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Small and medium-sized businesses in Jacksonville can look to Murray Beard and his newly established Morgan Davis Associates as a beacon of light offering hope for their finances, be they struggling or sound.
“Small businesses, as they grow, they outgrow bookkeepers and they get to a point where (their finances) need to be more sophisticated,” said Beard, a Jacksonville native with 30 years in the banking industry.
And that’s where Morgan Davis comes to the rescue. Offering clients day to day help with tasks such as bookkeeping and accounting along with a variety of other financial services – which include a part-time chief financial officer – the new company located in Beard’s Ponte Vedra home is just a few months old and already has clients in wholesale distributing and real estate.
According to Beard, small businesses don’t typically keep up with their financial relationships because they don’t think that far ahead.
As an employee with Branch, Banking & Trust (BB&T) and overseeing the accounts of home builders Beard saw the leading edge of the financial downturn, stating if businesses didn’t pay attention they were now closing their doors. The businesses that did pay attention and started to have cutbacks are those still around today, said Beard. Helping businesses see their long-term goals and assisting in helping them reach those goals is the driving purpose behind Morgan Davis.
The goal of Beard’s new business is to be modeled after CFO Services, which was bought by New York’s Accretive Services in October 2005.
For the time being though, Beard is working out of his home and out of his clients’ workplaces. The business’s action plan demands Beard form a base of 10-20 clients with the longer goal to build a staff who work with clients. And while for now the company is solely based in Jacksonville, Beard hasn’t ruled out the possibility of taking Morgan Davis farther than Northeast Florida.
“I would go further if the right opportunity came along,” said Beard.
A jack-of-all-trades, Beard said the focus of the company is to help improve the relationships between banks and newer companies through a variety of services offered, like assessing what kind of credit a company should have or developing budgets and special projects.
“Businesses making around five to 10 million dollars are the ones that will need my help,” said Beard, who added the fee structure of the company is flexible and will fit within most operating budgets small to medium sized businesses can afford.
For more information on Morgan Davis, visit www.MorganDavisAssociates.com or call Beard at 465-2784.