Small and medium-sized enterprises generally have weak viability and competitiveness. The main problem is that there are problems in internal management of enterprises, especially the important role of financial management is not paid attention to. Financial management is the core of enterprise management. Reasonable planning, scheduling, application and distribution of enterprise funds can help enterprises control risks and improve profits. Therefore, it is necessary to make an in-depth analysis of the external environment and internal problems of financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises, and put forward improvement suggestions on how to further strengthen financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises.

1. Problems in financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises

1. Serious shortage of funds

At present, small and medium-sized enterprises in China are facing financing difficulties and serious shortage of funds. The main reasons are as follows: First, the credit rating of small and medium-sized enterprises is low, and their credit standing is relatively poor. Second, small and medium-sized enterprises have high business risks, small business scale, less self-owned funds, backward technical level, unstable business performance, poor ability to resist risks, low financial management level and lack of objectivity and transparency of information, which bring investment risks to banks and investors.

2. Weak financial awareness and unbalanced financial structure

On the one hand, some small and medium-sized enterprises think that the more cash, the better, resulting in idle cash and not participating in production turnover. On the other hand, excessive debt is a typical common fault of high-speed growth enterprises and the root of financial crisis. The rapid development of small and medium-sized enterprises is directly related to the rapid growth strategy. The high-speed growth strategy will inevitably lead to a shortage of funds. In the case of insufficient self-owned funds, enterprises will inevitably have to operate in debt. However, factors such as unfavorable operation and weakening internal financial management will aggravate the debt level and cause excessive debt of enterprises. In the case of excessive debt, the operating cost and financial pressure of enterprises will increase, and the ability to pay will become increasingly fragile, which will accelerate the outbreak of financial crisis and eventually inevitably lead to bankruptcy.

3. The business model is rigid and the management concept is outdated

Due to the pressure of survival, small and medium-sized enterprises often put most of their energy into the sales of enterprise products. As long as the products are sold smoothly and the sales revenue is increasing, enterprise leaders do not pay much attention to the construction of financial management, and more regard accounting as a need for information disclosure or a means of bookkeeping, instead of treating it as a management tool. Most small and medium-sized enterprises do not put financial management at the center of enterprise management, but simply pursue the growth of product sales and the expansion of market share. This situation is not a big problem when the production and operation of the enterprise are still smooth. Once the enterprise has major problems such as capital turnover difficulties, sharp decline in profits or even serious losses, and the enterprise cannot operate normally, it will not be able to make correct remedial measures immediately because the usual financial management work is not in place, thus making the enterprise go bankrupt and endangering its survival.

2. Countermeasures to strengthen financial management of small and medium-sized enterprises

1. Tailor-made and choose appropriate financial management objectives

Before carrying out specific financial management operations for small and medium-sized enterprises, their operators and financial leaders should first set reasonable financial management objectives for enterprises, because financial management objectives have the functions of guidance, restraint and evaluation. After having clear objectives, enterprises can have a clear direction and formulate specific implementation plans to achieve this. The goal of financial management is to deal with financial relations by organizing financial activities in a specific financial environment. Fundamentally speaking, the financial goal depends on the enterprise's survival purpose or enterprise goal, and depends on the specific social and economic model. Under normal circumstances, enterprises will take the maximization of enterprise value as the goal of financial management. However, small and medium-sized enterprises have different characteristics from other large enterprises. Therefore, the choice and determination of financial management goals must be made according to the needs and development requirements of enterprises themselves, so as to give full play to the functions of financial management goal orientation, restraint and evaluation and guide enterprises to move forward in a scientific direction.

2. Strengthen fund management and financial control

Cash flow management is the center of enterprise financial management, and it is necessary to strengthen daily fund management, so as to make the enterprise's funds put in as little as possible, recover quickly and maintain a virtuous circle. This requires enterprises to make further meticulous work in accounts receivable management, reasonable inventory of materials, equipment purchase and management, and coordinate the relationship between liquidity, safety and efficiency of funds. This involves all aspects of enterprise internal management, and enterprise managers should change their concepts and realize that managing, using and controlling finance is not only the responsibility of the financial department, but also a major event related to all departments and production and operation links of the enterprise. All departments should implement it layer by layer, and contribute to the management of enterprise funds.

(1) Improve the financial system of small and medium-sized enterprises

Modern enterprise management, especially effective financial management, must have complete financial information to help managers analyze the past and predict the future, so that managers can see farther and enhance their risk awareness. To this end, we should strengthen management from the following systems. First of all, pay attention to the internal containment system of enterprise finance. Internal containment system refers to any work involving the payment, settlement and registration of enterprise funds and finances, which must be handled by two or more people in order to play a restrictive role. For example, a cashier may not concurrently take charge of auditing, keeping accounting files and registering accounts of income, expenditure, expenses, creditor's rights and debts, that is, "managing accounts regardless of money, managing money regardless of accounts". This can not only ensure the truthfulness, legality and integrity of all kinds of accounting data, but also form a mutual containment mechanism between the managers of various functional departments. Secondly, improve the internal audit system and implement re-supervision of accounting. Internal audit implementation is an effective means of re-supervision. Adhere to the independence of internal audit institutions and financial institutions, ensure that internal auditors are independent of the audited departments, check mistakes and prevent disadvantages, improve business management, and ensure the sustained and healthy development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Re-establish the financial examination and approval authority and signature system. In the examination and approval procedure, it is stipulated that every financial expenditure should be examined and approved in the prescribed order; Documents that specify each expenditure in the signature combination should be signed according to the examination and approval procedures and authority. At the same time, it should be stipulated that the cashier should only carry out the business of completing the signature combination, and the cashier should refuse to carry out the business expenditure that has not completed the signature combination. Therefore, it plays a positive role in controlling unreasonable expenditures and maintaining the legitimacy of expenditures.

