Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum

Author: Clint Jhonson

Financial management encompasses all of financial accounting, and it further deals with the role and requirement of finance in the future of the firm. Thus besides bookkeeping and taxation, financial management concerns itself with making effective financial decisions in the present, which may make the firm more profitable in the future.

Subjects covered under financial management
• Principles and practices of financial management
• Evaluation of financial performance using ratios
• Financial planning and forecasting
• Developing financial projections
• Capital budgeting analysis
• Bookkeeping
• Purchase ledger management, sales ledger management
• Managing cash flow
• VAT administration
• Taxation
• PAYE administration
• Managing risks
• Managing capital structures
• Analyzing cost of capital
• Financial management during mergers and acquisitions
• Valuation of target companies
• Post merger integration
• Anti-takeover defenses
• Creating value such as economic value added and value based management
• Cost of intellectual capital
• Data warehousing
• Strategic planning
• Competitive intelligence
• Activity based costing
• Financial modeling
• Process improvement
• Leadership

Outsourcing financial management
Small, medium-sized and growing companies need to give more time to sales and execution of projects, rather than to managing financial administrative tasks like bookkeeping, maintaining purchase ledgers and sales ledgers, VAT administration, and PAYE administration. They need professional help in this field. Finance companies offer their services and help these businesses grow with their expert financial management and advice.

Financial management services
Many finance companies offer financial management services where they undertake to perform financial services such as:
• Sales invoicing and credit control
• Bookkeeping
• Expense claims administration
• Purchase ledger management, sales ledger management
• VAT administration
• PAYE administration
• Management of accounts and reports

Benefits of outsourcing financial management to finance companies
1. More time to attend to the growth of the business by concentrating on generating new business.
2. Record maintenance is computerized. This ensures you know how much you owe to your suppliers and how much you get from your customers at any given point in time.
3. Many offer 24-hour Internet access to your key data and figures ensuring that you remain in total control.
4. Professionals handle VAT and PAYE administration, filling out forms, and submitting them on time. Penalty for late submission is avoided.
5. Chasing of clients for payment is undertaken in a systematic way by well-defined credit control exercises performed by experts.
6. To ensure your business remains competitive, financial experts provide financial guidance.
7. The cost is negligible compared to the benefits obtained.
8. Other financial services like factoring, invoice discounting, stock finance, etc., can be availed from the same finance company with greater ease.

Schlarbaum Capital Management by Mark Schlarbaum and Janet Schlarbaum

Author: Randall Berry

New year and time to balance your portfolio, right? But friend unless you are holding mostly ETFs, your portfolio is at grave risk. I am going to tell you why. There is an important difference between the protection an ETF can offer vs. a mutual fund.

It is a difference that could cost you thousands in your investment or retirement portfolio.

Okay, maybe you do not HAVE thousands in your investment accounts. If you are just starting to invest your money, pay particular attention my friend. The following page should make your decision between an ETF (exchange traded fund) and a mutual fund clear enough to make an investment decision or take corrective action if necessary.

More seasoned investors will already know the basics that follow but saying them again can not hurt.

ETFs and mutual funds are similar in that they both hold baskets of securities. A balanced mutual fund can hold bonds, stocks, T-bills and some cash. An ETF is essentially derived from stocks but takes on many forms.

Before I tell you about the potential mistake that could cost you thousands, here are the important differences between ETFs and mutual funds:

* Mutual funds are actively managed by a person who gets paid by people like us usually from the money that WE give him to manage. ETFs are purchased by us and can be bought and sold all day long with few restrictions and almost no minimums.

* Mutual funds charge 2% or more between loading and maintenance, whereas ETFs typically charge between .5 and 1%. Mutual funds usually have no transaction fee. Brokerage commissions must be paid when purchasing an ETF.

* Mutual funds incur capital gains even though no distribution activity (money back to you) takes place. ETFs usually find a way to avoid these taxable events. This is a significant advantage for an ETF and worse, it is not always clear to the investor how and when it happens.

* Mutual funds mitigate risk by sometimes holding cash in anticipation of a down stock market. ETFs are not actively managed, therefore, YOU the investor and purchaser of the ETF must account for this risk when you decide to buy them. Position sizing is one important consideration with an ETF purchase to manage this particular risk.

Here we go now. The biggest mistake you can make in your decision to allocate to mutual funds or ETFs is to overlook one HUGE advantage an ETF holds over the mutual fund:

* STOP-LOSS order: This is a tool you can employ to nail-down a floor beneath which the price of your ETF cannot fall. You arrange this with your broker or click a button if you are investing with an online brokerage. NO SUCH PROTECTION IS AVAILABLE with a mutual fund. And do not expect your fund manager to point this out.

This tactic can stop the bleeding if things really go wrong with the stock market. Better yet, you can set the stop loss and put it on automatic.

This is proactive management of your money, not merely active.