FAQ
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU?
Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy provides affordable support to small and medium businesses to help them solve problems, grow and develop. These businesses often can’t afford the rates charged by the large consulting firms, but nonetheless would benefit from the advice and experience of external consultants. This is where Thrive can be an invaluable solution. That is where our services fit in. The savings and improvements made as a result of our involvement usually cover the cost of the services within a few months.
Thrive’s commitment to continuous improvement, passion for quality and long term partnerships enables us to guide SME’s towards improved outcomes, empowering our clients with informed decision making which leads to improved financial performance.
Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy will deliver plans that are grounded by facts and can be successfully implemented. As well as supporting you with the development of your action plans, we can guide you through the challenging implementation phase.
Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy works exclusively with, and are passionate about, achieving success for Owner/Managers of SME Businesses of all sectors.
Thrive improves and innovates systems and services to help your company achieve growth.
We help our clients understand their vision as well as implement any existing vision of the experience they want to deliver.
Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy helps clients to break through the complexity of diverse needs and legacy systems, define how they can operate better and refine their service organisation.
- An increased steady flow of more highly profitable clients
- Increased Revenue
- Improved operating costs
- More effective management of your time, clients or projects
- A team that is more engaged with your business and your vision, leading to tangible results
- Increased resilience and confidence
- Improved direction, clarity and focus for yourself and your business
- An independent sounding-board and confidante with a wealth of knowledge and connections
- A high level of performance and results
Those looking to transform their operation from stable enterprise to fast-growing SME must be prepared to delegate responsibility and rationally evaluate the best strategic path.
The most successful businesses have a clear vision and joined-up strategic thinking. We work with business owners to align their personal goals to their business plans. Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy works in partnership with you to develop a streamlined, profitable business that works as hard as you do.
Our unique advisory approach helps business owners to reduce risk and improve financial metrics which translates to overall improved business performance. As a result, we have been able to meet and often surpass client expectations.
By gaining a real insight into our clients and their business, we are able to assist and challenge the management to help those goals be realised. Your business is a complex entity, with challenges and opportunities in many areas.
Whether it be profit growth, minimising risk, rapid expansion or long-term stability our approach is uniquely tailored in line with every client.
Owning or managing a SME has always been challenging and this has has never been truer than in the past few years.
The business is ready to expand and you need to develop a strategic plan to make sure this is done in a planned way. You need help with the strategic planning process, if any of the below statements ring true.
- We are planning a major investment in the business but we need a business plan to support our loan application.
- The business is doing OK, but I know it can perform better – I just don’t know what changes are needed or where to start looking.
- Our margins are low and we are not sure how to improve them.
- Cash is always tight and we’re not really in control of it.
- Turnover is low and falling – I need to find new customers but I don’t know where to start.
- I feel like the business is running me, rather than I running the business. We seem to go from one crisis to another.
- The business has lost its way and we’re no longer sure what we are trying to achieve.
- People in the company are doing their own thing and not really working as a team.
If so, then it is time to contact Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy. We can guide you through the strategic planning process and the preparation of robust business plans. We can also help you identify the key issues affecting performance and support you in developing and implementing action plans that will address those challenges successfully.
If any of the above sounds familiar, then take the first step and contact us. An exploratory phone call or e-mail costs nothing and all enquiries are treated with the strictest confidence.
Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy believe an enterprise is agile when it can rapidly reconfigure strategy, structure, processes, people and technology toward value-creating and value-protecting opportunities. This, in short, is enterprise agility.
When successful, the benefits are significant. Agile organisations are better able to innovate and thus thrive in disruptive markets.
Businesses can underperform in many different ways. Thrive Financial & Business Consulting can guide you through a process of analysing your business. This will identify the key issues that are causing it to underperform. Once identified they can work with you in preparing practical action plans and will support start to finish of execution.
Better understanding of what drives the performance of your business and formulate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which will aid:
- Improved margins
- Better cashflow management
- Increased turnover
- More efficient production
- Identification of investments that will improve competitiveness
- Improved communication between team members that will create efficiencies
- Business compliance
- Business value maximisation
- Systems review and process re-engineering
- Sustainability
- Strategic planning
- Financial diagnostic analysis
- Cash flow and profitability
- Reliance on key individuals
- Transferability process efficiency
You will need to prepare a business plan and application if external funding is required to facilitate an investment. If so an application and business case will need to be presented to convey to potential lenders the true value of the business. A well written business plan complete with financial projections will make the difference between securing the necessary funding and being rejected. If the business plan is thorough, robust and well written it will inspire confidence. Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy will not only help in getting a positive response from the pillar banks or alternative lenders but can also result in lower interest rates being offered due to knowledge and relationships already in place with the required lenders.
