Our social business skills working group identified financial issues as one of the main areas of concern for organisations interested in setting up services.
There was particular concern around the implications of delivering services to a number of individual customers. Most organisations are used to being paid for delivering services by one large customer (eg the local Council). Practical issues which were raised included:
• How to deal with the period of transition from “block contracts” to arrangements with individual customers
• Practical issues around financial management, such as the need for contracts, dealing with bad-debt and policies for non-attendance
• How to plan for delivery of a service when the number of people required for the service to be viable appears ambitious
As a result, we asked local community accountancy service WYCAS to deliver two workshops on financial issues. Notes from the sessions are below.
