About Paul
Paul Lantsbury, founder of The Pocket FD, is a Chartered Accountant and professional freelance Finance Director with over twenty years’ experience of working in small, medium and large businesses across a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, retail, hospitality and online. Following the diverse roles he has undertaken at companies such as KPMG, Gillette and most recently as Finance Director of Moonpig.com, he now focuses on financial management and troubleshooting assignments in small to medium-sized rapidly-growing businesses.
As he works on a part-time or project-based capacity, this enables owners and managers of SME’s to take financial control of their businesses in a very cost-effective way.
Whatever your needs we'll devise a bespoke package just for you, all for one great-value fixed fee. All our packages also include unlimited telephone support as standard so you can be sure you'll get the support you need, whenever you need it, freeing you up to focus on your business whilst we focus on the numbers.
To find out how we can help, read on or why not get in touch?
How we can help
Business Plan Development
When starting out or looking to build the business it's vital to be able to turn your thoughts and ideas into a credible, robust, financial model and business plan that will enable you to understand whether the business will achieve its stated goals and also stand up to scrutiny from banks and other potential investors.
Working closely with you and senior management, Paul's approach is always to build a plan that is not only understood but is truly owned and believed in by its stakeholders. If you already have a plan, Paul has a great deal of experience of scrutinising these from the eyes of a potential investor and sense-checking both the assumptions and resulting sensitivities in order to highlight areas of potential concern.
Financial Health Check
For many smaller businesses, management are so focused on growing the top line that they have little visibility of the underlying profitability, cash and other critical pieces of information they need to grow the overall business in an efficient way.
By scrutinising your business model from the inside out, Paul will help you not only highlight which areas are working well and which are not, but will also work with you to devise an action plan to put your business back on track where appropriate. Due to his down-to-earth, common sense approach, this service is of particular benefit to those who are perhaps less comfortable with the numbers than with the operational side of their business.
Business Reporting Reviews
A service that goes hand-in-hand with the financial health check, many businesses do not receive sufficient timely, relevant information to help them understand its performance and take action accordingly. Most accountants or in-house accounting systems provide basic financial information but in the majority of cases this is insufficient to enable management to really understand what’s going on in their business.
With many year’s experience of developing and producing management information, Paul’s approach is firstly to sit down with senior management and identify the true key drivers of the business. Once done, he’ll work with your accountant or in-house staff to develop a suite of financial and operational reports that will not only analyse and put into context both operational and financial performance, but also present this in terms that is easily digestible for your management team (i.e. non-accountants!).
Paul is also able to run monthly management reviews to ensure your team is getting maximum benefit from the management accounts.
Budgeting, Financial Modelling & Project Appraisal
Every business needs a budget in some form, in essence a financial roadmap which takes your operational strategy and translates this into financial objectives which you will be able to use to measure performance against that plan. However, building such plans is not always straightforward and quite often requires the skills not only of an accountant, but someone with exceptional modelling skills who is prepared to work with management to come up with a budget that is realistic, achievable and most importantly believed in by your management team.
Having prepared financial models for many years, Paul has the commercial acumen and financial skills to do just that, whether you require a one-off exercise or ongoing-review. Similarly if you are looking to embark upon a project such as significant capital expenditure, make or buy decisions or outsourcing reviews, Paul is experienced in assessing both the financial and commercial risks and rewards which will enable you to make more informed decisions.
Business Process & Control Review
As any business grows so does its complexity and it is not uncommon for business processes to lag behind, either due to a mentality of ‘that’s how we’ve always done it so why change it?’ or simply due to lack of time or resources to focus on them. However, the reality is that as the business grows, not only will more people be involved in its day-to-day running, but management will have less time to personally oversee key activities, especially around cash and stock controls.
Having performed process reviews for many years, Paul will not only be able to identify improvements to help your business run more efficiently but will also identify key controls you need to have in place to minimise the risk of errors, fraud and most importantly to ensure strong custody over every asset within your business.
Profit Improvement
Unlike many companies who offer cost reduction services, Paul prefers to adopt a more rounded approach to profit management. Yes, cost reduction is a part of that, provided short term cuts do not impact on the longer term growth of the business, but sometimes the bigger rewards can be achieved through better pricing and product mix, a more efficient (and measurable) use of marketing spend, and also better customer and supplier management to name but a few.
Rather than using a standard approach, Paul will work with management to identify the biggest levers that affect profitability and come up with a prioritised plan of attack for management to consider and implement.
Cash Flow Management
Cash is the life-blood of every business. No matter how profitable it is, for any business to survive, it must have a clear understanding of its cash cycle and have a good cash forecast that will give management early warning of potential funding issues before they arise. Paul has significant experience not only of cash flow forecasting but of also devising strategies that will both maximise the cash flow within the business and also reduce the amount of working capital required on a day to day basis.
Financing, Acquisition & Exit Planning
Whether you are considering acquiring another business or are looking for an exit with your current business, Paul has experience in the following areas:
- Financial appraisal of potential acquisition targets
- Preparing business models and presenting these to banks, VC firms and other potential investors
- Preparing your business for a purchaser’s due diligence process (from both a legal & financial perspective)