About RAMP FAS

The RAMP FAS Solution

Our product / service allows our clients to concentrate on operating their business and not be caught up in the daily needs of the finance and accounting group, all the while being assured that all the functions of that group are carried out efficiently and effectively.

Our product uses outsourced CFO and accounting services to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance and accounting function, further providing the benefit of a managed service under contract.

By offering highly qualified local market CFOs on an FTE basis, we allow the client to have access to the experience and skills of a CFO without having to recruit and retain a full time CFO.

By offering offshore accounting services on an FTE basis, we can bring all the necessary processes, skills and expertise to the accounting function, in a team format and on a cost competitive basis.

Our model ensures that the client receives the full spectrum of what a CFO can offer, by using a team approach to provision of the service. CFOs, like all people, have strengths and weaknesses. Clients are often looking for CFOs with strengths only, which is not realistic.

What we do, by using a team approach, is to ensure access to more than one highly qualified CFO for input on the entire range of issues that are encountered by the CFO. This includes strategic partnering, financial forecasting, cost analytics, oversight of the accounting function, develop and implement financial and internal controls (including detailed policy and procedure manuals), tax compliance, audit, treasury, financial risk management

Using the team approach, the client will not have to recruit, train and retain accounting staff. Team members are part of the delivery of services and can fill in for any other staff member on short notice.

With RAMP FAS, you will save the resources necessary to recruit, train and retain internal staff. And when you start to add up what that means, you start to see that the savings on cost and management focus are significant. No recruiting costs; reduced HR overhead; reduction or elimination of overhead support for finance and accounting staff (no investment in space, equipment or technology) and in professional development for staff that may (will) leave you anyway; no consideration for staff sickness, leave or termination costs; and no concern for turnover or that a replacement can be found with the right qualities for the job.

The client no longer has to concern themselves with loss of service due to illness, leave/vacation and training requirements. The client also will not carry any overhead burden for finance and accounting staff nor be required to ensure that career pathways are available. There will be no absence of, or apparent turnover of, staff as our team members will step seamlessly into any position that requires such.

Our Unique Services

The cost of staff and the quality of the work - the efficient and effective delivery of periodic (daily / weekly monthly / quarterly / annually) information flows in a manner that the organization can use to plan and implement successful business operations.

Recruiting, training, and retaining staff that possess the necessary skills for an excellent service offering at a price point that the organization can accommodate, is the challenge. Whether it is the senior financial function (the CFO) or accounting staff, the issue is the same.

For both the senior finance function, as well as the accounting function recruiting is very costly. Not only in money and loss of focus, but also in time and, often, in loss of service as the staff member being replaced may be already gone.

The process of going through updated job descriptions requires time and input from multiple staff members, senior and junior, and input from a Human Resources group may be needed. Many small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) may not have a Human Resources department and will rely entirely on themselves or an external HR group for this function.

Others may have an HR function, for which they are paying considerable amounts to do recruiting functions.

In the end, it takes a significant amount of time to offer a position, screen applications / resumes, conduct job interviews, make an offer and get acceptance for a position. And you may still end up with someone that does not fit. Alternatively, an organization may use a “personnel” agency, which may or may not provide the quality required, but which will certainly charge a premium for the service.

The cost of obtaining the services of finance and accounting staff has gone up. Supply and demand - as the demand for these services goes up and the availability of experienced persons to fill the position goes down, the cost goes up. Whether it is remote work considerations, increased salary, extended leave or other perks, it is more difficult to find and pay finance and accounting staff today. This trend is continuing, despite layoffs in the tech arena.

A further consideration is the need to provide continued training for finance and accounting staff. CPAs have annual costs related to professional fees and development, which the business usually must cover. On top of that, a quality staff member will seek avenues for advancement. So, the client business will either have to provide that or risk losing quality staff as they hit a career ceiling.

