Distressed Financial Management for Education based SME

May 11 2022

Background

Unfortunately, the Educational based SME was in severe cash flow difficulties and facing imminent insolvency and an application to appoint the Official Receiver.

The CFO was leaving prior to the application and the company required immediate and short term financial expertise and oversight and help to ensure a smooth handover to the Receiver.

Challenges

Provision of financial/due diligence information to external parties and regulators
Controlling cashflow and ensuring that payments leaving the organisation’s bank account have been properly approved by the company board.
Over-seeing income for work that could not be delivered and ensuring that this is repaid or held in a separate bank account for later return.
Ensuring, the financial records that are handed over are maintained and transactions are accurately recorded in the financial system prior to the date of insolvency.

Solution

By working with the board, the principal, the bank, and the insolvency practitioner, a refined short term plan with clear achievable objectives were set and met.

Clear and constant communication was key across all stakeholders, and strict focus on the priorities ensured the objectives were met.

Immediate control of the bank was critical, and enforced by imposing a systematic block on incoming and outgoing payments. Any outgoing payments were pre-approved by the board. The final cash position exceeded the budget expectation.

An intelligent, detailed and targeted analytical review was performed on a critical creditor set to provide requested information to the regulator.

An employee closure team was established and a final payroll run was calculated and processed for this team.

All financial information was handed over to the receiver in an organised manner and continued support to the receiver provided at the end of the assignment.

Benefits

Despite the distressed situation, the critical objectives were met, the bank transactions were controlled,the information requested by the official receiver and regulator was produced and handed over efficiently.

Case Study: Paul Durno

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