Tag Archives: Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Introduction

Financial Modeling Outsourcing refers to the practice of enlisting external service providers or specialized firms to handle the creation and maintenance of financial models. This involves assigning the tasks of designing, building and updating these models to professionals who possess the necessary expertise and resources.

Financial modeling plays a crucial role in the realms of business and finance, as it entails constructing mathematical representations of real-world financial situations. These models predict and evaluate various aspects of a company’s financial performance, such as revenue forecasts, cost analyses, investment valuations, cash flow projections, and scenario assessments. By providing insights into potential outcomes and associated risks, financial models facilitate decision-making processes.

Advantages of Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Financial modeling outsourcing offers several key advantages that organizations can leverage to enhance their financial planning and decision-making processes. Some common benefits include:

Advantages of Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Advantages of Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Cost savings and scalability:

Financial modeling outsourcing presents a significant cost-saving opportunity compared to maintaining an in-house team. By outsourcing to external providers, organizations can avoid expenses related to hiring and training specialized staff, investing in technology infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. This flexible approach allows businesses to scale their demand-based modeling needs, ensuring cost efficiency and resource optimization.

Access to specialized expertise:

Outsourcing financial modeling tasks grants organizations access to professionals who possess specialized knowledge and expertise in the field. These experts have a deep understanding of best practices, industry standards, and regulatory requirements. By partnering with these skilled professionals, organizations can ensure the accuracy, reliability, and compliance of their financial models, benefiting from their extensive experience and insights.

Enhanced efficiency and productivity:

Delegating financial modeling tasks to external experts allows internal teams to focus on core competencies and strategic initiatives. By entrusting time-consuming and specialized tasks to external providers, organizations can streamline their operations, improve overall productivity, and allocate resources more effectively. This enables internal teams to concentrate on high-value activities such as data analysis, decision-making, and strategy formulation, ultimately driving organizational growth.

Improved accuracy and reliability:

External companies that offer financial modelling carry out strict quality checks. They use advanced modelling approaches, follow industry best practices, and do thorough validations. Organizations may make sure that their financial models are accurate and reliable by utilizing their knowledge and experience. As a result, financial estimates and analyses become more accurate and reliable, facilitating the making of well-informed decisions.

Risk Mitigation:

Financial modeling outsourcing helps organizations mitigate risks by leveraging external expertise. External providers have extensive experience across various industries and markets, enabling them to offer valuable insights and identify potential risks or limitations in financial models. They can also provide independent validation and verification of models, reducing the chance of errors or biases. By tapping into their knowledge, organizations can make more informed decisions and reduce exposure to financial risks.

In essence, financial modeling outsourcing offers numerous advantages, including cost savings, access to specialized expertise, enhanced efficiency and productivity, improved accuracy and reliability, and risk mitigation. By leveraging these benefits, organizations can optimize their financial planning and decision-making processes, gain a competitive edge, and achieve better financial performance.

Challenges of Financial Modeling Outsourcing

While financial modeling outsourcing offers numerous benefits, it is crucial for organizations to be aware of the challenges and risks associated with this practice. By understanding these potential pitfalls, businesses can take proactive measures to address them effectively. Here are some of the significant challenges and risks in financial modeling outsourcing:

Data security and confidentiality concerns:

Organizations must divulge sensitive financial data to outside sources when outsourcing financial modelling tasks. To guard against unauthorized access, security breaches, and abuse of sensitive data, it is crucial to make sure that effective data security measures are in place. Throughout the outsourcing process, it is crucial to protect intellectual property and uphold confidentiality agreements.

Communication and coordination challenges:

Effective communication plays a vital role in successful financial modeling outsourcing. Geographical and cultural differences, language barriers, and time zone disparities can hinder seamless collaboration between organizations and external providers. It is crucial to establish clear channels of communication, define expectations, and maintain regular updates to ensure effective coordination throughout the outsourcing engagement.

Quality control and standardization:

Maintaining consistency and quality across outsourced financial models can be challenging. Organizations should establish robust processes and standards to ensure that the models meet their specific requirements and adhere to industry best practices. Regular monitoring and quality control checks should be implemented to maintain the desired level of accuracy and reliability.

