In many industrial SMEs, the leader has a relatively clear vision of their business activity… but much less of the flows that truly determine financial performance: cash flow, inventory, margins per project, or financing needs.
An industrial company can be profitable while facing significant cash flow pressure.
In the industry, the real challenge is therefore not solely accounting. It lies in the ability to manage the company with reliable data that allows for anticipating cash needs, analyzing actual margins, and making the right decisions quickly.
The three indicators we prioritize in the industrial SMEs we support are:
- the margin per product or project,
- the level of inventory and its turnover (DIO),
- and the industrial working capital week by week.
These are the three levers that quickly free up cash — often several hundred thousand euros in less than 6 months.
Laurent Blanchet : « Dans l’industrie, les difficultés financières ne viennent pas toujours d’un manque d’activité. Elles proviennent souvent d’un manque de visibilité sur les flux réels de l’entreprise : stocks, marges, trésorerie, rentabilité par produit ou besoins de financement. Le rôle du DAF externalisé est précisément de transformer ces données en outils de pilotage pour permettre au dirigeant d’anticiper plutôt que subir.»
Implementing the appropriate management tools for an industrial SME
In the industry, a company can show a profitable activity while experiencing significant cash flow tensions. Long production cycles, inventory, machine investments, customer delays, or rising material costs make financial management much more complex than simply tracking revenue or accounting results.
The real challenge is therefore visibility: visibility on cash, actual margins, financing needs, and profitability by production line. The production of accounting statements is not enough; one must go further and use, for example, data from management accounting.
This is precisely the role of the outsourced CFO: to transform financial data into operational management tools to enable the leader to anticipate rather than suffer.
In many industrial SMEs, data remains scattered between Excel, production software, accounting tools, and internal files. This organization severely limits the leader's visibility and slows down decision-making.
Advanced Conseil supports industrial SMEs in implementing suitable management tools: ERP, automated reporting, industrial dashboards, margin tracking, and cash flow forecasts.
Solutions like Odoo notably allow for connecting operational and financial flows to obtain a much more reliable view of industrial performance in real time.
Pourquoi une PME industrielle rentable peut être en cessation de paiement
This is the most common paradox we encounter in the industry. The company shows a positive EBITDA, a full order book, double-digit growth — and yet the leader receives reminder calls from suppliers because the bank account is empty.
The explanation is mechanical. A service SME invoices and collects in a short cycle. An industrial SME, on the other hand, incurs costs — raw materials, subcontracting, direct labor — weeks before delivering. And when it delivers, it still waits 45 to 60 days to collect. This structural gap, called the operating cycle, creates a working capital requirement (WCR) that can represent 60 to 90 days of revenue.
When growth accelerates, the scissors effect amplifies: the more you sell, the more cash you need to finance your cycle — even before the corresponding collections arrive. Without a weekly cash flow forecast, this breaking point is discovered too late to react.
What Odoo integrators do not do — and what we do
An Odoo integrator deploys your ERP. They configure the modules, train your teams, connect your flows. That is their job and they do it well.
What they do not do: have an approach that helps manage performance. For that, you need the experience we have gained through our missions as a Shared CFO: knowing how to read and analyze your balance sheet, identifying that your DIO is 40% higher than the industry average, calculating that your 12 low-turnover references (those that immobilize €280,000 of cash unnecessarily), or negotiating with your banker for an expansion of your credit line based on your cash flow forecast.
Advanced Conseil is an accounting expert and Odoo accounting integrator within the same structure. When we deploy analytical accounting by project in your Odoo, we do it with a financial and tax perspective — not just a technical one.
The analytical axes we configure address real management questions, not a parameterization logic.
The 3 priority indicators that Advanced Conseil installs first in an industrial SME
Indicator 1 — The margin per project in real time
This is the most common blind spot in industrial SMEs. They know their overall annual margin — not the margin by product line, by project, by client. Without this granularity, it is impossible to make trade-offs: which product to develop, which client to prioritize, which price threshold to no longer accept.
On Odoo 16/17/18/19, analytical accounting allows configuring axes by project with automatic allocation of direct costs (materials, subcontracting, direct labor). The manager sees their margin per project every week — not 6 months later in the annual closing. It is this change in timing that alters decisions.
What we systematically observe: in 100% of the industrial SMEs we support, at least 20 to 30% of projects or product references are unprofitable or marginally profitable — without the manager knowing.
Indicator 2 — Inventory turnover (DIO) by category
DIO (Days Inventory Outstanding) measures how many days your inventory remains tied up. A DIO of 75 days on a revenue of €8 million represents about €1.6 million of cash locked in your warehouse. Each reduced day of DIO frees up about €22,000.
On Odoo, Advanced Conseil configures the tracking of turnover by category with automatic alerts as soon as a reference exceeds a defined threshold. In practice, 15 to 20% of references generate 60 to 70% of the immobilized stock — with a turnover less than half the average.
Indicator 3 — The 13-week cash forecast
Updated weekly in 25 to 30 minutes. It lists the expected customer receipts (invoice date + observed actual payment delay), scheduled supplier disbursements, fixed charges, and loan maturities. This forecast identifies tensions 6 to 8 weeks before they occur — allowing time to act.