Inherent to all this is the pressure of increased turnover. In a market that is competitive, staff are often being hired away to larger, better financed organizations, sometimes within months of joining yours, for better money, benefits or prestige. Larger organizations are getting the choice of a smaller pool of available talent, leading SMEs to deal with poorly qualified and over costly candidates to choose from.

Our Professional Services

There are professional services that provide interim / fractional / contract CFOs. There are professional services that provide back office accounting and finance services. In each case those professional services are offered by “onshore” and “offshore” sources.

We are not aware of any professional service provider that combines these two things together.

It is critical for a small to medium sized client that they have a CFO that is local to the market - the local CFO understands the local environment for business, as well as the legal framework within which it operates.

The CFO also needs to be a strategic market thinker. In our case, where we offer both CFO and offshore accounting services. Iit is critical to have an experienced local market CFO who manages the entire process and provides accountability to the client. The services we offer are essential for the proper management and health of successful organizations.

At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic has reordered the work stage life of many senior financial personnel. Many experienced CFOs are available but wanting to work on a “fractional basis”; being able to offer and share with others the experience, insight and vision gained from years as an accounting / financial professional has provided them.

The RAMP FAS Service provides service in real time. Accounts are transacted in a timely manner. AP is processed, AR is collected, bank reconciliations prepared, ledgers maintained, taxes are accounted for- all in real time and all in a timely manner Reports are generated daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, as required and in a bespoke or template format.

Our Value Proposition

If organizations are going to trust the accounting function to an offshore entity, they need a local presence that can give guidance and assurance. We offer businesses in a local market CFO’s with proven strategic market vision.

It is an interesting and valuable model because it allows a client to, literally, offload the cost and responsibility for all or most of an entire department. In return it receives an improved, cost effective service, including the guidance and vision of an experienced senior financial person.

In the accounting field today, the availability of experienced and enthusiastic staff is waning. There is an abundance of evidence that the accounting field is suffering staff shortages as younger people moving up, into and through the field are seeking alternative career paths. Whether it is “quiet quitting” or outright turnover, it is becoming more difficult (i.e.time consuming and expensive) to obtain the finance and accounting services necessary to compete in a (still) evermore competitive business environment.

Our solution answers a vibrant and growing business’s needs by offering offshore accounting services that are coupled with local, on-the-ground experience and expertise in the senior financial function.

RAMP FAS provides these services on a cost competitive basis. There are no longer any “cheap” services available. And you probably don’t want to trade the knowledge and comfort that the financial information you are relying on to make critical business decisions are being replaced by a “cheap” alternative.

Solving Pain Points for Our Clients

By outsourcing the finance and accounting function, the only decision that the client will need to make is “does outsourcing our finance and accounting services make sense for our organization?”.

After that, and after any initial transition period, the decisions regarding recruiting and retaining staff of the right quality, at the right amount and cost, in the right place, and at the right time, are under the management of the service provider - RAMP FAS. RAMP FAS works closely with the client, not only in the CFO function, but in ensuring that the proper quality, level and cost of accounting staff is delivered for the client’s specific need.

There is no need to recruit or train, as RAMP FAS ensures that the client has, at all times, the appropriate staff for any given function. The local CFO is working closely with the client - providing input on a broad range of issues; from treasury management to communicating with the Board of Directors to ensuring the timely delivery of accounting deliverables.

The team approach of the senior finance and offshore accounting service ensures team members are fully conversant with the client’s needs and can step in if another member is unable to perform their function. To be clear, offshore staff lead normal lives - they take vacation, they sometimes get sick or require other leave and they have career ambitions of their own. You want a healthy happy workforce working for you, local or abroad. At the same time, the offshore entity is managing the staff and workflow to ensure as near a seamless process as possible.