Dependency on external providers:

Outsourcing financial modeling tasks means relying on external providers to deliver accurate and timely results. Organizations must carefully select reputable and reliable providers with a proven track record. Building strong relationships, maintaining open lines of communication, and conducting periodic performance evaluations are essential to ensure that the outsourcing partner consistently meets expectations.

Regulatory and compliance considerations:

Financial models must adhere to rules and laws particular to their business. To avoid any compliance difficulties, organizations need to make sure that external providers are knowledgeable of these rules. During the outsourcing process, regulatory compliance with regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) should be thoroughly assessed and addressed.

By proactively addressing these challenges and risks, organizations can mitigate potential pitfalls associated with financial modeling outsourcing. Implementing robust data security measures, fostering effective communication, establishing quality control processes, selecting reliable providers, and ensuring regulatory compliance are key steps toward successful outsourcing engagements.

Magistral’s Services on Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Magistral Consulting is recognized as a leading provider of specialized financial modeling outsourcing services and solutions. With a proven track record of delivering outstanding results, we offer a comprehensive range of services tailored to meet the diverse needs of organizations across industries.

Magistral's Services on Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Magistral’s Services on Financial Modeling Outsourcing

Unparalleled Expertise and Specialization:

We take pride in our team of highly skilled professionals who possess extensive expertise in financial modeling. Our experts are well-versed in industry best practices, regulatory requirements, and the latest advancements in financial modeling techniques.

Tailored and Customized Solutions:

Whether it involves developing financial models for revenue forecasting, cost analysis, investment valuation, or scenario analysis, we work closely with clients to thoroughly understand their needs and deliver solutions that align with their strategic goals.

Cost-Effectiveness and Scalability:

Recognizing the importance of cost savings and scalability in today’s competitive business environment, we offer a cost-effective outsourcing solution. By entrusting financial modeling tasks to us, organizations can significantly reduce costs compared to maintaining an in-house team.

Confidentiality and Data Security:

Safeguarding the confidentiality and security of our clients’ data is of utmost importance to Magistral Consulting. We adhere to strict data protection protocols to ensure that sensitive financial information remains secure throughout the outsourcing process.

Quality Control and Assurance:

At Magistral Consulting, delivering accurate and reliable financial models is our top priority. We have established rigorous quality control processes to maintain consistency and adhere to industry best practices. Our team conducts thorough validations and employs advanced modeling techniques to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the models we create.

As a trusted partner in financial modeling outsourcing, Magistral Consulting empowers organizations to optimize their financial planning and decision-making processes. Our specialized expertise, customized approach, cost-effective solutions, focus on confidentiality and data security, rigorous quality control processes, and collaborative approach enable businesses to gain a competitive edge and unlock the full potential of financial modeling in driving their success.

About Magistral Consulting

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple funds and companies in outsourcing operations activities. It has service offerings for Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family Offices, Investment Banks, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, Financial Consultants, Real Estate, REITs, RE funds, Corporates, and Portfolio companies. Its functional expertise is around Deal origination, Deal Execution, Due Diligence, Financial Modelling, Portfolio Management, and Equity Research.

For setting up an appointment with a Magistral representative:

visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About the Author

The article is authored by the Marketing Department of Magistral Consulting. For any business inquiries, you can reach out to  prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsulting.com

Introduction

Investment Banking is a special type of banking that helps organizations or individuals raise capital and provides consulting services to them. It helps in conducting large complicated transactions such as mergers or acquisitions or raising an initial public offering (IPO) using underwriting.

Investment Bankers are experts in the field of finance who have their fingers on the pulse of the market. As acknowledged worldwide this is one of the most complex financial mechanisms in the world.

As has been the case with different sectors, it has been for some time now that organizations have started investment banking outsourcing services to third-party vendors as well. Outsourcing one means giving the authority to outsource one of its services to these third-party vendors so that the company can save on operating costs and get specialized services from highly skilled staff- all this while ensuring adequate data security and adherence to regulatory compliances.

