Virtual CFO — Ceramic Tile Manufacturers

Finance built around the kiln, not around the calendar

A tile unit’s costs move with the kiln and the gas meter. Its cash moves with the dealer. Those two rhythms rarely line up — which is why a unit can be profitable on paper and still be short of money on the 15th.

Where the cash gets trapped

• PNG is billed every 15 days, and disconnection is the price of delay — while dealer credit routinely stretches past 180 days.
• Debtors ageing past 90 days fall outside the bank’s cover period, quietly shrinking the drawing power available against a limit you have already been sanctioned.
• Body, glaze and frit price movements reach your costing weeks after they reach your purchase ledger, so quotes go out against last month’s costs.
• Kiln downtime and scrap show up as lost margin long before anyone treats it as a costing problem.

What we run for you

• Standard costing for mineral blends, with yield variance tracked against scrap
• Capacity utilisation and fixed-overhead absorption reviewed monthly — the number that decides whether a low-price order is worth taking at all
• A 13-week rolling cash flow covering wages, gas bills, taxes and collections
• Dealer and distributor classification with credit limits and security terms per tier, and automated flags before receivables cross the 90-day line
• Monthly drawing power statement hygiene, so the bank funds what you are actually entitled to
• Accumulated input tax credit and export refunds pursued in parallel — inverted duty is where a tile exporter’s working capital usually sits

Reports come weekly or monthly, whichever suits your unit, and every one carries advice and action points rather than just figures.