Financial Management

Educating partners/directors to meet targets

For the finance team that has educated the firm’s partners/directors in the importance of meeting tough targets for WIP, debtors, headcount and overheads, and can demonstrate that the firm has made exceptional progress against its financial KPIs.

2009 WINNER

From left: Scott Barnes (Grant Thornton), Paul Edwards, Mark Fenoughty (DLA Piper) and Stu Gooderham (LexisNexis Redwood Analytics)

DLA Piper has really done something impressive given the size of the firm as it is now: it has introduced a single integrated Practice Management System across its rapidly expanding operations and replaced as many as 13 legacy systems.

The finance team now has more time to support the business commercially, has been able to develop consistent cash management and planning and can monitor, facilitate and deliver innovative revisions to its funding structure. They have also carried out comprehensive training in its use. The overall result has not only helped maintain the firm’s profits but has also meant that, in spite of the wider economic climate, debtor days remain at 2007 levels and work in progress lock-up has been improved.

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2ND PLACE

The finance team at GLHearn pride themselves on being regarded not as a ‘support’ team but as an equal partner with the fee earning teams in achieving the objectives of the business.

Central to this philosophy has been a concerted campaign to educate the board, operations board and all fee earners about the need for a focused approach to financial management, costs and (especially) credit control. In respect of the latter, the team have developed clear, simple and unambiguous procedures, and have also reviewed the system for dealing with failed payments: these initiatives have been underpinned by a programme of road-shows, team presentations and face-to-face meetings. The net result, in extremely difficult market conditions, has been the achievement of debtor lock-up better than market trend.