How we work
A disciplined process, not a template.
Four stages, and the last one is the one most firms skip. What follows is how an engagement actually runs, including what we need from you and what we will not do.
Not a line from start to finish. A loop: what we measure shapes the next diagnosis.
- 01
Diagnose
We start with your numbers and your processes, not with a proposal. That means the ledger, the reports you already produce, how work moves between the people who do it, and what the owner actually wants to decide. Most engagements find the presenting problem is not the problem: the cash complaint turns out to be a costing problem, the reporting complaint turns out to be a chart of accounts problem.
- 02
Design
A solution built for the business as it is, including the staff it has and the systems it already paid for. We would rather fix a chart of accounts in Tally than recommend software you will not implement. Where we propose something that needs capacity you do not have, we say so at this stage rather than discovering it during rollout.
- 03
Implement
Advice that stays in a document changes nothing. We put the work into the business: the model built and handed over, the reporting pack produced for a real month end, the process run once with your team doing it. Implementation is where most advisory relationships quietly end, and it is the part that determines whether anything was worth paying for.
- 04
Measure
After some months have passed, whether the thing we changed actually improved. Margin, cash days, close timing, whatever the engagement was aimed at. Sometimes the answer is that it did not, and knowing that is worth more than assuming it did.
The first conversation
Thirty minutes, confidential, no obligation and no cost. Bring one problem. We will tell you what we think is behind it, whether it is work we do, and roughly what it takes to fix.
If it is not work we should be doing, we say so in that call. That happens often enough to be worth stating: sometimes the answer is a bookkeeper, a lawyer, or an auditor, and sometimes it is a conversation with your bank rather than an engagement with us.
What we need from you
- Access to the accounting file, not a summary of it.
- One person who can answer questions and make decisions.
- An honest account of what is not working internally.
- Time from the people who do the work, usually a few hours across the engagement.
Engagements that stall almost always stall on access to information, not on the advisory work.
How engagements are shaped
A defined project
A costing exercise, a financial model, a reporting rebuild, a due diligence. Fixed scope, fixed fee, agreed before we start.
A monthly retainer
Virtual CFO and outsourced finance work, where the value is continuity. Priced on the work in the month, not on hours logged.
A second opinion
A short, paid review of a decision already on the table. Sometimes a single meeting is the entire engagement.
Fees are agreed in writing before work starts, against a written scope. Where scope changes mid-engagement, the fee conversation happens then rather than in the final invoice.
Where we stop
We do not carry out statutory audit and do not sign audited accounts. That must be a licensed auditor, independent of whoever prepared the numbers, and the separation is the point of it. We do not draft contracts or give legal opinions.
Where an engagement needs either, we work alongside your auditor or your lawyer and say so at the first meeting rather than the last. Being outside the audit relationship is also why we can tell you plainly what we think of your numbers.