Liquidity
net financial position, week by week
Outsourced financial leadership for SMEs
Clear numbers.
Better decisions.
You have an accountant, a payroll adviser, a bank you rely on. What is missing is someone who holds it all together and turns the numbers into decisions.
The business owner’s control room: the tools I bring into the company.
- Cash flow 13 weeks
- Margins by line
- Budget vs actual variances
- Forecast 12 months
- 25+Years of experienceTax and corporate advisory, then running businesses
- 4 phasesMetodo Direzione Finanziaria™From diagnosis to building business value
- SMEsOutsourced financial leadershipInside the organisation chart, not alongside it
- Il Sole 24 OreContributorNorme & Tributi, on tax and business crisis
The 4 areas of intervention
How I work alongside businesses and their owners
- 01 Outsourced financial leadership I join the organisation chart as an external finance director: a continuous presence on economic and financial decisions, not advice after the event. It is the service that holds all the others together. How it works
- 02 Control & margins Where value is created and where it is consumed: management control, KPIs and periodic reporting the business owner actually reads. Find out more
- 03 Planning Cash flows and funding requirements over 1, 3 and 5 years, a business plan and a credible position in front of the banks. Find out more
- 04 Value & exit Making the business attractive before you have to sell it: generational handover, new shareholders, a sale on the best terms. Find out more
The problem
Your business generates revenue, but margins are not growing the way they should?
You take important decisions on the strength of experience, when what you would like are clearer tools to see where value is created and to plan the future with greater confidence.
My role goes beyond traditional advisory: I join the organisation chart of the company as an external finance director, alongside business owners who want to increase profitability, improve management control and financial planning, steer through a business crisis or over-indebtedness, and manage growth — towards acquisitions or an exit — sustainably.
The control room
The same numbers you already have, put where they help you decide
Not software to buy: the reporting structure I build inside the company, designed to be read quickly by whoever makes the decisions.
DSCR
debt sustainability
13-week cash flow
expected receipts and payments
Margins
by business line
- Line A
- Line B
- Line C
Budget vs actual
variances for the quarter
12-month forecast
actuals and projection
Representation of the reporting structure. The trend shown is illustrative.
- BeforeDecisions based on experience and on the bank balance.
- AfterDecisions based on margins, expected cash and variances.
- Who reads itThe business owner, not just the accountant.
“My job is to take the business owner from steering by sight to a genuine control room.”
Alfredo Cerabino — outsourced CFO for SMEs
Case studies
When numbers become decisions
Three situations that show how control, margins and planning change the quality of decisions. They are reconstructions built on recurring dynamics in SMEs, not the stories of identifiable clients.
Representative scenario
Industrial SME · Revenue €3.2 m · 18 employees · 9-month engagement
+€123K
working capital liquidity released by reducing days sales outstanding
From unpredictable cash to financial control
- DSO — days sales outstanding Before: 78 days After: 64 days
- EBITDA margin Before: 6.8% After: 9.4%
Representative scenario
B2B services · Revenue €1.45 m · 12 employees · 7-month engagement
+€46.4K
annualised EBITDA annualised improvement in the reference scenario
Revenue was growing, margins were not
- Average contribution margin Before: 31.5% After: 36.2%
- EBITDA margin Before: 5.9% After: 9.1%
Representative scenario
Investment · Industrial SME · revenue €2.1 m · investment €650,000
0.94 → 1.35
minimum DSCR after re-planning the financial structure
A profitable investment, but a financially dangerous one
- Minimum DSCR for the period Before: 0.94 After: 1.35
- Cash low point Before: -€92,000 After: +€108,000
The scenarios shown are for illustrative purposes and are built on recurring dynamics in SMEs. The economic figures are examples and do not represent a promise of results.
Self-assessment for business owners
How governable is your SME?
Seven questions, three minutes. A check to see whether you are running the business on reliable data or reacting to events — plus the full guide in PDF, with worked numbers.
- 01Margins
- 02Liquidity at 90 days
- 03Budget and variances
- 04Timely KPIs
- 05Sustainable debt
- 06Roles and responsibilities
- 07Independence from the owner
The role
What is an outsourced CFO?