Industries We Serve

Manufacturing
Healthcare
Hospitality
Real Estate
Construction
Civil Engineering
Infrastructure
Retail
Wholesale
Transportation, Logistics, Supply Chain
Forestry
Not for Profit
Renewable Energy
Marketing Agency Services
Advertising

Client Profile

Our Ideal clients are small to medium-sized company in an industry that is growing and attracts forward-thinking Boards of Directors and C-Suite Officers:

Owner
President
General Manager
CEO
COO
Partner
Board Director
Have 25 plus employees and are open to new ways of doing things.
Have a specific need for quality financial information.
Value efficiency and effectiveness.
Value quality services and pursue best outcomes.
High Growth Companies looking to scale their business - Canada and the USA
Private and Publicly Traded Companies listed on the Canadian and US Stock Exchanges

Benefits of Working with RAMP FAS

Our client receives a near seamless finance and accounting function. Besides the input of an experienced senior financial officer who is available to perform functions consistent with a CFO, the client gets an accounting group that operates in a near seamless fashion*.

* Since the client has the ability to choose whether they want to retain internally hired staff to assist in the operations of the department (which may be a good and necessary choice), any decision to do so will mean that the client is exposed to those issues related to recruiting, training and retaining that staff member. We thus cannot predict a fully seamless service.

Our client obtains the services of a CFO on a FTE basis. They get an experienced CPA that can provide financial oversight and/or leadership for an organization, including: accounting, financing, internal and external reporting, strategic direction, developing and maintaining internal controls (policies & procedures development & compliance), tax & audit compliance, financial risk management, capital structure analysis and change (as necessary), treasury management (cash management, forecasting, foreign exchange, debt and equity funding), liaising with the Board of Directors, management of fund raising activity (negotiating, managing and closing financing agreements), liaising with internal and external legal providers, timely and accurate financial reporting for all circumstances (management, Board, bankers, other internal and external stakeholders). The CFO works on an interim / fractional / FTE basis to ensure services are delivered in the time and amount as required by the client.

Our client receives bespoke accounting services delivered in an offshore model, and managed by the senior accounting officer (CFO). The scope of accounting services range from junior clerks to the senior accounting position (controller / accounting manager / senior accountant, as required). These services will be delivered on an FTE basis, tailored to the specific requirements of the client. If the client wishes to implement a hybrid model (internal staff and a complement of offshore staff), this can be accommodated.

The bottom line for the client CEO is that they no longer have to manage the day to day function of the finance and accounting department and in return get a superior service offering than if they did manage this critical function. By engaging RAMP-FAS, the client pays a single fee in return for supply and management of an entire department. This frees up the most expensive resource a CEO has - time - so that they can maximize focus on the necessary resources for successful implementation of the business plan.

So What?

Most organizations recruit staff for their finance and accounting function (from CFO down to Junior clerks) by either directly posting the job and going through the recruiting process or by using recruiting firms. Either way, they wait until a staff member has left or indicated their leaving (often on short notice - 1 month is short notice to recruit an experienced CFO), fallen ill or are otherwise able to carry out their job function in a manner that organization can accept. The organization then goes through the recruit, train and retain scenario... Again. In order to attract and retain staff, they may be increasing pay or offering other perks that are becoming hard to bear.

Once they have recruited staff, they become subject to local laws regarding leave, termination, etc. that increases the cost to keep them, to a point where the department is seen as a burden on the organization, not a contributor, and decisions are made, often not in the best overall interest of the organization, to reduce cost pressures in the finance and accounting department.

When staff go on leave, they are either not replaced, or someone else covers, or a temporary person is hired. In any case, processes suffer by either having reduced efficiency due to unfamiliarity with another’s job function or reduced effectiveness due to focus issues or the same unfamiliarity, or likely both. Efficiency and effectiveness are reduced and costs are increased. Lose - lose.

When staff leave, for whatever reason, replacement through recruitment kicks in. We have seen the process be so onerous that the position is not filled again. This for senior level staff members as well as juniors. So a job description for the performance of a function deemed necessary for the success of the organization is simply eliminated by apathy. The need carries on, with other staff picking up the pieces. Efficiency and effectiveness suffer and long term consequences begin to kick in.

We can fix this.

Let’s Work Together!

Get in touch so we can start working together.

RAMP Executive Consulting Group Inc.

RAMP Financial Advisory Services Inc.

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