Our thinking, in writing.

Cash flow · 5 min read

If the P&L shows profit and the account does not, the money is in one of four places: receivables, inventory or work in progress, lumpy debt service, or a distribution and tax calendar nobody wrote down. Find which one and the forecast writes itself.

Banking and lending · 4 min read

Before renewing a line, your banker needs three things your books may not produce: statements that tie to the tax return, a balance sheet where every account reconciles, and the covenant calculated the way the loan agreement defines it. Everything else is paperwork.

Cash flow · 7 min read

A 13-week cash forecast is a weekly table with nine rows: beginning cash, collections, payroll, vendors, debt service, taxes and distributions, capital purchases, ending cash and line availability. The rows are easy. The discipline is reconciling it to actual cash every week.

Running the business · 4 min read

Bookkeeping tells you what happened. Controllership makes sure it happened correctly. CFO work decides what should happen next. Most companies between $2M and $50M have the first, are missing the second, and are asking the owner to do the third at night.

Running the business · 6 min read

When a QuickBooks balance sheet looks wrong, the error is usually in one of five places: undeposited funds, opening balance equity, loans booked as income, payroll liabilities that never clear, or a suspense account called "ask my accountant." None of them fix themselves.

Running the business · 3 min read

Take the loaded cost of the hire, salary plus about 25% for taxes, benefits and equipment, and put it on the 13-week forecast as a weekly line. If ending cash stays above your floor in every week, you can afford it now. If it dips, the forecast tells you which month you can.

Running the business · 4 min read

A fractional CFO for an owner-led company costs a fixed monthly fee set by how much of the finance function they take on, the number of entities, the state of the books, and how many decisions the next year holds. Anyone who quotes you before looking at your numbers is guessing.

Banking and lending · 5 min read

A buyer will find three things in your books before they find anything else: add-backs tangled into the P&L, a working-capital level nobody has measured, and receivables or inventory they will discount. Fix them in that order; each one moves the price.

Cash flow · 2 min read

A forecast is not useful because it is accurate. It is useful because management knows what would make it wrong, and has already decided what to do when it is.

Family offices · 4 min read

A family with two operating companies, some real estate and a few trusts does not need a family office. It needs one set of books per entity, closed on one calendar, consolidated monthly, with bills paid through a single approval flow. That is an accounting function, and it can be outsourced.

By industry · 6 min read

When a contractor grows from $10M to $30M, the backlog is the best it has ever been and the bank account is the worst. The company is financing its customers through retainage and slow draws while paying labor every Friday. Nobody has calculated over- and under-billings, so the P&L swings with whoever posted invoices that month.

By industry · 5 min read

When a carrier adds its tenth truck, revenue per truck goes up and cash per truck goes down. New equipment goes on new notes before the lanes that pay for them are full. Shippers get bigger and pay slower. Fuel moves faster than rates.

By industry · 5 min read

When a dealer adds a second rooftop, the owner is the only person who understands both stores' numbers and is on the lot all day. The factory statement gets done late by someone who does not reconcile floor plan to inventory. Departmental profit exists on paper and not in decisions.

By industry · 4 min read

When a landlord or brokerage family reaches its fourth entity, each property has its own books kept differently, intercompany loans nobody documented, and K-1s that are late because the entity books close in March.

Running the business · 4 min read

When a founder hires their first controller, they usually hire well and then ask the person to do CFO work they were not hired for: the forecast, the bank, the pricing decision. The controller does the close and improvises the rest.

Running the business · 5 min read

When a $20M company decides it has outgrown its accounting system, the system is rarely the problem. The chart of accounts is. It still describes the company from five years ago, and no software fixes that.

Banking and lending · 5 min read

When a bank tightens a covenant, the ratio drifted for two quarters before anyone calculated it. The bank's analyst calculated it. Now it is a conversation about a waiver fee and a rate bump.

Banking and lending · 5 min read

When a buyer starts looking at the books, the first thing they measure is the one thing the seller never has: working capital, month by month, for the trailing twelve months. The target they set becomes a price adjustment at close.

Running the business · 3 min read

When the bookkeeper quits in October, the company faces a Q4 close, year-end, 1099s and W-2s with nobody in the seat. The first week matters more than the hiring decision.

Running the business · 4 min read

When a company opens its second location, overhead doubles before revenue does, and the P&L cannot say which location is carrying the other. The company is profitable in total and losing money in one place.