Corporate psychology: How outsourcing financial management has the same effect as going for therapy

A business owner who has started outsourcing financial management recently remarked: “Once I’ve spent an hour with my financial manager, it feels like I’ve spent an hour with a therapist!”

Her comment got us thinking about just how far the analogy might carry. It led to this Huffington Post article, which outlines four ways that all people – even happy ones – can benefit from regular therapy. It turns out there are more than just a few parallels. We’ve drawn from the same points made in the article to show how  having a financial manager can actually serve a similar function to having a ‘therapist’ in the business world.

Outsourcing financial management can help you handle problems or stressors, even if they aren’t life-altering or traumatic.

Emotionally, if you’ve had a bad day, week or month, there are tangible health benefits from talking through the stressors that triggered this. “Talking with a professional allows you to get a sense of how you appear to other people, helps you get feedback on whatever you’re feeling and offers insight on how those emotions are affecting your everyday life,” the Huffington Post reported.

In the business world, a trusted financial executive can provide the same thing. Talking to an experienced, qualified financial manager about what went wrong in your business that month and why, can help you not only recognise where your mistakes were but help you better plan your next moves. And chatting through upcoming plans for your business can help you gain a non-partial perspective about their viability. This person provide feedback on your intentions, taking into account the financial and risk implications, and help you recognise whether that hunch was something that should be acted upon, or perhaps dismissed in favour of another with longer-term benefits.

Outsourcing financial management can help your business find purpose

Have you ever felt like you’re lost in the humdrum of daily operations? Have you lost “your way”; your bigger picture, the thing you are striving for as a company? Outsourcing financial management can help you get it back – or define it in the first place. Your financial manager has the insight that comes with years of experience and the perspective that comes with looking from the outside in.

Outsourcing financial management can help you remain accountable to your goals

As a business owner, you’re surrounded all day by employees who rely on you for their salary. As such, they have a vested interest in staying on your good side. All too often, for the owner of an SMME, this can translate into being surrounded by yes-men. When you decide to deviate from a plan that was sweated over, proven and agreed-upon, there might be no one willing to call you out on it.

But as a business owner, that’s exactly what you need. You might need someone to point out that moving into that new swish office space will take away from the income that you had earmarked for expansion. Or someone to remind you that it’s not the best idea to compete in a space where there are three existing similar products. Someone to remind you of the goals you set for the business, and why. Outsourcing financial management will provide you with a person who can do just that. They’re an independent voice of reason there to help keep your eye on the goal post.

A finance professional can help you dissect a problem, then figure out how to solve it

Can’t determine why sales have been down the last three quarters? Wondering why your margins are lower than they were historically? Outsourcing financial management can help you get answers to these questions. You know every detail about your company, they are trained to understand the environment and the interplay between operational decisions and their financial impact.

If you could do with a little therapy in your week, consider outsourcing financial management. The Finance Team’s qualified, experienced associates can provide you with a trusted listening ear and a perspective that could be vital to the health of your business, so give us a call.