This helps organizations not only streamline their services but also provide value-added services to customers that they couldn’t have thought about earlier.

It is important to note that the nature of investment banking outsourcing and the services provided by vendors have evolved alongside technological advancements. The first and foremost is business digitization, which has resulted in increased transparency and visibility for clients, as well as a better end-user experience for customers. This has resulted in improved strategic partnerships and, as a result, higher quality work being outsourced by investment banking outsourcing clients, which can only be met with strategic partners.

Challenges Faced by Investment Banks

Modern investment banking faces various kinds of challenges that are listed below:

Challenges Faced By Investment Banks

Challenges Faced By Investment Banks

Scarce Capital Resources

Due to recession and depression all over the world, almost all markets, companies, and individuals are not comfortable investing their money in the capital markets. This has created a world where capital resources have become scarce. The job of an investment banker is to invest capital more efficiently, but due to the scarcity of resources, there is a reduced business for investment banks in general.

Need to Reduce Costs

Markets have become more competitive. As a result, the cost of goods and services is decreasing. This has an impact on the finance industry as well. Investment banks’ margins are shrinking, and thus their cost of capital is decreasing. As a result, they must reduce costs to encourage their investors to invest money.

Increased Regulations

The new structured products created and sold by investment banks go through strict regulations since the mortgage crisis in 2008. This creates a limit on the operations of investment banks. These increases cost for investment banks and they have to maintain a different department of qualified professionals so that they could create and bring in new investment opportunities after scrutinizing them.

Technology Disruptions

Rapid technological advancements have drastically altered every industry in the world, including investment banking. The fintech industry has emerged over the years as new technology. This industry revolves around providing the same financial services at a lower cost. They have access to cutting-edge technology and a modern network, allowing them to raise capital at a lower cost.

Cross Selling Complexities

A huge area of the investment banking services sector relies on cross-selling. For example, if someone is looking for mergers and acquisitions, the investment bankers provide them with the services such as issue management, capital structure advisory, and many more. This way they bring value to their clients. But due to limited budgets, they are limited to the services they offer. The declining budget causes decreased revenue for research and other departments.

Benefits of Investment Banking Outsourcing

There are several reasons why investment banking outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular. We have tried to highlight some of these reasons below. They are:

Benefits of Investment Banking

Benefits of Investment Banking

Focus on Core Business

Investment banking outsourcing can help companies in focusing on their core competencies rather than focusing on mundane tasks and being worried about their day-to-day operations.

Controlled Costs

Cutting operational costs is a challenge that exists with organizations throughout. Investment banking outsourcing provides an avenue where companies can take care of differences in the relative value of currencies to derive as much as 30-50% savings in costs.

Increased Efficiency

Investment banking outsourcing is a specialized operation and the workers who work for these banks need to be highly skilled for this. A similar talent of MBA’s exists in low-cost destinations like India where the operations can be outsourced to them. Highly skilled talent helps in improving the efficiency of investment banking services.

Changing Economic Factors

In today’s uncertain world, the political dynamics are changing daily. This has an impact on the economies of the world and since we are so intertwined today the ripple effects of adverse conditions in a globally connected country are bound to have effects on the whole world. Investment banking outsourcing ensures the risks are well hedged with specialized partners operating from different geographies across the world.

Technological Changes

Investment banking outsourcing has ensured that the companies are up to date with the latest technological advancements that are occurring worldwide at a fraction of the cost had they invested real-time into adopting them. The use of the latest technologies by third parties ensures that all the technological challenges are met.

Time Zone Advantage

The gap in time zones between your country and the area you are outsourcing to, in addition to the cost advantage, is another important benefit. By doing so, you can focus on your primary tasks all day long while also having finished your day-to-day operations by the time you get up the next day. It gives you the benefit of round-the-clock business operations.

