This is at least in part the function of an accountant.

In a large business, this would be divided across the functions of accounting and finance. The accounting department works with past figures and collaborates with finance and operations to project future figures with various scenarios and branching option trees. The CFO usually has the last call on projections and then presents and discusses it with the rest of the C Suite.

In a small business, that set of teams is consolidated into whatever the owner takes on to do themselves + an accountant, if that accountant fulfills that kind of work. Many accountants are still old school and restrict themselves to doing tax meetings once or twice a year. I noticed this early in my career and decided I liked the strategic decision making of a CFO but didn’t want to work up a ladder for a large company, so I stuck it out on my own.

Really I don’t think the actual work is that hard, but I think a lot of business owners don’t know what it looks like when done right. How do you pull, scrub, and extrapolate from the data? What does a good return on asset ratio even look like? Why do I need to know something like the after tax cost of debt? What decisions does it help me make?

I did some of this with a client last week and you could see the lightbulb turn on. I work with a lot of tradesmen and it’s a common phenomenon that they have very strong revenues but never seem to actually take any money home. After about 3 hours I watched him go from “I’m very good at what I do but I don’t know why I don’t have money in the bank” to “We’re going to track our cost of goods sold better and keep a handle on these specific vendors because they’re gutting me”.

I take a lot of pride in it. Lots of people think the field is soulless and derive no enjoyment from it but I find it so fulfilling when non-financially inclined individuals go from feeling like they’re missing something to feeling like they’re in control.

Rant over.