-setting report that outlines where your business is now, where it is going, and how you will get there:
- Guiding you to achieve your strategic business goals.
- Supporting your decision making.
- Transforming your business operation.
- De-risking your business.
The MS Hothouse Program
A strategic program that focuses on business exit via sale, merger or succession, and assists clients to prepare their business for sale to achieve maximum return.
BUSINESS RISK HEALTH CHECK
Have you identified areas of risk exposure within your business? These may include:
- Outdated corporate structures
- Inadequate asset protection structures
- Undefined strategic direction
- Statutory compliance and legal exposures
- Inefficient operational processes
- Inability to accurately track costs and profitability
Our experienced Business Advisory team can undertake a Business Risk Health Check that identifies current and emerging risks, and develops mitigation strategies to protect your business. Call us on 03 9325 6300 if you would like Matthews Steer to undertake a Business Risk Health Check.
TURNAROUND SERVICE
Matthews Steer offers a turnaround service for businesses whose financial viability and future are under threat due to impaired financial management or unforeseen circumstances. Our turnaround service supports you to reengineer your business so that it survives and prospers, improving efficiency, productivity and profitability, while protecting directors’ assets.
BUSINESS ADVISORY TESTIMONIALS
Daniel Carapellotti - Class Plastics
“We turned to Matthews Steer as a sounding board, and for help accessing capital and grants to assist us to realise our plans and goals for Class Plastics. Matthews Steer has brought a different way of thinking, and an unprecedented level of professionalism to our business. They’ve introduced us to a bigger, broader, network and brought a new dimension to Class Plastics – implementing new methods and processes to replace those that have become outmoded since we first took over the company. The Matthews Steer team cares about us as individuals – and how we fit into our business and our quarterly Financial Canvas meetings with the team help us build strategies and directives for the company. Matthews Steer makes our finances real.”
Gareth Hearnden, Norman Carriers
“I engaged Matthews Steer in 2016 to assist with succession planning at our third-generation transport business. Matthews Steer is like ‘The Biggest Loser’ of business advisory firms – putting us through an intensive course in business best practice. They undertook a Financial Canvas that defined the current state of the business from a profitability and risk perspective, and from that they mapped out where we want to take Norman Carriers next, and who the best person was to lead the business there. They added clarity and accountability to our structure, strategy and processes. I succeeded my father as managing director of Norman Carriers and Matthews Steer helped me tame the beast that is a family business. Where I was on my knees and a slave to the business – working in the business – they helped me stand up and showed me how to work on the business to take it to a place where it can do more for me, and my family.”
Frank Gogol, Hargo Engineering
“We started working with Matthews Steer in a business advisory capacity back in 2012, and that has since evolved into accountancy support as well. We’re a family contract manufacturing business, making everything from model train wheels to parts for the JSF F35 fighter jet, and my parents had properties and wealth they’d amassed that were on the line because we didn’t have the company structure right. Matthews Steer tidied that up for us and advised us on succession planning. The speed with which they transferred control of the business from my parents to me was almost a miracle! Matthews Steer is integrally involved in our business, and has input into every facet of business. I’ve recommended them to several businesses, particularly in family business space, and say if you’re looking for accountants and advisors who take a fair dinkum interest in your business, helping you through your business and your life, go with Matthews Steer.”
If you would like to learn more about how Matthews Steer can assist you with strategic business planning, please contact Adrian Misiano on 03 9325 6300.