The Financial Health Review
Before hiring anyone into finance — fractionally or otherwise — it is worth knowing what is actually wrong. Most owners have a suspicion. Very few have it in writing, with a number against it.
This is a structured examination across seven areas of your finances, delivered as written findings with an amount attached to every one, and a ranked plan for the next ninety days. One piece of work, with an end date. No retainer, no system to change, and nothing you have to commit to afterwards.
What gets examined
Each dimension produces findings, an impact estimate, and a specific recommended action.
1 · Profitability & margin structure
Where the money is genuinely made and lost — by client, product, service line or job. Gross and net margin behaviour, cost of delivery, and which revenue is quietly subsidising the rest.
2 · Cash position & runway
A weekly cash view rather than a monthly one, the trough weeks, the seasonal pattern, and how far the current plan actually reaches before something has to change.
3 · Working capital
Receivables, payables, inventory and prepayments. How many days of cash are locked in the cycle, and how much could be released without borrowing anything.
4 · Pricing sanity check
Prices tested against true cost including allocated overhead. Break-even by line, contribution margin, and whether any work is being sold below the cost of delivering it.
5 · Reporting quality
What you currently get, when you get it, what is missing, and what you should be looking at instead. Usually the fastest thing to fix and the one with the widest downstream effect.
6 · Financial controls
Payment approvals, segregation of duties, system access, reconciliation discipline and month-end close — assessed against the size the business is now.
7 · Risk register
Customer concentration, supplier dependency, key-person exposure, covenant and tax timing risk — ranked by cash impact rather than by how alarming they sound.
Then: the 30/60/90-day plan
Findings without sequencing are just anxiety. The plan says what to do first, what it is worth, who has to do it, and what can safely wait until next quarter.
Five to seven business days, and about ninety minutes of your time.
The review is designed so that the bottleneck is my analysis, not your availability.
Day 0 — Scoping call (30 minutes)
What the business does, what is worrying you, and what a good outcome looks like. You leave with a written scope, a fixed price and a delivery date. If a review is not the right thing for your situation, this is where I say so.
Day 1 — Data request
A short, specific list — typically an accounting export covering the last 12–24 months, an AR ageing, a payroll summary, and whatever operational data you already keep. Read-only exports. No banking credentials, ever. Anonymise names first if you prefer; the analysis works identically on coded data.
If some of it does not exist in the form I asked for, that is normal — the raw data is usually enough to reconstruct it.
Days 2–5 — Analysis
Reconstruction of anything missing, then the seven-dimension review. You may get one or two clarifying questions; otherwise this part does not need you.
Day 6 — Findings report
Written, evidenced, and quantified. Every finding says what it costs or risks, in money, with the workings attached. Where a chart makes a point better than a paragraph, you get the chart — and the model behind it.
Day 7 — Walkthrough call (60 minutes)
We go through the findings and the plan together, and you push back on anything you disagree with. You keep the report and the models regardless of whether we work together again. There is no obligation attached to the review, and I do not chase.
What it costs, and what you get for it.
One fixed fee, agreed in writing before any work starts. No hourly billing, no variation without a new agreement, and nothing that continues afterwards unless you ask for it.
Fixed fee · 5–7 business days · one business
$750 is where a single-entity business with reasonably complete records lands. More entities, more product lines or locations, or records that have to be rebuilt from raw data move the figure up — and you will know the number before you decide, not after.
The scoping call is free and carries no obligation.
Included, whatever the final figure
- A written findings report across all seven areas, with the workings attached
- An amount in cash, margin or risk against every finding
- Any analysis your system does not produce, rebuilt from the records you have
- A 30/60/90-day action plan you can run without me
- A 60-minute walkthrough call to go through it and argue with any of it
- Everything you receive is yours to keep, whether or not we work together again
No retainer, no lock-in, nothing to migrate, and no follow-up sequence.
Fair warnings
Is this worth it if we are already profitable?
Usually more so. Profitable businesses are where mispricing hides longest, because aggregate margin covers for the specific work that loses money. The reviews that find the most tend to be the ones nobody thought were urgent.
What if you find nothing?
Then the report says so, in writing, and you have an independent second opinion on your finances — which is a legitimate outcome, not a failure. I would rather write that report than manufacture findings to justify a fee.
Will this turn into a sales process?
The plan will name things that need doing, and some of them are things I could do. It will also name things you should do yourselves, things your existing accountant should handle, and things that do not need anybody. If the honest recommendation is that you do not need me, it will say that.
Who is this not for?
Businesses needing a statutory audit, a tax opinion, or a legal position — those require licensed professionals in your jurisdiction, and I will refer rather than improvise. Pre-revenue startups with no transaction history also get little from a diagnostic; a forecasting model is a better first step.
Find out what is actually wrong before you spend money fixing the wrong thing.
Fixed fee, fixed scope, a written plan at the end, and no obligation to continue. Tell me what the business does and what is worrying you — that is enough to start.