In our cooperation with many private equity firms, we’ve realized one thing – they all have very similar problems with their portfolio companies.

It is especially true when it comes to the finances and accounting of these portfolio companies. Most of the problems facing these companies lie precisely in the F&A departments.

Private equity firms usually struggle to get finance and accounting in most of their new portfolio companies to a specific point when they can produce:

• Accurate,
• Timely, and
• Audit-ready financial information

What’s more, all of this needs to be done cost-effectively.

So, if your company is a private equity firm that has similar issues, how do you get your portfolio companies to provide timely financials?

Before we explain our solution, we need to take a better look at the challenges and problems that companies face, all of which are preventing them from providing proper financials.

The common challenges and adverse results in portfolio companies

Many problems exist for portfolio companies, but they all boil down to three main ones:

1. The wrong personnel – it implies that the staff you have in the F&A departments of the portfolio company do not have the required skill set. Their abilities and knowledge don’t usually align with the tasks that are required of them. The companies thus have to make do with what they have, as they typically don’t have a better solution.
2. Poorly performed processes – these usually stem from the fact that the accounting and finance systems of the portfolio company have many limitations, and the procedures themselves are undefined. That leads to any effort of improving the finance and accounting of the firm to be unsuccessful.
3. Disconnected data – financial data and the systems dealing with it are dispersed and siloed in the company, which provides questionable numbers.

These common problems lead to equally common and quite unfavorable results for the portfolio company, and in turn, for the private equity firm as well:

• Less visibility – all the information that’s not integrated well enough is inadequate, and executives cannot make proper and confident decisions.

• Wasted time – all the problems we explained, lead to time wasted, because the personnel needs to focus more on the everyday operational matters like transactions and reporting, and not have enough time left to focus on the more critical areas like customers and growth of the company.

• Lack of scalability – the problems in the finance and accounting departments result in one of the most significant challenges a private equity firm can have within a portfolio company – the existence of bottlenecks that hinder overall growth.

As you can see, these seemingly small inadequacies and problems that commonly occur in F&A departments of portfolio companies often result in some very negative metrics.

Poor metrics can only show that the portfolio company is not growing and improving in the way the private equity firm wants, which can only mean that their investment is going to waste.

So, what is the solution here?

Top quality finance services meant for investors – the Finance as a Service solution

A Finance as a Service firm is a company that offers financial services to private equity firms and many other types of companies.

The solution they offer is a unique and fast way to improve the operational profitability of the portfolio companies PE firms have. Also, they can also enhance the decision making of the CEOs, CFOs, and other executives by increasing their visibility into the financial performance of the portfolio company.

That all sounds well, but how does it work in practice?

The Consero solution

We at Consero offer a unique solution that in practice works like a well-oiled machine and can provide unprecedented levels of improvement in the financial aspect of a portfolio company.

We do this through a combination of:

• Modern and innovative software automation tools
• Improved workflow
• Experienced and highly trained F&A professionals

All of this can transform your portfolio company and its finance functions into machines that work to support your company’s daily financial operations effectively but also your strategic decision-making process, all the while significantly reducing many expenses you usually have when doing these things yourself or having in-house teams to do them for you.

Consero’s solution is a mutually supportive system of:

• Efficient processes
• Technological innovations
• Highly trained finance experts

We use the best methods and controls in the industry, all of which have been improved and refined over the years and through our cooperation with more than 250 clients that have faced the same problems you do.

Our technological innovations include well-designed software solutions made by veterans in the industry. Our software solution is:

• Integrated into your company
• Highly modifiable and configurable
• Enables rapid deployment and consistent execution

The people we have in our teams boast a highly comprehensive skill set and can perform all the necessary F&A functions in your portfolio company.

Our solution provides efficiently delivered results, transparent reporting, scalable architecture, and most importantly – timely financials.

In the end, the Consero solution is more cost-effective than in-house teams.

• Instead of hiring each member of your in-house F&A team, your hire Consero.
• Instead of paying them to do the research and architect systems, or refining purchased networks, you get our highly configurable ones.
• Instead of integrating people and training them to use the systems, you get us to do it for you. We present it all in a way that can be of assistance to the company’s CEO, CFO, and executives.
• Instead of having an in-house team that takes nine to 18 months to optimize finance and accounting of the portfolio company, you get the Consero solution that integrates with your company within one to two months.

Mainly, when you compare the Consero solution to in-house teams, you realize that Consero does everything more effectively, in a dramatically shorter timeline and for half of the cost.

The results of this are executives, CEOs, and CFOs who make better-informed decisions, the portfolio company becomes more streamlined and more scalable, and the expenses are lowered – not to mention the portfolio company now provides timely financials.