A Virtual CFO provides CFO-level financial leadership without the cost and commitment of hiring a full-time CFO. At Entrecap, this can include

• financial planning, budgeting and forecasting
• fundraising support
• cash-flow management and working-capital management
• management reporting
• banking coordination
• financial controls, tax and compliance oversight and
• strategic financial decision-making.

The objective is not merely to prepare accounts but to aid decision making.

Hence Virtual CEO becomes ‘Your CEO’.

An accountant primarily focuses on recording transactions, closing books and meeting accounting and tax requirements.

A Virtual CFO works one level above that covering:

• Which customers or projects are actually profitable?
• How much working capital will the business require over the next 3–6 months?
• Analysis of various heads of expenses
• What should be reported to the Board or overseas parent company?
• Is the business ready for a loan, investor due diligence or expansion?
• Which financial controls need to be strengthened?

Entrecap can work alongside your existing accounts team rather than replacing it.

Yes. This is one of the situations where a structured Virtual CFO function can be particularly useful.

Bhavesh Savla and the Entrecap team have experience working with Indian companies as well as subsidiaries of multinational groups from jurisdictions including the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom.

For an Indian subsidiary, the CFO function can customize reporting between the Indian finance team and the overseas parent company — covering Indian financial information, management reporting, cash-flow planning, compliance and communication with the parent.

Yes.

An Indian subsidiary may have to report to a parent company in Moscow, London, New York, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam or another international financial centre, often using a reporting format different from its statutory Indian accounts.

Our Virtual CFO services has vast experience in establishing a reporting mechanism covering:

• Monthly management accounts
• Revenue and gross-margin analysis
• EBITDA and profitability reporting
• Budget versus actual analysis
• Cash-flow reporting
• Receivables and payables
• Working-capital movements
• Intercompany balances
• Key financial ratios and KPIs
• Management commentary and explanations for significant variances

The purpose is to create a reporting system that the overseas management team can actually use.

That is an area of expertise for us. Where authorised by the client, we can bring our experience in dealing with banks. We have, in the past, had significant success in negotiating with banks on the following matters:

• Banking charges
• Foreign-exchange markups for inward and outward remittances
• Bank guarantees
• Interest rates and facility terms
• Documentation and banking processes

The objective is to ensure savings form undue bank charges and costs while leveraging available money to gain passive income.

Because we know what to ask, how to ask and whom to ask.

We leverage our deep contacts with banks. A banker negotiating with someone they've dealt with for years, who knows what the bank can actually concede, is in a different conversation from a first-time customer accepting the quoted rate. That's the whole argument for a decade of bank-facing work — it shows up directly on the bottom line for any business that imports, exports or borrows.

Considerably yes — particularly for businesses that regularly import, export or make foreign-currency payments.

For example, a company receiving or paying in USD, GBP or EUR payments may incur costs through the exchange rate offered by the bank, transaction charges, correspondent banking charges and other banking margins.

Entrecap’s Virtual CFO team has considerable experience in speaking with banks and understanding market trends.

The actual saving depends on the transaction profile, banking relationship, currency, volumes and terms available from the bank.

Often, yes. Exporters who convert every receipt to rupees immediately and then buy foreign currency back for imports are paying a conversion margin twice. Holding earnings in an EEFC account, and funding pre-shipment needs through foreign-currency credit rather than rupee credit where the pricing favours it, can remove that round trip entirely. One of our client’s Mumbai export business was losing more to the double conversion than to its interest cost – we identified and plugged the leakage.

Yes — this is core work for us. We have worked extensively with Russian Companies and individuals. We understand core reconciliation and reporting requirements between Indian companies and their Russian shareholders.

We build the mapping between the two so the Indian entity reports in the parent's shape, on the parent's timetable, without maintaining two sets of records.

We have a Russian desk where our director of Indo-Russian International desk can be the best bridge Russian Companies looking to expand in India can have.