Magistral’s Services on Investment Banking Outsourcing

The outsourcing of investment banking may be a way to cut operating expenses. In an era of growing complexity in both established and new industries, investment banks are extremely nuanced. Smaller investment banks have a difficult time juggling their project pipelines and manpower needs. Medium-sized banks are eager to develop their expertise in emerging industries, which are bustling with activity and volume. However, large banks are more concerned with cutting costs while maintaining the quality of the services they provide to their customers. Magistral provides a range of service options to support Investment Banks.

Some of the services that are associated with Investment Banking Outsourcing that is offered by Magistral consulting are:

-Deal Sourcing: Performing industry and market analysis, finding potential targets, and publishing newsletters are various kinds of services provided under deal sourcing.

-Data Cleansing: Data cleansing and mining are done to perform analysis on suitable data.

-Valuations: Valuations are done by creating financial models by various methods such as LBO/DCF Modelling, Comparable Analysis, Precedent Transaction Analysis, and Impact Analysis.

-Due Diligence:  Research-based due diligence both primary and secondary are performed to uncover the true potential of an asset while giving a completely independent opinion on investment quality.

-Deal Execution: Teasers and Investment Memorandums are made along with identifying the potential investors/buyers.

-Portfolio Management: Providing ESG compliance monitoring, preparing financial reports, business development support, and procurement support is provided.

-Equity Research and Analysis: The services provided under this head include fundamental analysis, quantitative analysis, credit analysis, and country analysis.

-Marketing: This includes creating white papers, case studies, thought papers, CRM management, etc.

About Magistral Consulting

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple funds and companies in outsourcing operations activities. It has service offerings for Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family Offices, Investment Banks, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, Financial Consultants, Real Estate, REITs, RE funds, Corporates, and Portfolio companies. Its functional expertise is around Deal origination, Deal Execution, Due Diligence, Financial Modelling, Portfolio Management, and Equity Research.

For setting up an appointment with a Magistral representative visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About the Author

The article is Authored by the Marketing Department of Magistral Consulting. For any business inquiries, you could reach out to  prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsulting.com

What is an Outsourced CFO?

In today’s outsourced and globally connected business world there are many functions of businesses that are being outsourced like accounting, payroll, operations, IT, and marketing among others. Unfortunately, not many companies are aware that finance as a function can be outsourced too.

Herein, comes the importance of an Outsourced CFO. An outsourced CFO is a financial expert who provides financial services on a part-time or full-time basis to companies. The role of an outsourced CFO is to provide strategic insights as well as provide expertise in areas such as formulating strategy or providing core financial services help. This includes areas such as support in finding cash flows, raising capital, implementing more efficient systems, or formulating growth strategies. Usually, outsourced CFOs have considerable experience performing high-level financial roles as they may have worked in corporate finance roles in other reputed organizations.

Why one should hire an Outsourced CFO?

Outsourced CFOs can lead up to 40-50% savings in costs. About 80% of financial services executives outsource or offshore some of their services.   Highlighted below are some of the top reasons for outsourcing this critical finance function.

Benefits of Outsourced CFO

Benefits of Outsourced CFO

-Currently undergoing growth – This is usually the case for companies that are witnessing a lot of growth. A common example could be growth related to the launch of new products or say when a company is entering a new market.

-Resolving key business challenges – This comes into the picture when a company for instance is trying to resolve challenges such as cash flow, cost cutting, or looking to improve operational efficiencies.

-Raising debt or equity capital – Outsourced CFO can be of great help especially when companies are looking to raise capital. They do so by assisting in strategy formulation for it, due diligence, and in raising capital in terms of debt or equity mix.

-Maximizing margins – By analyzing current spending and costs, the outsourced CFO can suggest improvements that can be made in spending.

-Need for an interim CFO – This normally is the case when there is a need felt to place an interim CFO, especially in cases where an organization is transitioning from one CFO to another or a need is felt to outsource an organization’s finance function simply because someone else can do it better.

-Taking advantage of consulting services- An organization can look to hire an outsourced CFO simply because they can do the task better.

How does an Outsourced CFO provide value?

