Ron Box, chief financial officer at Joe MoneyMachinery, thinks he has. His two strategies:
- Work with more banks than would be normal for a company of your size - With $20+ million in revenues, Joe's company has active lending relationships with four or five banks at a time. Different banks will have different appetites for deals at different times. Maintaining a stable of current relationships enables Joe's company to source credit when and as needed. What's Joe's secret? Treat each bank as if it were your main banker including frequent, honest communication.
- Ron also serves as a key business advisor to his bankers on emerging trends in accounting and financial reporting such as IFRS [1] and XBRL.[2] Bankers are usually not trained as accountants but they need to thoroughly understand their borrowers’ financial reports. Although Ron’s company is private, CFOs and bankers constantly worry about the spill over of public company reporting requirements to private companies. Ron is getting double duty from his continuing education – anticipating his own company’s needs while helping out his bankers.
Read the article on CFO.com
[1]International Financial Reporting Standards
[2] XBRL is anew standards-based way to communicate business and financial information,which is in the process of being mandated for use by public companies filingfinancial information with the SEC.