Reference table: Industrial working capital by sub-sector
| Industrial sub-sector | Average DSO | Average DIO | Average DPO | Working capital in days of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metallurgy / Mechanics | 55–70 days | 50–80 days | 40–55 days | 65–95 days |
| Agri-food | 40–55 days | 20–45 days | 35–50 days | 25–50 days |
| Plastics | 50–65 days | 45–70 days | 38–52 days | 60–83 days |
| Electronic subcontracting | 55–75 days | 40–65 days | 35–50 days | 60–90 days |
| Construction / Building | 65–90 days | 15–30 days | 45–65 days | 30–55 days |
Client case: Industrial SME €15M revenue — €400,000 of cash released, tensions resolved
We supported an industrial SME generating about €15 million in revenue, facing strong growth but with cash flow under constant pressure. The company was profitable — positive EBITDA, full order book. But the manager discovered the tensions at D+3 instead of anticipating them 6 to 8 weeks in advance.
The initial diagnosis reveals :
- DSO réel : 68 jours pour un DSO contractuel de 45 jours — 940 000 € de créances en retard permanent.
- DIO: 72 days, with 18% of references generating 65% of the immobilized stock.
- No analytical accounting by project — the overall margin was known, the margin by product was not.
- No cash flow visibility beyond 10 days.
Actions deployed over 90 days :
- Cash flow forecast for 13 weeks on Odoo — operational in 15 days.
- Automatisation des relances clients J+30, J+45, J+60 — DSO ramené de 68 à 51 jours.
- Configuration of analytical accounting by project — first real margin data available in 3 weeks.
- DIO audit by category — 22 references identified for priority destocking.
- Negotiation with the 3 main suppliers: moving from 30 to 45 days average lead time.
Result after 6 months : Working capital reduced from 68 to 49 days of revenue — about €400,000 of cash released. Cash flow tensions resolved despite an 18% revenue growth. First pricing decision based on real margin data by reference.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Cash flow visibility at 10 days | Rolling forecast at 3 months |
High customer payment term 61 days | DSO reduced to 47 days |
| Margins calculated annually | Profitability by line tracked monthly |
| Manual reporting | Automated dashboard |
| Complex financing | Structured banking file |
In the industry, financial management often starts in the workshops
Many industrial financial difficulties originate from operational issues: poorly managed inventory, unmeasured production times, poorly identified product margins, or excessive work in progress.
The role of the outsourced CFO is therefore not only to analyze the numbers afterward. It also involves connecting financial data to the operational reality of the company to enable the manager to make faster and better-documented decisions.
Pourquoi le DAF externalisé est plus efficace que le DAF interne dans l'industrie
In many industrial SMEs, the use of an outsourced CFO brings flexibility and a diversity of experience that is difficult to obtain with a traditional financial structure.
An experienced senior internal CFO in the industry costs between €120,000 and €160,000 per year, including charges in the Île-de-France region. They master your sector — but only your sector. An outsourced CFO from Advanced Conseil has supported industrial SMEs in metallurgy, agri-food, plastics, electronic subcontracting, and construction. This cross-sector experience generates real sector benchmarks and best practices that your internal CFO does not have — because they have only worked in one or two companies.
And in case of the departure of the internal CFO — which happens — you have a gap of 3 to 6 months without financial management. With Advanced Conseil, continuity is ensured.
Conclusion: The outsourced CFO: a management partner for industrial SMEs
In the industry, financial tensions rarely appear overnight. They most often result from a gradual lack of visibility on the operational and financial flows of the company.
The role of the outsourced CFO is not simply to produce reports. It primarily consists of helping the manager structure their management and make better decisions based on reliable, centralized, and actionable data. Establishing reliable management of working capital, margins, and cash flow not only secures growth but also allows for quicker and better decision-making.
At Advanced Conseil, we combine financial expertise, understanding of industrial challenges, and digitalization of management tools to support industrial SMEs in their growth and transformation.
Frequently asked questions: Outsourced CFO and industrial management
Can an outsourced CFO operate in an industrial sector they do not know?
CFO expertise is transversal: working capital, cash flow, analytical margin, banking relations, reporting. Advanced Conseil supports industrial SMEs in various sectors — metallurgy, agri-food, plastics, subcontracting. The initial 48-hour diagnosis allows for a quick understanding of sector-specific characteristics. What matters is not knowing your sector in detail — it is understanding the structure of your financial flows.
Do you need to be on Odoo to work with Advanced Conseil in the industry?
No. Advanced Conseil adapts to your existing ERP — Sage, Cegid, or others. If you are on Odoo 16/17/18/19, we activate analytical accounting and dashboards directly in your instance. If you are not yet on Odoo, we work with your exports and assess whether a migration is relevant based on your situation.
How long to see the first results on industrial working capital?
The first actions on the accounts receivable (DSO) produce visible effects in 30 to 60 days. Optimizing the DIO takes 60 to 90 days. A structural reduction of working capital by 15 to 25 days of revenue is built over 3 to 6 months. This is not a one-time operation — it is a new mode of weekly management.
Is analytical accounting by project complex to set up on Odoo?
On Odoo 16/17/18/19, configuring analytical accounting by project takes 1 to 3 days depending on the complexity of your activity. Direct costs are automatically allocated as soon as the analytical rules are well defined. The first margin data by project is available at the end of the first month of production.
Advanced Conseil accompagne les PME industrielles dans le pilotage de leur BFR, de leur marge par affaire et de leur trésorerie. Notre approche est opérationnelle : on installe avec vous un système de pilotage hebdomadaire que vos équipes s'approprient. Basés à Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), à deux pas du métro Anatole France. Demandez votre diagnostic DAF industrie gratuit — Réponse sous 48h.
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