What is financial coaching?
Financial coaching is regular one-to-one coaching on understanding and running your business numbers: cashflow, margin, pricing and the management information you make decisions from. It is the fourth of our four coaching areas, led by Peter, our Finance Director, and delivered with Buzz Accounting — the same team.
It is coaching, not regulated financial advice. Sessions do not cover pensions, investments, mortgages or personal debt, which are regulated work. The subject is your own business: what the figures say, what they mean, and what you do differently on the strength of them. If something surfaces that needs a regulated adviser, a tax specialist or an insolvency practitioner, we will say so and point you at the right person.
This is coaching on the business. Coaching on your own money, such as what you pay yourself, whether you are on track and what happens if you stop, is Buzz Money Coach.
Many owners run the business on the two figures they can see: what is in the bank and what came in this month. Pricing gets set by feel, a good month and a profitable month get confused, and the year-end accounts arrive months after the decisions they could have informed.
Financial coaching teaches the handful of numbers that run a small business, using your own figures, and builds the habit of reviewing them on a fixed rhythm. The aim is four or five numbers you know and use, and the confidence to turn down work that does not pay, put a price up, or take money out of the business.
Who is financial coaching for?
Financial coaching suits an owner whose business makes money on paper and still feels tight.
The numbers are the gap.
You cannot say what your break-even is, why profit and cash never agree, or which jobs earn their keep, and you are willing to look at figures you have been avoiding.
You want to be the one who can read them.
The sessions make the price rise, the debtor chase and the unused subscription visible, decided and followed up, with you doing them. If you would rather have the work done for you, Buzz Accounting does bookkeeping, management accounts and finance-director work.
You will look at figures monthly.
You review the same figures, ask the same questions and write actions on a fixed date each month.
Pensions, investments, mortgages and personal debt need a regulated adviser, or a free specialist service in the case of debt. Coaching runs alongside that advice, and the discovery call will say so where it applies.
What does financial coaching work on?
Each of these is worked through in your own figures until you can do it without help.
Understanding your numbers
What a profit and loss and a balance sheet say, in plain words, using yours rather than an example. By the end you can open the management accounts, see what changed and know whether it matters.
Cashflow rhythm
A rolling forecast you keep yourself, updated on a fixed day, so you can see the tight week six weeks out instead of on the morning it arrives. It also covers the levers that move it: deposits, payment terms, standing orders, VAT and PAYE set aside rather than spent.
Margin decisions
Gross margin by job, service or customer, showing which work makes money and which does not, and what to do about it.
Pricing confidence
What your price has to be to cover the cost of doing the work, the cost of running the place and a fair wage for you. Then sending it without discounting on the phone, and knowing what a 5% discount does to the sales you need.
Monthly review discipline
One hour in the same slot every month on last month’s numbers, with the same four or five figures, the same questions and written actions. Reviewing monthly means you find problems within weeks.
Planning ahead
A budget for the year you can hold yourself to, broken into quarters, with the big items — a hire, a van, a tax bill, a price rise — on the timeline rather than in your head. Then checking the plan against what happened, and adjusting.
How does it work with Buzz Accounting?
Buzz Coaching sits alongside Buzz Accounting and Buzz Money Coach in the same family, so sessions use current figures.
Peter, our Finance Director, runs the sessions.
The financial area is coached by someone who prepares management accounts for a living, so sessions can cover the detail of your business: retentions, work in progress, seasonal VAT or a bad debt.
Open whether or not Buzz does your accounts.
Keep your existing accountant if you have one. What matters is that the bookkeeping is current enough for the figures to be real. If it is months behind, the first step is getting it straight, with them or with us.
Where accounting stops and coaching starts.
Accounting produces the numbers and files them. Coaching is the hour where you learn to read them, decide something and get held to it.
Sessions stay confidential.
What you say in a coaching session is not repeated — not to your team, not to other clients, and not to the accounting side of the Buzz family unless you ask us to share it.
What does a session look like?
Each session follows a fixed shape. Sessions run monthly for cashflow work, and every two months where the focus is understanding the numbers.
Pre-work, a few days before.
A short set of questions and the current figures, sent ahead. You arrive having already looked at them.
Ten minutes on last time’s actions.
We cover what got done, what did not, and why, because the reason something did not happen is often useful.
Twenty minutes on the numbers.
What moved, what it means and what it says about the next quarter. On the cashflow side that is the forecast; on the understanding side it is one concept worked properly — margin, break-even, debtor days, pricing — until it is yours.
Twenty minutes on the thing that is bothering you.
This might be a price rise you are avoiding, a customer who does not pay, a hire you cannot decide on, or a tax bill you have not put money aside for.
Ten minutes agreeing what happens next.
