11–14 points
Business under control
The system is in place. Check quality, timeliness and the capacity to sustain growth and value building.
Self-assessment for business owners
The 7 questions that reveal whether your SME is truly governable
An essential check to see whether you are running the business on reliable data or reacting to events. Seven questions, a score out of 14 and the full guide in PDF with worked numbers.
How to use this check
Answer on the basis of the data available today
It does not measure how good you are. It measures how solid your decision-making system is: seven areas that determine the quality of economic and financial governance, a quick picture in 14 points.
Reconstructible does not mean available. Do not award 2 points just because the accountant could reconstruct the answer: an SME is governable when the information is available in useful time to whoever has to decide.
- Yes2 points The data exists, is up to date and is used to decide.
- Partly1 point The data exists, but it is incomplete, late or does not really guide choices.
- No0 points The data is not available, or the answer depends mostly on gut feeling.
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Margins
Clients, products, jobs
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Liquidity at 90 days
Receipts, payments, funding requirement
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Budget and variances
Objectives and course correction
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Timely KPIs
A few numbers, in useful time
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Sustainable debt
Cash flows, instalments and scenarios
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Roles and responsibilities
Who produces, checks and decides
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Independence from the owner
Processes and continuity beyond the owner’s daily presence
Your result
0/14
7–10 points
Fragile governability
Some tools exist, but they do not yet add up to complete direction.
0–6 points
Reactive management
Problems risk surfacing only when they are already urgent. Start from cash, margins, budget and responsibilities.
First priority
Validate the data, identify three blind spots and assign actions, owners and deadlines.
The score does not certify the adequacy of your organisational structures and is no substitute for professional analysis: it serves to show where to look more closely.
The next step
Turn the result into a first map of priorities
The score shows where to look. The initial check of the economic and financial system establishes what to do: a reading of your SME, with the three priorities it pays to start from.
01 — Method
Metodo Direzione Finanziaria™
The four-phase path that supports expansion, reorganisation and business crisis, to make your company competitive, organised and ready for sustainable growth — or for building the value that a future exit requires.
Discover the Method07 — Insights
Reading for decision-makers
Short articles on cash, margins, budgets and decisions: how a finance function reads the business, explained with worked numbers.
Go to Insights03 — Case studies
What changes in the business
Starting point, what we did and the result in three representative scenarios: cash, margins and the sustainability of an investment.
See a scenarioLet’s talk
Request the initial check
Turn your test result into a first map of your SME’s economic and financial priorities. Write to me: the first conversation is exploratory and confidential.