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Written by Webmaster
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Saturday, 21 June 2008 |
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The service of providing funds or capital for commercial or private reasons comes under the umbrella term – Finance. As a branch of a broader subject ‘economics', it can also be viewed as a method of managing assets. Depending on your viewpoint, it can also be used to define the subject of managing the funds that the private and business sector uses. Management of finance has also developed into a specialized branch within the financial sector and is carried out by finance managers.
Managing this involves dealing with the optimization and allocation of funds to various areas either by borrowing or by using those available from internal resources. The function of the finance manager is to Optimize or enable the fund to be made available with as little cost to the company but provide for a profit to be made in this process. Because the world revolves around finance, when there is a problem with bad debts and depressed markets, production and sales start to decrease as it is a very fine line that is walked. The finance manager's job is to maximize profits whilst keeping the risk to a minimum so you can understand why there is a high level of stress associated with this work.
Finance managers can be very short sighted, only looking at the initial cost involved and not the future return capability of the project. Unlike the sales managers who would like to invest in the future by product development, finance managers are rather skeptical of financing a project whose benefits lie in the future; even though their management governs future outcomes too. Some problems arise for the number of businesses that arrange loans and then use them for personal reasons, forgetting that this clearly defined barrier exists. Lenders are not very happy about this type of situation because they like to know exactly what they are funding.
This may cause some concern amongst small business owners but they should train themselves to be more focused on their business which should in turn create a better frame of mind for the future. An important area for businesses to receive finance is their own bank or failing that good friends or even relatives. The simple trick is for finance managers to arrange loans using outside lenders thereby protecting their own assets whilst maximizing their own profit simultaneously. A famous quote about banks goes something like; banks are only interested and willing to lend money to those individuals that least need or want it.
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