(2) Strengthening the management of accounts receivable

The existence of accounts receivable enables enterprises to promote sales and enhance their competitiveness, but at the same time, it is necessary to avoid the constraints of accounts receivable on the capital turnover of enterprises and the possible bad debt loss. In the survey of enterprises, 36. 7% of enterprises think that the most important difficulty and problem in capital is "being dragged down by triangular debts". In order to deal with and solve this problem, small and medium-sized enterprises can adopt the following two measures: First, we should improve the credit system and make original records. Besides mastering the detailed account of accounts receivable and analyzing the age of accounts, enterprises should establish a sound collection and credit analysis system to avoid the flood of sales credit, the backlog of funds, the high bad debts and even litigation. Second, the business and collection can be handled by one person, and their work performance can be evaluated accordingly.

(3) Maintain an appropriate inventory

An appropriate inventory can not only ensure the normal needs of business operations, but also reduce the working capital occupied by inventory to a minimum. Proper inventory management depends on the cooperation of all departments of the enterprise. For example, when the demand for products rises, the business department should immediately detect and convey the information to other departments of the enterprise, and the purchasing department and the production department must immediately consider this change factor and arrange it in the purchasing and production plan, and the financial department should also make a proper fund source plan. It is worth mentioning that the production and operation scale of small and medium-sized enterprises is generally small, which determines that the raw materials needed by enterprises to produce products are not much, and the output of products produced is not large. It is not economical to purchase raw materials and sell products from a long distance. Therefore, purchasing raw materials as close as possible can not only save the purchase cost, but also reduce the inventory backlog of raw materials and reduce the occupation of funds by raw materials. By the same token, selling products as close as possible can save sales expenses and shorten the product inventory cycle, which not only reduces the occupation of funds, but also accelerates the recovery of funds and improves the utilization efficiency of funds.

(4) Attach importance to the prior management of production costs

Prior management focuses on cost planning, product design and trial production. Find the target cost according to the market demand, product price level and production and marketing forecast. The target cost is given to the design, technology, production and supply departments for specific design and implementation, and the design is continuously improved to improve the material utilization rate. Adopt cheap substitute materials, reduce the purchase price of materials and cooperative parts, improve productivity and achieve the target cost. Only when the target cost is reached can the trial production be officially carried out. The cost management in the production process adopts standard cost (also called budget cost and planned cost) for prior control. The standard cost is decomposed step by step according to the responsible units formed by the cost, and the production process is managed according to the standard cost, so that the cost management can play a more active role. At the same time, we also attach importance to post-event inspection and assessment. Each responsible unit regularly analyzes the difference between the actual cost and the standard cost. If the actual cost is lower than the standard cost, it is necessary to sum up experience and consolidate popularization. If the actual cost is higher than the standard cost, it is necessary to find out the reasons and take measures to solve them.

3. Optimizing the financial structure

Balancing the high growth rate and steady development and optimizing the financial structure is the key to the financial stability of enterprises. Its specific signs are low comprehensive capital cost, high financial leverage and moderate financial risk. Enterprises should make structural adjustments to capital, liabilities, assets, etc. according to changes in the business environment, so as to keep them in a reasonable proportion.

(1) establish the best capital structure. The optimal capital structure refers to a capital structure that can achieve the best balance among financial leverage interests, financial risk financing costs and enterprise value in a certain period of time. Capital structure arrangement is a complex problem, because it is restricted and influenced by various factors, and these related factors must be considered in the process of designing the best capital structure.

(2) optimize the debt structure. The focus of structural management of liabilities is the maturity structure of liabilities. Because it is difficult to keep the expected cash flow in harmony with the maturity and quantity of debt, it requires enterprises to keep a safety margin when determining the maturity structure of debt under the premise of allowing cash flow to fluctuate. Enterprises should weigh the profitability and risks of long-term and short-term liabilities, so as to determine the proportion of long-term and short-term liabilities that can minimize the risks and maximize the profitability of enterprises.

(3) Optimize the asset structure. The optimization of asset structure is mainly to determine a liquidity level that can not only maintain the normal production and operation of enterprises, but also bring as much profit as possible to enterprises on the premise of reducing or not increasing risks. Because there are too many current assets, it affects the efficiency of enterprises; Too few current assets and turnover failure affect the normal operation of enterprises.

the more the economy develops, the more important financial management becomes. With the economic globalization and China's entry into WTO, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises is facing more and more competitive pressure and survival pressure. Only by actively carrying out the reform and innovation of enterprise management can they go far in the fierce competition. Financial management is the core of enterprise management. Only by attaching importance to financial management and doing it well can the production and operation of enterprises proceed smoothly.