A maker of surgical devices had outgrown its “enterprise resource planning” software, technology that helps run and tie together the major portions of a business. The business had multiple issues, such as an inability to correctly calculate the actual costs of making its products. In addition, it had paper-based systems for tracing both the manufacturing and material sources of its products and the documentation and approvals for changes to the devices it made.

Our team led the search for a new ERP system that would be able to handle the functions of several older software packages. We sent a request for proposal to seven vendors, and helped choose two for product demonstrations that we had tailored to the production and sale of our client’s medical devices. We called the vendors’ references and negotiated the price and other terms with the vendor our client ultimately chose.

CFO Advisory Services assembled a team to install the ERP system and help get it operating, made up of personnel from our client and a re-seller of the software. Our managers gave instructions on what to do and oversaw the entire implementation process in conjunction with the plan we formulated with our client. The CFO Advisory Services team working on the initiative included a project director, cost accountant, engineering manager and two engineers.

While we managed the implementation process, our client’s executives and staff were able to focus on their normal day to day activities, all while getting the new ERP system installed and running well.

Our client had operating losses, resulting in their bank freezing their credit line. That eliminated a tool for managing cash shortfalls for paying bills.

We reviewed a number of areas of our clients’ business, including its strategies for sales and marketing, customer pricing and paying taxes. We also performed strength and weakness tests for its finances and examined operating challenges and capacity problems.

Working with management, we developed a turnaround plan. CFO Advisory Services provided financial oversight as the plan was executed and developed graphical reports of financial data that we reviewed alongside management.

Within six months of implementing the turnaround plan, the client was breaking even financially. After 24 months, the company had posted six consecutive quarters of profits. That allowed CFO Advisory Services to refinance the company’s debt at a lower interest rate and to secure a new $2 million line of credit for working capital needs.

In 2009, a Dallas-based construction company learned that its bank was declining to renew its line of credit, even though the company was paying its debts on time and was complying with all covenants of those obligations. The bank had lost confidence in construction companies. Our client’s finance chief asked us to help find a new bank.

CFO Advisory Services reviewed our client’s finances, helped its CFO prepare an information package for banks, developed a presentation and made the deal available to senior-level bankers whom we knew.

We found a bank wiling to not only provide a new line of credit to our client, but also refinance its owner-occupied real estate. Our client established a relationship with this new bank.

A pair of surgeons wanted to combine their medical practices and build an outpatient surgery center. Over time, the two had created a number of business entities and had done multiple transactions between those entities. A new chief executive was told to not only build the surgery center, but to combine all the related companies, including their finances and operations.

We assembled a team of people to review our clients’ accounting and to bring all the business entities into one company. At the same time, our chief financial officer moved the surgery center and related equipment from construction financing to permanent financing, along with consolidating both medical practices and integrating the surgery facility’s finances into theirs.
Finally, CFO Advisory Services hired accounting personnel to help the client run its finances going forward.

Our clients not only built the surgery center, but also combined the staffs of their medical practices and established a business framework through which they could add additional practices in the future.

The owner of a privately held healthcare staffing company wanted to sell his stake in the business, but didn’t know how to make that happen.

Our team created an information package, marketed the company, found a buyer and negotiated and closed the deal. We worked with the client’s lawyers to review documents. And our team secured an employment agreement for the business owner, along with an agreement for him to be compensated for value he created after the sale.

The client received a better price than he expected.

A publicly traded healthcare staffing firm in Texas was in talks to buy a Florida staffing firm. But Florida law differed from Texas law about the delivery of home healthcare. To do the deal, the client needed to know about potential risks it faced both on the legal front and surrounding integrating the operations of the two businesses.

We researched the Florida laws, interviewed the target company’s management, visited its operations and spoke with its financial backers

We helped the client understand the risks involved so it could decide to move forward with the deal.