We have already seen why companies should look forward to outsourcing their services to a third-party service provider. In this section, we will look at some of the key benefits that are provided by an outsourced CFO. It must also be mentioned here that there are cost implications associated with hiring a CFO. Smaller companies may not have the budget to hire a CFO. This means they can incur a lot of savings by outsourcing this function which can be at a fraction of the costs of the salaries that are paid to a CFO. Not to mention the availability of talent and global access to them without incurring many operational headaches. These talents are simply at a third company party’s disposal the benefit of which can be reaped by companies.

There are some of the other benefits which an outsourced CFO can provide. Some of them are:

-They help in financial planning and analysis by providing assistance in the form of budgeting, and forecasting future revenue or cash flows for a company.

-They can help an organization in assessing its strengths and weaknesses vis a vis competition.

-Help in designing complex business models which necessitate the use of techniques such as NPV and IRR.

-Help in analyzing spending and cost incurred by a company and thereby suggest improvements in cost cutdowns.

-Assistance with financial statement preparation.

-Assistance with yearly financial reporting.

Top 10 Outsourced CFO services

A question that arises naturally is what kind of services are provided by Outsourced CFO.

Listed below are the top 10 services –

Top Outsourced CFO Services

Top Outsourced CFO Services

-Financial Strategy – One of the key benefits of outsourcing CFO services is in designing a company’s financial strategy. These are designed both short term as well as long term.

-Forecasting – Forecasting for the future is one of the key functions of any finance division of an organization. Preparation of the details helps in planning an operational roadmap for an organization. It requires a strategic understanding of requirements, assessing current and future capabilities of a company, competition analysis, and mastery in building financial models

-Financial systems strategy and design – With growth, it becomes imperative for any organization to implement software and improve process that can match an organization’s growth strategy. An outsourced CFO can help address this pain point by redesigning systems and suggesting improvements in current processes.

-Budgeting – Managing budgets is one of the key functions of the finance function. Normally budgeting is done for a 5–10-year time horizon. Budgeting helps to plan spending and future revenues in great detail.

-Financial statement preparation – An outsourced CFO can help in preparing financial statements as well as interpreting their consequences. This is the most useful information for any organization.

-Raising capital – Here a person is introduced to a host of investors, people or organizations who can help a company in raising its capital.

-Capital structure – This is done by suggesting which would be a better route – debt or equity or a mix of both.

-Interim CFO services – This service is most useful to avail of in case there is a transition from one CFO to the next or in cases where low-cost outsourcing seems to be a better option.

-Cost cutting – Costs are an important factor in decision-making. Outsourcing its services to a third party can help in this.

-Complex decision making – This is especially true with companies where complex decision making is involved and which requires the knowledge and expertise of a person. Examples could be making models for Mergers and Acquisitions, management buyouts, etc.

How can Magistral help in providing CFO services?

Magistral offers Portfolio Management services for varied kinds of the portfolio of companies such as Private Equity or a Venture Capital fund. For all the investors who sit on multiple boards, it is a headache, to implement something in a company that worked in another portfolio company. The problem is more acute when all companies are in similar industries and are facing quite similar headwinds. Limited supervision time available to board members, unavailability of resources across companies, and implementation knowledge held in a single portfolio company, all play spoilsport. It’s like re-inventing the wheel every time for the same problem.

We help portfolio managers in centralizing their Marketing (mostly digital), Strategy (Fund-raising and Exits), and Finance at fraction of the cost required to have dedicated functions in each portfolio company, big or small. The off-shored extended team also ensures no knowledge is lost for similar projects across companies and multiple projects in multiple companies can run at the same time, prioritized as per the schedule of board meetings. Learning, of course, is cross-pollinated across projects.

Our service offerings for portfolio and other companies are:

-Strategy: Identifying add-on acquisitions and potential buyers, fundraising, exit strategy, growth strategy, and content marketing

-Analytics: Financial reporting and analysis, preparing dashboards, data visualization, text cleaning and mining, predictive modeling, KPI tracking, and web scraping

-Sales: List generation, CRM cleansing and management, competitive intelligence, and social media management.

