Industry

Industrial finance direction: investment, capacity and the ESG data they ask you for

Nextica Law & Tax acts as the outsourced finance director of an industrial company: a dashboard with the indicators that actually govern a plant —cost per machine hour, capacity utilisation, margin by line—, a capital investment plan with its return and its funding, cash flow over a long cycle where you buy material, transform it and get paid at ninety days, and preparing the sustainability reporting large customers demand within the framework of Directive (EU) 2022/2464, even where the company is not itself caught by size.

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Its large customers ask for environmental data even though it is not itself obliged. Whoever cannot supply it stops being a supplier.

What's included

1. A dashboard with the indicators that actually govern a plant

cost per machine hour, capacity utilisation and margin by product line.

2. A capital investment plan with its return calculated and its fit within installed capacity, not just within the year's budget.

3. A month-by-month cash plan for the long cycle

buying material, weeks of transformation with payroll running, delivery, invoice and payment at term.

4. Identifying the lowest cash point and sizing the working capital line before it is needed.

5. Budgeting by line and tracking variances with the cost breakdown in front of you, to know whether the cause is price, consumption or productivity.

6. Preparing the sustainability data large customers ask for

energy consumption and its source, waste, headcount and accident rates, from a traceable source.

7. Reusing that data across every supplier questionnaire, instead of rebuilding it each time with different figures.

A PROFITABLE FACTORY CAN RUN OUT OF CASH

Because profit and cash run months apart, and a good season widens the gap instead of closing it.

Budgeting with the forecast profit and loss account instead of the cash calendar

you buy material and pay at sixty days, transform it over weeks with payroll running, deliver and get paid at ninety. More orders mean more material bought before anything is collected.

A customer's ESG questionnaire answered with made-up figures

it is data you sign for and that gets audited later, and today it is a commercial condition —whoever cannot supply it stops being a supplier— even where the company is not required to report by size.

Directive (EU) 2022/2464

Capacity investment decided without cost per machine hour or real utilisation

a machine is bought for a bottleneck that was somewhere else, and the return never shows up where it was expected.

Frequently asked questions

My customer sends me an ESG questionnaire and I am not required to report. What do I do?

Answering it is a commercial condition today, not a legal obligation, and that is exactly why it deserves to be taken seriously. Large companies within the framework of Directive (EU) 2022/2464 need value-chain data for their own report, and they ask suppliers who are not themselves caught. The efficient move is to build the data once —energy consumption and its source, waste and how it is handled, headcount and accident rates, purchasing policy— from a traceable source, and reuse it across every questionnaire. Making up a figure on a supplier form means signing off data that later gets audited.

Why can a profitable factory run out of cash?

Because profit and cash run months apart. You buy material and pay at sixty days, you transform it over weeks while labour is paid monthly, you deliver, you invoice and you are paid at ninety. All the working capital lives in between, and a good season enlarges it rather than shrinking it: more orders mean more material bought before anything is collected. That is why a useful industrial budget is not the forecast profit and loss account but the month-by-month cash calendar, with the lowest point marked and the credit line sized before it is needed.

More frequently asked questions · CONSULTORÍA CONTABLE

Results, not names