Most Swiss SMEs are not legally required to use Swiss GAAP FER. The Code of Obligations (CO, art. 957 and following) covers the majority of companies, and it remains the basis for the tax return. Swiss GAAP FER enters the picture when investors, lenders, an acquirer, or a listing plan demand comparable, true and fair […]
Capital is not a single thing. When a Swiss SME needs money to grow, the question that actually matters is not "where do we find it?" but "what type should we take?" Debt and equity work differently, cost differently, and carry very different consequences for who controls the business. In 2026, borrowing is historically cheap […]
Outsourcing finance does not mean losing control. For most Swiss SMEs, it is the fastest route to more of it. The assumption runs deep: keep finance in-house and you stay in charge; hand it out and you go blind. The logic sounds persuasive. It is also wrong. Control was never about doing the work yourself. […]
Swiss SMEs searching for liquidity usually look outward first: to the bank, to investors, to a credit line. The bigger opportunity is already inside the business. Unpaid invoices, shelves of slow-moving stock, supplier payment terms that are tighter than they need to be – these lock up cash that belongs to you. Working capital management […]
Nearly one in three Swiss SMEs plans an ownership transfer within the next five years. Most owners, though, start preparing far too late. For anyone over 50, succession is not a single transaction at the end of a career. It is a multi-year financial project that shapes retirement income, tax exposure, and whether the business […]
The gap between ambition and information Growth-oriented Swiss SMEs rarely lose momentum because they lack a plan. More often, they lose it because the numbers feeding that plan stop being trustworthy partway through the year. A budget locked in January cannot account for the client contract that arrived in March, the supplier cost that jumped […]
The gross salary is only the base, not the cost Hiring someone at CHF 100'000 does not mean your company spends CHF 100'000. Swiss law requires employers to fund a stack of mandatory contributions on top of every gross wage: old-age and disability insurance, unemployment cover, family allowances, accident insurance, and the occupational pension. Together, […]
Numbers are everywhere in a business. Most SMEs in Switzerland have more data than they know what to do with: accounting exports, a CRM pipeline, project trackers, payroll reports. The question is never whether the numbers exist. The question is whether anyone is reading the right ones at the right time, and whether the connections […]
Many innovative Swiss SMEs pay more cantonal tax than they need to. The assumption is that the patent box and the R&D super-deduction are instruments designed for large multinationals. That assumption is wrong. Both sit in ordinary cantonal tax law, introduced by the 2020 reform, and a MedTech, hardware, software or manufacturing SME with genuine […]
A SaaS business can show strong revenue on paper and still be weeks from running out of cash. Subscription billing, deferred revenue and customer acquisition costs each pull the income statement and the bank balance in opposite directions. For a Swiss SME building software, the metrics that matter are not the ones in a standard […]