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If your firm is like most, you need to take steps to improve your firm’s financial fitness. A/E Financial Fitness Plan is an action-oriented book written exclusively for firm leaders and financial professionals of architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms. Get advice on how to control overhead expenses, improve your cash flow, set up a no-nonsense budgeting process for the firm and for projects, improve your internal financial reporting, and put your firm on the path to growth and profitability.
Summary of What's Inside:
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Get a step-by-step action plan to put your A/E firm's finances in order
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Learn where to cut expenses and improve your firm's bottom line
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Get the most from your financial staff and accounting system
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Set up a no-nonsense budgeting process for your A/E firm
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Improve billings and collections to maximize cash flow
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Reduce and better manage your firm's debt
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Get a step-by-step action plan to put your A/E firm's finances in order
-
Learn where to cut expenses and improve your firm's bottom line
-
Get the most from your financial staff and accounting system
-
Set up a no-nonsense budgeting process for your A/E firm
-
Improve billings and collections to maximize cash flow
-
Reduce and better manage your firm's debt
Do you know where your firm’s finances stand? Do you worry about the financial fitness of your A/E firm? Are you confused about how to fix the financial problems your firm is experiencing? There’s one simple place to look for answers to all these questions: A/E Financial Fitness Plan, a comprehensive action-oriented guide designed to help architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms get their finances on solid footing.
Successful A/E firms have one thing in common— a sound bottom line. ZweigWhite’s A/E Financial Fitness Plan will help your firm not only identify but fix any problems on the financial front that you may be experiencing. Follow the steps in A/E Financial Fitness Plan, from the beginning assessment to the closing reassessment, and you’ll be poised for a new level of success and fiscal fitness.
A/E Financial Fitness Plan combines all the knowledge of ZweigWhite’s expert finance consultants in a single volume designed to give you the benefits that come with better cash flow, lower debt and tax burdens, a faster collections process, and less waste. Hundreds of A/E and environmental consulting firms just like yours have already benefitted from this best-selling resource and, as a result, have improved their firm’s financial performance.
A/E Financial Fitness Plan starts with a complete assessment of where your firm’s finances stand right now. You’ll be able to find out what’s working and what’s not. Checklists and worksheets will help you get a clear picture of what’s happening in every area of your firm that impacts your bottom line.
After completing the assessment, you’ll learn all about improving your invoices, billings, and collections processes in order to reduce your average collection period and maximize your firm’s cashflow. Next, you’ll learn how to control overhead costs, trim wasteful spending, and set up a no-nonsense budgeting process for your firm. You’ll get complete information on the best accounting systems for A/E and environmental consulting firms and an in-depth explanation of how to improve your financial reporting and implement an open-book management policy in your firm. You’ll learn how to get the most out of your financial staff and when, why, and how to work best with outside accountants. You’ll also find an easy-to-follow guide to reducing and managing your firm’s debt load and tax burdens, along with complete instructions on how to foster the best relationships with your bank and how and when to tap into the firm’s line of credit. There’s also an easy guide to handling project costing and budgeting in A/E Financial Fitness Plan.
Most firms can’t afford to have a single weakness in their finance and accounting processes. A/E Financial Fitness Plan will help you achieve the lowest possible ACP, stronger cash flow, a happy and productive finance and accounting staff, and put you on the path to maximum profitability.
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Foreword
Chapter 1: Self-Assessment: What’s Your Current Financial Fitness?
Chapter 2: Maximizing Cash Flow
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Common mistakes that contribute to poor cash flow
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Improving your billing process
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Avoiding the pitfalls of poor invoice design
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Reducing your ACP: How to collect the money you’re owed faster
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Managing accounts receivable
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Managing accounts payable
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Forecasting cash flow
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Long-range forecasting
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Back to the common mistakes that contribute to poor cash flow
Chapter 3: Controlling Your Costs
Chapter 4: Building a No-Nonsense Annual Firm budget
Chapter 5: Maintaining Poject Pofitability
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Why project budgets are blown
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Building better project budgets
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Staying in budget through good project management
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Managing small projects
Chapter 6: Improving Inernal Fnancial Reporting
Chapter 7: Choosing the Right Financial Software
Chapter 8: Getting the Most From Your Finance & Accounting Team
Chapter 9: Controlling Fraud
Chapter 10: Managing and Reducing Debt
Chapter 11: Managing Taxes
Chapter 12: Check-up: Reassessing Your Financial Fitness
Appendix A: The Complete A/E Financial Fitness Plan
Appendix B: Glossary of Financial Terms
Appendix C: Additional Sources of Information
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