-Financial planning: Budget preparation, forecasting, and competitive quarterly earnings updating.

-Procurement: Spend analysis, vendor identification and management, spend base cost reduction, category strategy, RFP support and procurement strategy.

About Magistral Consulting

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple funds and companies in outsourcing operations activities. It has service offerings for Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family Offices, Investment Banks, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, Financial Consultants, Real Estate, REITs, RE funds, Corporates and Portfolio companies. Its functional expertise is in Deal origination, Deal Execution, Due Diligence, Financial Modeling, Portfolio Management and Equity Research.

For setting up an appointment with a Magistral representative visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About the Author

The article is Authored by the Marketing Department of Magistral Consulting. For any business inquiries, you could reach out to prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsulting.com

Financial Modeling Outsourcing is fast catching up, this article focuses on the steps required to prepare a Financial Model that will attract the attention of investors. It also argues as to why it is all the more important to outsource financial modeling to bring in an expert’s point of view.

Financial Modeling Definition

Financial Modeling is an inseparable part of Investment Analysis. A financial model prepared on an excel sheet is used to analyze almost all investment decisions.

Financial Modeling is considered to be a quantitative exercise plainly dealing with numbers and formulas. Sometimes on excel and sometimes on software like R, VB, Python, etc. However, regular practitioners understand that this is more of an art than science. It doesn’t only need to be correct in terms of formulas and assumptions, it needs to sell as well to the client.

In the article we will also talk about Financial Modeling Outsourcing, that is fast catching up as a trend to ensure the quality of the Financial Model

Types of Financial Models

The investment community uses multiple types of Financial Models. Following are the broad types of Financial Model:

Financial Model for Private Companies: Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Investment Banking firms use this to find out the valuation of an asset. Financial Modeling and Valuations go hand-in-hand. Investment Banks also do it day in and day out for their clients. It’s for situations where a private company, a start-up, or otherwise is looking to raise funds from debt or equity or is looking for the opportunities of Mergers and Acquisition. This type of financial model has all the sections that are important for investing like P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash-flows, Working Capital, Cap Table, RoI calculations, exchange rates, Resource utilization metrics, and other relevant details.

The way assumptions are made for the future forecast of revenue is the heart of the financial model. All other numbers just follow these broad numbers. If assumptions on revenue and cost are wrong, a financial model can either give undervalued or lofty valuations, both of which have the potential to kill the deal, either from the buy or sell side.

Financial Model for Stocks: Investors in equity stocks, usually Hedge Funds or Investment Banks use these models for themselves or their clients. They arrive at buy, sell, or hold recommendations based on these financial models. A Discounted Cash Flow Model of the publicly listed stocks is at the heart of each recommendation. It has future financial projections built-in and is updated continuously based on the developments related to that company or industry. Formulas on the model are the same and still, different brokerages come to different recommendations for the same stock. Ever wondered why? It is all in the assumptions and assessment of development. A development or news can be seen as highly negative by a brokerage and hence a huge negative impact on future projections, whereas the same news could be assessed neutral by another broking house.

The key to a great financial model in this situation is to understand the culture of your client/investor. Are they conservative or high-risk takers? Depending on the culture, you can make appropriate assumptions and hence the recommendations that suit your clients. Comparables and peer analysis is also used along with the DCF modeling

M&A Models: Most M&A models build further on financial models for start-ups and companies. It carries specific sections around financing and payback, synergies, Leveraged Buyout details to assess if the proposed M&A is going to create value for everyone involved. The most commonly used models here are Merger Modeling and Precedent Transaction Analysis.  Again assumptions are more important than the Formulas, as that can make or break the deal.

Other Models: A financial model is present usually before any sort of investment or fund-raising decision regarding any form of asset, whether we are talking about Real Estate, REITs, or a portfolio of crypto assets. Financial Model for Real Estate is in principle same as a Private Equity investment in a company but takes into account situations related to the concerning Real Estate.