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- Secure funding for your investment
- Secure Commercial Real Estate (CRE) loan
- Identify the correct investments
- Better financial planning
- Lower interest rates on loans
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Business Plans are prepared for a number of reasons, but they generally revolve around a perceived need for finance in one form or another. Short term, you may be looking for additional working capital, or you may be investigating a specific growth project. Longer term, you may be thinking of selling your business to an outside investor. Whatever the reason, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate that you have a sustainable business, one which has appropriate commercial management and a good track record.
A good business plan sets out the strategy of the business, linking its history to its plans for the future. It explains what it’s doing now, where it wants to get to, and how it’s going to get there. And it needs to address the key questions that potential funders will ask, be they banks, investors or grant providers.
So our business planning process starts by discussing exactly what you need a business plan for, and the potential audience. The structure, level of detail, even the basic content, will be different depending on what message you want to get across, and to whom.
Many growth businesses get to a stage where they need additional help managing the finances of their business. The information they have just isn’t good enough to help them make important decisions, or they can’t tell exactly how each area of their business is really performing. Employing a full time Finance Business Partner is an expensive step for a business to take, and there may not be enough work to justify the expense.
So, more and more businesses are recognizing the benefits of outsourcing this role to a freelance business partner whether that is Chief Financial Officer, Finance Director or Financial Controller. Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy offer a flexible bespoke service to our clients, providing high-level financial expertise that they don’t already have in-house. We can provide support solutions from 1 day a month upwards..
Examples of ways we can help are:
- Review management accounts after implementing robust systems. These will show you how your business is performing; giving you the information you need to make the important decisions, and to control the business.
- Providing monthly or quarterly financial reports for the Board of Directors. These will include an executive summary of the management accounts, key performance indicators, and relevant graphs. You may want us to attend Board Meetings or management team meetings to discuss and explain financial issues.
- Ensuring that you have an appropriate accounting system for the size and type of business. This will help you to ensure that you have all the information you require, and that your time and your staff’s time is being used efficiently.
- Supporting your existing finance team, so that they have someone to refer to when they have questions and problems. You will find that your accounts department runs more smoothly and that your staff’s ability is developed.
- Prepare budgets and forecasts, so that they can set themselves targets for the future, revise them in the light of new information, and discover what additional resources (cash, staffing, capital equipment, premises, etc) they need to achieve these targets;
- Reviewing, and, where necessary, helping them implement changes to, their Management Information Systems, so less time is spent on the statutory “accounts”, and get more meaningful information and timely information
- Designing and implementing procedures to help your business run more efficiently and profitably.
In short, we aim to help you “do it better and do it quicker”.
Finally, running a business can be lonely. Working with us will give you access to knowledge and experience you can tap into. As well as looking at short to medium term issues with you, we can assist with long term planning, including exit strategies.
Yes, Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy is 100% Irish owned and all information contained in this site is specifically tailored for the Irish SME Market. Thrive Financial & Business Consultancy was developed by Tom Heelan and other financial industry experts. Tom has over 15 years’ experience working in the financial sector.
Advice
We discuss your business funding requirements and talk you through all the options available. This helps you decide which funding solution is most appropriate for your business.
Action
We look after the whole funding process – from application through to meeting and negotiating with potential funders on your behalf. Very simply, our role as business finance experts is to expedite your funding application and to get you the best outcome, with minimum hassle.
After-service
We maintain a close ongoing relationship with our clients, even after the deal is done. By keeping in touch, we can be sure our clients are getting the best funding and anticipate any future funding needs as their business expands.
Independent specialist advice
We provide impartial advice on the widest range of business funding products, and we work with only the most trusted and reputable lenders in the market.
Experience & expertise
We have over 15 years’ experience helping business owners with their funding needs. With our in-depth knowledge, we can tailor bespoke funding solutions for most situations.
Key contacts
We have long-standing relationships with many of the funders as well as access to key decision makers – this can be helpful if a deal needs a quick decision or some creative flair.
Proven track record
Central to our ethos is our commitment to offering a personal service and giving impartial expert advice to businesses so they can make informed decisions and choose the right funding solution that is best for their business. Our focus is to source and arrange the best asset funding for our clients. We work closely with a number of finance providers including equity providers, small business lending providers, banks and peer-to-peer lenders.