Two or three specific actions with dates, written down and checked at the start of the next session.
Worked example: break-even
The numbers below are illustrative and show the method; they are not a client’s.
Take a business with £12,500 of monthly overheads and a 45% gross margin, so every £100 of sales leaves £45 once the direct costs are paid. Break-even is £12,500 divided by 0.45, which is £27,800 of sales a month before the business earns anything at all. Lift the margin to 50% and the same overheads need £25,000, which is £2,800 a month, or £33,600 a year, less in sales.
Knowing that figure lets you tell by the 20th of the month whether it is a good month or a bad one, and shows that a 5% discount needs several thousand pounds of extra sales to stand still.
The three freedoms
Financial FreedomMoney, profit and control — enabling decisions made from strength, not stress.
Time FreedomSpace, systems and support that keep you focused on what actually matters.
Mind FreedomClarity, confidence and peace of mind, because the numbers are under control.Where this fits in Performance on Purpose.
Performance on Purpose asks two questions together: are you performing well — and is it serving a purpose that matters? At the financial level, performance is what the figures do, and purpose is what the money is for.
You score where you are on the quadrant, coaching moves you towards Performance on Purpose, and the score is revisited at every session, so the direction of travel is measured. In this area the measures are cash in the bank, gross margin, debtor days and drawings.
Explore Performance on PurposeFinancial coaching is one of four.
This area often leads into one of the other three.
Personal Coaching
When what stops you is the conversation of raising a price rather than the arithmetic, the work is how you think, decide and lead yourself.
Explore Personal CoachingLeadership Coaching
Margin leaks through quoting, buying and time recording — all of which other people do. If the figures only improve when you personally watch them, the next work is leadership.
Explore Leadership CoachingBusiness Coaching
Sometimes the numbers are read correctly and the answer is that the model does not work. Strategy, pricing structure, systems and growth belong here rather than in a monthly review.
Explore Business CoachingRelated guides and tools
Understanding Your Numbers
The handful of figures that run a small business, explained without the accounting language.
Read the guide
Profit Is Not Cash
Why a profitable month can still leave you short, and what to do about the gap.
Read the guide
How Much Cash Should You Hold?
Peter Allen on working out your own buffer from your fixed costs, and building it when you are short.
Read the article
What Management Accounts Should Tell You
What belongs in the monthly pack, when it should land, and the four questions to put to it.
Read the article
The Monthly Business Review
The one-hour monthly habit that stops you finding out about problems nine months late.
Read the guideThe Cash Conversion Cycle
The days between paying for something and getting paid for it. Shorten the cycle and the business funds itself instead of your overdraft funding it.
Read the mindsetBreakeven
The day in the month your business starts making money. One number that changes how you price, sell and spend.
Read the mindsetThe free calculator shows what small improvements to price, margin and volume would do to your profit.
Try the Profit Improvement CalculatorGet the next one in your inbox
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Frequently asked questions
Is financial coaching the same as financial advice?
No. Financial coaching is about your business numbers: what the cashflow is doing, where the margin goes, whether the price is right, and what the management accounts are telling you. It is understanding and accountability, not a recommendation about a product. Nobody in a session will advise you on a pension, an investment, a mortgage or a personal debt — that is regulated advice, Buzz Coaching is not authorised to give it. If something comes up in a session that needs a regulated adviser, a tax specialist or an insolvency practitioner, we will name it and point you at the right person.
How much does financial coaching cost?
Financial Coaching is £950 a month plus VAT, billed monthly, with no minimum term and no joining fee. It runs with Peter Allen, our Finance Director, on a rhythm set with you at the start, and the measures are agreed in the first month and reviewed at ninety days. The rest of the ladder sits on the programmes page — Accountability Coaching £495, Leadership £1,250, one-to-one Business Coaching £1,500 and Strategic Growth £1,950, all per month plus VAT. If the fee would stretch the business, say so on the call and we will tell you whether to wait a quarter.
Do I have to be a Buzz Accounting client?
No. Financial coaching is delivered with Buzz Accounting because that is where the finance skill sits, but plenty of owners keep the accountant they already have and coach alongside them. What matters is that the figures are current, because sessions run on current figures. Where that is the situation we will say so and suggest getting the records straight first, with your existing accountant or with us.
How is this different from business coaching?
Financial coaching is specifically about the numbers — reading them, trusting them, and using them in a decision instead of deferring to whoever produced them. Business coaching is broader: strategy, sales, systems, the shape of the model and how the business runs day to day. The useful test is what happens when you open the management accounts. If you cannot read your own profit and loss with confidence, or the cash position is a surprise every month, start here. If you can read them and still are not acting on what they say, start with business coaching.