There is always a technically correct number draining cash

There is always a technically correct number draining cash. Nobody touches it because it came ready-made from someone who knows the subject.

Whoever signs the opinion does not pay the bill · The reference error nobody authorized.

January 2022, my first month as CEO of the energy group. With the controller and the executive team at the table, I saw that we were selling 10 to 15% below what we had paid. The price list followed accounting cost, correct in a large corporation, where the difference disappears in volume and is reimbursed at month end. That was not our case. I froze sales that same day and rebuilt the price list on what we had actually paid.

Sales, purchasing and accounting wanted to kill me. On the screen, all I was doing was raising prices.

The number was right. Right for another company.

A decision that moves cash stops being technical and becomes the owner's. Whoever signs the opinion is not the one who pays the bill.

Three months of operation were being financed by a wrong reference that nobody had to authorize. It did not show up in the income statement, because the income statement closed. It showed up in cash, which is where corporate governance is tested, and always afterwards.

In September your company chooses how it will pay IBS and CBS, the new Brazilian consumption taxes. It will arrive as an accountant's matter. The effect is cash and credit along the chain, it applies from January to June and reopens in March.

You have until September 30 to find out who, in your company, will tick that option. After that, it has already been ticked.