You can check the same here

Yes, with the right discipline. A UK group working to a tight monthly consolidation deadline cannot wait for an Indian close that happens whenever the accounts are ready.

That means

• Accounting and solving suspense throughout the month
• cut-off discipline in obtaining invoices
• accruals policy agreed up front and
• intercompany balances reconciled before the deadline rather than after.

Bhavesh Savla and his team have extensive experience with UK Companies, LLPs and Liaison offices and their reporting requirements.

Yes.

A monthly MIS should be more than a profit-and-loss statement.

For a multinational subsidiary, the same MIS can be adapted to the reporting format required by the overseas parent. Please see the question ‘Can a virtual CFO prepare financial reports for an overseas parent company?’

Yes.

A growing business can easily lose visibility over recurring financial, tax and corporate compliance. Entrecap’s idea is to prepare a standardized process and to ensure compliance before due date.

You can read about our income tax consultancy in detail here.

You can read about GST consultancy here.

Yes.

The process of compliance starts right after incorporation.

• First Board Meeting
• Certificate to commence business
• Issuance of share certificates
• Appointment of first Auditor
• LLP deed and Form 3

You can read the full list here for companies and here for LLPs.

Other periodical and annual compliance

• Change in Directors/Partners
• Change in registered office address
• Deposits Rules compliance
• MSME disclosures and compliance
• Annual reporting like AOC 4, MGT 7/7A, Form 8 and Form 11

You can read a comprehensive list here for annual compliance.

You can read a comprehensive article about change in directors here.

We firmly believe that the cost of compliance is much lower than the cost of non-compliance.

Yes, and it saves a great deal of friction. Group auditors asking questions of an Indian accounts team, across a time zone and a terminology gap, is a slow process. We have considerable experience in explaining the Indian statutory position to the parent group auditor. It actually shortens the audit considerably — and keeps the Indian team doing their own work.

Generally yes, and it's regularly skipped. Investment of company funds is a board-level decision under the Companies Act, with specific provisions governing loans and investments and the resolutions required. Treasury placed without the underlying board authority is a governance finding waiting to happen at audit — an easy thing to get right at the outset and an awkward one to explain later.

A rolling 13-week forecast is the standard operating horizon for cash: one quarter, broken down weekly, rebuilt every week as actuals come in.

It's short enough that the numbers are real rather than aspirational, and long enough to see a shortfall while you can still act on it.

It is, in our experience, the single most useful report an owner-led business can start producing.

Yes.

A Virtual CFO can help prepare the financial foundation before approaching investors or lenders. CFO can prepare/ review the following:

• Funding requirement analysis
• Financial models and Cash-flow projections
• Business plans
• Debt-servicing analysis
• Financial due-diligence preparation
• Negotiation and Coordination with bankers or investors
• Review of Term sheets and binding shareholder agreements.

Yes — for 2 reasons.

1. MSMEs typically overpay for bank loans including charges and exchange margins
2. MSMEs focus on growth than processes and compliance sometimes takes a backseat leasing to tax scrutinies, penalties, interest and late fees.

A CFO, without the costs of CFO, may guide the accounting team towards processes, compliance and internal checks and balances.

Rarely too early, frequently too late. The costly finance problems are structural — the wrong group shape, a banking relationship never negotiated, controls never established — and all of them are cheaper to set up correctly than to unwind. If you're asking the question, the conversation is probably worth having.

Because of what we bring to the table- Decades of experience in compliance and advisory, in dealing with banks and understanding reporting requirements.

Bhavesh Savla and the Entrecap team bring experience of working with Indian businesses as well as multinational subsidiaries from multiple countries like Russia and the United Kingdom with proven results and testimonials.

• Retainer-based for an ongoing engagement, with scope set out in writing before work begins — and
• fixed-fee for defined pieces of work such as internal review assignments or a funding round or a banking review.

For international clients, in your preferred currency where possible. We prefer to have the uncomfortable conversation about scope and cost at the start.