Managing the financial performance of SMEs

SMEs need to be creative. Their products and services must be original and competitive, which means they must constantly innovate. They also need to be administratively efficient and effective, with simplified, low-cost management tools to support decision-making.

The aim of this book is precisely to provide SME managers with a new version of two essential management tools for the financial management of any business: a dashboard and a budget. These two tools are well known, but they are often poorly adapted to the very specific decision-making context of SMEs.

The dashboard presented here is designed to provide SME management with financial indicators linked to their priorities. The budget is integrated with the recording of financial results, providing unrivalled flexibility to continuously adjust cash flow to plan fluctuations. Accountability, cash management and decision-making become one, with these tools adapted to the specific context of SMEs.

Hugues Boisvert, Ph.D., FCPA, FCMA, Full Professor of Accounting, HEC Montréal, CPA International Chair in Management Control Research