Finance is the part of business that most founders avoid, but also the thing that quietly makes or breaks them. Laura Linden, fractional CFO and author of UnF*ck Your Business Finances: Unlearn the Shame, Reclaim the Power and Change the Game, has spent years helping entrepreneurs grow financially resilient businesses by translating their numbers into actionable strategies.
Her message is blunt but encouraging: if you’re smart enough to build a business, you’re smart enough to understand finance. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even maths in the scary algebra sense, it’s more like learning a foreign language.
Here are her top five tips for helping you take control of business finances and making the money work for you.
Stop guessing – know your numbers
Too many business owners bury their heads in the sand when it comes to their numbers. But ignoring the mess doesn’t make it disappear. Numbers tell the real story of your business: where the profit’s leaking, which clients are worth keeping and when you can afford to hire new people.
Laura tells her clients to review their P&L, cash flow and balance sheet regularly and see those reports as a satnav for their business journey. She also encourages business owners to ask questions and not be afraid to say, “I don’t understand.”
You can’t deal with problems that you don’t know about, so get uncomfortable and look at the numbers.
Separate the business from you
Mixing your personal and business money is a recipe for confusion. It blurs accountability and makes it impossible to know whether the business is actually working.
Laura insists on clean lines: separate bank accounts, pay yourself properly, and don’t use the business like a personal piggy bank. Respecting those boundaries forces you to treat the business like the independent entity it is.
Build cash buffers
Every entrepreneur hits bumps: a tax bill you didn’t see coming, a big client who “forgets” to pay, a sudden dip in sales (remember COVID!). Without a buffer, you’re forced to make reactive decisions.
The phrase, “revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is queen,” is one to live by. Laura’s rule of thumb is to aim for three months of fixed costs in a savings account to see you through the bumps. Cash flow discipline is critical for building that buffer. Laura advises automating invoicing and credit control. Don’t wait to be paid; polite persistence is part of being in business.
And when it comes to suppliers, pay on time, not early. Paying late damages relationships; paying early drains your reserves. The happy medium is respecting terms while keeping cash working for your business.
Plan with purpose; use Laura’s REAP framework
Most people think of budgets as boring spreadsheets or tiny handcuffs for your business. Laura flips that with her REAP method: Reverse engineer your goals, plan the Execution, track your Actions, and measure your Progress.
Start with what you want to achieve. Is it a £10m exit? Is it £2m ARR? Is it 20 salespeople? Is it £10,000 pm in your personal account? Get really honest and specific about that end goal, compare it to where you are now and map the journey from A to B. It makes it tangible and achievable.
Face the hard truths
Entrepreneurs are natural optimists, but optimism can lead to poor decisions. Sometimes the fastest way to improve profit is to make hard calls: cutting unprofitable products, ditching vanity projects, or letting go of clients who drain your energy.
Laura’s seen businesses double their profits by analysing their numbers and realising that 35% margins in the US require less input than 30% margins in the UK. The saying “work smarter, not harder” is a huge cliché, but the bottom line is that running a business is hard work, so don’t make it any harder than it needs to be.
Final note: As humans, money is a hugely emotive topic, but money itself isn’t emotional. It’s not personal, it doesn’t hold grudges and it’s not working against you.
“If you face your money head-on, you stop being at its mercy and start using it as the tool it’s meant to be,” she says.
**UnF*ck Your Business Finances: A Shame-Free Guide to Earning, Keeping, and Owning What’s Yours by Laura Linden is available for pre-order at **feistyfd.com