Real Estate can be acquired and used differently, leading to different financial outcomes. A Real Estate financial model objectively analyses these scenarios and their financial outcomes. Say a land bank bought in the city center of a megacity could be kept vacant for capital appreciation. It could also be developed as an old-age hostel or a hotel. The second scenario will lead to rental income but at the same time will also require capital investments.

All this needs to be evaluated objectively to conclude if the proposed investment makes sense for the investors. Similar models are made to track the performance of REITs, or rent rolls coming from multiple commercial properties. There are multiple ways a Real Estate could give returns and all this leads to a hugely customized financial model specific to the situation. Real Estate Financial Modeling Outsourcing is catching up in a big way.

Steps to prepare a Financial Model- Financial Modeling Best Practices

The steps would change as per the financial model under preparation. Following are the generalized steps that are valid for usually all types of Financial Models:

Understanding the business and business situation:  This is the very first step before putting in a single number in Excel, R, Python, VB, or any other software that you plan to use for Financial Modeling. More thorough is your understanding of the business, more reasonable are the assumptions and more chances of it flying with the client or investors.

Usually, a pitch deck is prepared before the financial model so that all stakeholders are clear about the business strategy. This is all the more important in the case of start-ups that are raising Series A with no previous revenue track record. An experienced practitioner asks lots of questions in this stage about the strategy, finance, human resources, market, geographies, products, patents, industry, people, and everything else related to the business.

A robust financial model demands an eye for details. If it is related to specific investing situations, questions should be asked around returns, risks, similar business models around, management team, etc. The financial modeling technique to be used in this specific business situation should also be finalized.

Preparing Assumptions: This is one of the most critical steps while preparing financial models. If Assumptions made does not make sense, it renders the whole financial model useless. Other than making reasonable and well-researched assumptions, the experienced practitioners also make sure assumptions could be changed in the model. Multiple stakeholders play around the model to finalize the contours of the deal. The standard aspect of deal-making is changing assumptions in the model. A well-made model is flexible in changing assumptions.

Preparing the model: Preparing financial models on Excel is most common however, models can also be created on R, VB, Macros, Python, etc. There are many off the shelf financial modeling tools that are available. Financial Model Templates are usually available at this stage. Standardization is the major part of the model in this stage. For example, any private company valuation model would comprise, P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, etc. These statements will have standardized headers and formulas too. The parts dependent on the nature of business are customized. A SaaS business for example will be very different from Steel business in terms of how they acquire customers and project revenue.

Bringing intuition and data together: This is the task of the most experienced operator in the field of financial modeling. It not only requires the knowledge of the formulas in the financial model but also a thorough understanding of business, its competition, and the industry as a whole. When that experienced operator looks at the valuation that the model throws, he instinctively knows if that is correct or not. The assumptions are played around with if the valuation is not in the expected ballpark. A valuation level that makes sense to both Buy-Side and Sell-Side is achieved by this exercise.

 

In the end, we see Financial Modeling is more of an art than the exact science.

The rationale behind outsourcing financial modeling

An expert at Financial Modeling has worked with multiple start-ups, Investment Banks, Private Equity, Venture Capital, and other Financial advisors multiple times before.  They have templates available readily with them and know the right questions to ask. All this leads to a Financial Model that is in tune with what the investor ecosystem demands. If you are looking for Financial Modeling Outsourcing, Magistral Consulting (www.magistralconsulting.com) can help in multiple ways.

 

Magistral Consulting (www.magistralconsulting.com) is a leading player in the Financial Modeling Outsourcing space. It provides Financial Modeling Services. Magistral has specialization in preparing Financial Models for Private Equity, Financial Models for venture Capital, Financial Models for Real Estate, Financial Model for Investments Banks, Financial Models for Hedge Funds, Start-up Financial Modeling, apart from several other highly customized Financial Models. It has delivered Financial Modeling Projects globally to clients in the US, UK, Europe, and South-East Asia. For a business inquiry, you can drop a line at https://magistralconsulting.com/contact/

 

The Author, Prabhash Choudhary is the CEO of Magistral Consulting and can be reached at Prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsulting.com, in case of queries.