An outsourced CFO (fractional CFO) gives SMEs access to specialist managerial expertise without the cost of an in-house finance function, through a flexible and highly tailored model — very different from the classic financial consultant for businesses. The aim is to support the business owner in the decisions that matter, helping the company grow with more balance and strategic vision.
It is needed above all when
- the company is growing
- margins are shrinking
- management control needs to improve
- investments have to be planned
- a generational handover, an acquisition or an exit is being prepared
The Metodo Direzione Finanziaria™
Four phases, from the picture of the company to the creation of value
-
Diagnosis
A true picture of the business: costs, cash, debt, control, organisation.
-
Plan
The business plan: objectives, sustainability of investments, KPIs and credibility in front of the banks.
-
Leadership
Ongoing financial leadership: reporting, budget, cash flow and decision support.
-
Value
A stronger, more attractive business: generational handover, new shareholders, sale.
The first 60 days
What happens in the first 60 days?
A finance function does not start with a promise, it starts with a calendar. In the first two months we build the base on which decisions are then made.
-
0–15 days
A true picture of the business
Data, cash, costs, debt, organisation: the real economic and financial situation is put together, not the perceived one.
-
15–30 days
Priorities and levers
Margins, KPIs, cash flow and critical issues. By the end of the first month the business owner knows where it pays to start and what can wait.
-
30–60 days
Control room
Reporting, budget, planning and the control routine that keeps them up to date month after month.
-
from day 60 onwards
Ongoing leadership
Monitoring and decision support: the finance function is up and running, and the work shifts from building the tools to accompanying the business.
About
I first got to know businesses through their numbers. Then I chose to live them from the inside.
I started more than twenty-five years ago in tax and corporate advisory, as a chartered accountant (dottore commercialista). Then I went into companies with management responsibilities: people to coordinate, suppliers and banks to negotiate with, budgets to balance. From that vantage point I understood that the business owner is almost never short of information: what is missing is someone who holds it together and turns it into decisions. That is what I bring into SMEs today as external finance director. I lecture and write for Il Sole 24 Ore — Norme & Tributi.
- Advisory Chartered accountant, tax and corporate
- Running businesses Management roles inside companies
- Financial leadership Outsourced CFO for SMEs across Italy
Insights
From the Insights
Short reads on cash, margins and decisions: how a finance function reads the business.
Profit is not cash: why you can close the year in profit and have less money in the bank
A financial year closed with €80,000 of profit and €100,000 less cash. It is not a paradox: it is the normal way profit and liquidity part company, and the reason cash has to be forecast, not just checked against the balance.
Read the articleFrequently asked questions
The objections I hear most often
What is the difference between outsourced financial leadership and the work of the accountant?
The accountant continues to perform a fundamental role in accounting, tax and corporate matters. Financial leadership uses those same data to look ahead: it analyses margins, liquidity, funding requirements, the sustainability of investments and the company’s economic trend. I do not replace the accountant and I do not ask the business owner to change advisers: I coordinate the information available and turn it into tools for making decisions.
How do I know whether my company needs financial leadership?
The most frequent signals are liquidity that is hard to predict, margins that are not clearly known, rising costs, frequent reliance on bank credit lines, investments decided without financial planning, or difficulty understanding which clients, products or activities genuinely create value. Another important signal is when the business owner receives plenty of data but has no single, timely reading of the company.
Is the service only for businesses in difficulty?
No. Acting before a crisis emerges means having more alternatives and more room for choice. Financial leadership is just as useful to businesses that are growing, that want to improve margins, obtain credit, make new investments, bring in shareholders, face a generational handover or prepare, over time, for a possible sale.
Do I need to hire an in-house finance director?
Not necessarily. For many SMEs the cost and structure of an in-house CFO are not yet worthwhile. Outsourced financial leadership provides an expert, continuous finance function integrated into the organisation chart, with a commitment proportionate to the size and real needs of the business.
Let’s talk
Let’s build the future of your business together
If you are wondering how to improve your company’s profitability, how to strengthen management control, or whether to bring outsourced financial leadership into your business, we can arrange a first, confidential and exploratory conversation to identify the most suitable path.