Supporting Rapid Business Growth
“We have worked with The Smart Team now for almost a year now. They have helped us with control processes, management reporting and budgeting as well as the more strategic leadership aspects which come with participating in Board Meetings, reviewing Funding Agreements, and help with Acquisitions and Due Diligence.
It’s great how they supplement the skills of our in-house finance team, working collaboratively across other functions. I particularly like how we get access to the different skills and specialities each of them brings to our team as we continue to grow our business.”
Mark Lindsay
The WeDo Group provide alternative finance and back-office support to SMEs through investment, invoice finance, and loans to support their cash flow. They’ve been in business since 2019.
We spoke to Mark Lindsay, Director at WeDo Finance to find out how his relationship with The Smart Team started and what it has meant to the business so far.
What instigated your need to reach out to The Smart Team?
We started to work with Tracy and The Smart Team in September 2021. Our business had grown rapidly in just a few years and our forecast was already approaching £8m turnover pa.
We needed to add senior finance leadership skills to our leadership team quickly, as our existing solution for finance support was being stretched too thinly.
What was your experience at the start of your journey?
When The Smart Team joined us, their onboarding process started with a Business Health Check and a review of our Funding Documentation & Strategy.
As we worked through this, they built an understanding of our business, our goals and some of the challenges we were facing. The approach was iterative, and they built on their initial understanding of our business through discussions, data gathering, and process reviews. I like this approach and their aim to avoid surprises and help us to position ourselves to maximise commercial opportunities.
What impact did the Smart Team have on your business during the first few months?
The initial onboarding process highlighted priorities to focus on. They suggested improvements we could make to our funding agreements and reviewed an acquisition agreement for a potential target.
The Smart Team undertook a high-level review of our processes, and we now have clarity on some key process risks which we are addressing to give us better control and stronger foundations for growth.
What improvements have you seen to your internal processes?
When we initially started our business, we were (and still are) very much focused on the service to our client. By working with The Smart Team , we now have more clarity on the impact some of our operational processes have on financial reporting and controls, and we are implementing better control processes to help the handover of information from the Ops team into Finance. With their help we have validated our intercompany recharges and reconciled our balance sheet with our operating system.
In parallel to this, they have redesigned our management accounts. They are now easier to read and produced in a timely manner. Subsequently, this highlighted improvements we could make to our fee rates. When we reviewed these in detail, it led to a positive impact on our profit margins.
The Smart Team managed the process to sign off our statutory accounts and they worked seamlessly with our external accountants to make this happen.
In addition, the management team have also just agreed our budgets for next year which have been prepared in detail based on key assumptions of our success drivers. Something we’ve not had in place before and makes our plan for growth based on data so feels more solid and fitting for a business with our ambitious plans.
How does the virtual Smart Finance Team fit into your existing structure?
The Smart Team, our internal team and our external accountants have worked seamlessly together to get us to this point. They have expertise in several different areas, and we have been able to access these skill sets by working with different team members as needed.
Tracy acts as our Lead Consultant, and we have also worked with Barry, Zal, and Karen. They have all been part of the bigger WeDo Finance team.
“It feels as though things are becoming more organised and controlled, which gives us confidence that we are ready for the next stages of our business’ growth. We envisage using Tracy going forward as part of our long-term strategy to support the decision-making processes across the group.”
