Establishing Financial Viability: A Catalyst for Sustainable Business Growth

Key Takeaways:

1. Financial viability measures a company’s ability to generate sufficient cash flow to cover ongoing operational costs and debt repayments, and its ability to grow at a desirable rate while satisfying customer expectations.
2. Financial viability is pivotal to a business’ sustainability, cash flow improvement, understanding customers, and product profitability.
3. To ascertain the financial viability of a project, a company must conduct a financial viability analysis, evaluating whether the project’s returns surpass its costs.
4. Embracing best practices such as prioritizing cash flow, maintaining lines of credit, managing debt, and reducing costs, can enhance a business’s financial viability.
5. The integration of financial management technology can streamline processes, offer better visibility, and provide in-depth insights, enhancing the financial viability of a business.

Introduction

Understanding and assessing a business’s financial health is a critical task that finance teams undertake. One essential indicator of this health is the concept of financial viability, a metric that gauges the risk to a company’s long-term survival. It involves measuring a company’s ability to generate sufficient cash flow for meeting its operational costs, debt repayments, and accommodating growth while maintaining optimal performance to meet customer expectations. This article aims to illuminate the importance of financial viability, how to calculate it for a project, and best practices for maintaining it.

Defining Financial Viability

Financial viability encompasses multiple factors including a company’s income, cash flow, net worth, profitability, forecasted performance, and other considerations beyond the purview of the finance team. It’s about the business’s ability to meet long-term financial targets and maintain a safety net for necessary investments at regular intervals. In the context of projects, a financially viable one should generate sufficient returns to not only justify the initial investment but also provide a significant return on investment.

The Importance of Financial Viability

Facilitating Sustainable Growth

Financial viability is the linchpin for sustainable growth. It helps businesses manage their finances effectively, from their inception to periods of growth. A financially viable business can secure funding for expansion plans more efficiently, owing to their well-ordered financial standing.

A Better Understanding of Customers

Financial viability also supports a robust customer base. To target the right customers, businesses must amass intricate details about potential customers. A thorough examination of a customer’s reliability, especially from a payment perspective, can be instrumental in measuring a business’s viability.

Improved Cash Flow

Having a steady cash flow is crucial for businesses to stay afloat. By analyzing current operations, companies can ascertain the fluid cash flow, enabling actions for its enhancement. This improvement impacts financial viability positively, facilitating better debt management, wise investments, expense management, and accurate future performance forecasts.

Improved Product Profitability

Financial viability is also applicable to products and services. A profitability assessment can determine the viability of offerings, helping in deciding whether to retain, alter, or discontinue them. Unprofitable products can adversely affect overall financial health in the long run.

Ensuring Uninterrupted Activities

A business lacking financial viability risks halting its operations due to an inability to pay bills or staff salaries. By gauging the company’s financial sustainability, businesses can ascertain the feasibility of maintaining operations. Necessary budgets must be assigned to various resources to ensure ongoing activities.

Greater Efficiency

Being financially viable implies optimal utilization of resources and a better position for increased investments in systems and training.

Determining the Financial Viability of a Project

Companies often conduct a financial viability analysis to ascertain if a potential project is a worthy investment. A project is deemed viable if its economic returns surpass its expected costs. Similarly, the viability of a product refers to its proposed value to the business in the long run and its potential success within the target market. It involves asking critical questions about demand and the costs of product creation and marketing.

Market viability pertains to the prospective market. It is most applicable when starting a business and requires understanding the market’s potential profitability. Regular market analysis is crucial for established businesses as markets change swiftly. Assessing the market’s health, size, and competitive impact can be pivotal in evaluating financial viability.

Best Practices for Maintaining Financial Viability

Prioritize Cash Flow

Managing cash flow effectively is key to maintaining financial viability. Using an annual cash flow statement can help plan and ensure coverage of essential outgoings.

Maintain Constant Lines of Credit

Having recurring lines of credit can maintain healthy cash flow and functioning operations.

Manage Debt

Monitoring current debts to deal with them sooner or consolidating them into more manageable ones can enhance financial viability.

Manage Assets

Regular assessment of company-owned assets and the rate of their depreciation can guide optimal asset replacement or selling decisions.

Reduce Costs

Periodic analysis of all costs can reveal unnecessary expenditures, which can be eliminated to boost financial health.

Effective Credit Management

Active management of money owed by customers and timely invoice dispatch can speed up the debt collection process.

Use Financial Management Technology

Adopting financial management software can make tasks quicker, reducing costs and boosting efficiency. It offers better control over finance-related activity and provides visibility and insights for improving financial viability.

The Role of Technology in Achieving Financial Viability

Cloud-based accounting solutions like Advanced Financials can fulfill all finance-related activity in one digital location. They provide real-time financial data, automates processes like credit management, and facilitate accurate forecasting for future financial viability. Such tools free up the finance team’s time for more complex tasks, proving to be a game-changer in managing financial viability.

Conclusion

In summary, financial viability is not just a term used by finance teams but a critical aspect that impacts every facet of a business. It plays a vital role in driving sustainable growth, understanding customers, improving cash flow, and enhancing product profitability. Establishing financial viability is, therefore, an investment worth making for every business.