Experience
Companies like yours, moments like yours.
Every engagement starts with a moment: a lender's doubt, a diligence process, capital that costs too much, growth outrunning the numbers. Stories are anonymized; the situations are real.
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Showing all 9 stories
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Media technology integrator rebuilds its books, and its lender's trust, ahead of a sale
The situation
You're a media technology company selling hardware, installation, software subscriptions, and agency services, working toward a sale at a significant premium to today's value. A prior firm left prepaid, accrued, and deferred revenue in a tangle; a part-time bookkeeper posted card statement totals instead of transactions; and during check-ins, your lender's numbers stopped matching yours.
What we did
Took over bookkeeping, close, and payroll administration inside 30 days. Delivered a written remediation assessment within 15 days and reconstructed the prepaid, accrued, and deferred revenue balances, every adjustment documented. Wrote a revenue recognition policy for each of the four service lines. Built the 13-week cash model, the three-statement model, and a lender reporting package with covenant tracking. Established a baseline internal valuation with a bridge to the target exit value.
Value created
A balance sheet that ties out every month and stands up in front of the lender. Card spend visible at transaction level by cardholder. A defensible revenue recognition position, the most common source of buyer valuation discounts, closed before diligence opens. A running diligence file and a valuation bridge refreshed quarterly, with employee profit-sharing payouts modeled across exit scenarios.
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Multi-site urgent care operator gets diligence-ready in the middle of a live sale
The situation
You operate 20+ urgent care centers with 150+ providers, running a two-track sale process with a Quality of Earnings already underway. Your CPA meters every request, quarterly reporting does not exist, and the valuation flagged a company-specific risk premium that disciplined finance could reduce.
What we did
Executed a fixed-fee reconstruction: full ledger diagnostic across all entities, chart of accounts redesigned for center-level P&L, current year recoded and reconciled, prior two years adjusted with written documentation, and an owner add-back schedule built to survive QoE scrutiny. In parallel, installed the close calendar, 13-week cash model, annual budget, and a board-grade quarterly reporting package. Converted the valuation’s risk assessment into a tracked de-risking roadmap with owners and deadlines.
Value created
A restated, defensible baseline delivered to the QoE team before they asked. Center-level economics readable directly from the books, including new-site maturation curves. Quarterly reporting a buyer can set a watch by, and a measurable reduction path on the risk premium: among the highest-value levers available before a sale. All of it on a fixed fee, questions included, never metered.
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Industrial supplier replaces 36% APR working capital on the road from $5.5M to $50M
The situation
You've grown from $2M to $5.5M in a year, your anchor client has opened access to $100M+ in addressable product lines, and the pipeline makes $50M plausible. But working capital runs through a $3M factoring facility at roughly 3% monthly, capital releases only after delivery, and your financials do not yet tell the truth of the business to an investor.
What we did
Restructured the chart of accounts to audit-ready standards and documented the intercompany relationship with the foreign parent. Built a 5-year integrated model with working capital scenarios at $15M, $30M, and $50M, plus a DCF valuation and comparable analysis for negotiation support. Prepared the investor deck and data room, developed the factoring replacement strategy, and structured the engagement to sit beside the owner in capital negotiations, with a success fee aligned to capital actually raised.
Value created
Investor-grade statements and a defensible valuation before the first institutional conversation. A capital strategy with a clear debt-vs-equity recommendation. A quantified path off punitive factoring, and a negotiating posture where every question about cash flow, margins, and structure has an answer.
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Transportation company makes 26-year relationships show up in the numbers
The situation
You've built a transportation services business with ~500 consistent clients, relationships up to 26 years, and 80–90% recurring revenue, yet none of it is visible on paper. Personal expenses obscure true earnings, no budget is measured against actuals, the company runs about a month without you, and a price-versus-volume decision sits on the table with no model behind it.
What we did
Separated and documented personal expenses with an add-back schedule, structured the chart of accounts for margin by product line, and installed the monthly close. Built the financial model and the annual budget with the leadership team, assigned budget owners and KPIs by department, designed a compensation plan to retain key people, and set weekly cash reviews with a bi-monthly budget-vs-actual cadence, applying an exit-readiness lens to every material decision.
Value created
True earnings visible for the first time, documented in a form a buyer can verify. The price-versus-volume decision made with a model, revisited quarterly. Reduced key-person dependency through assigned ownership and documented process: exactly what a future buyer prices in.
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Medical supplies distributor installs margin discipline to scale past $14M
The situation
You're a ~$14M medical supplies distributor, profitable for 19 years, zero debt, customers in all 50 states, targeting 25%+ annual growth toward $25M+. But the founder signs every check, reps set prices with a 4% revenue commission that leaks margin, gross margin sits around 35% against an ambition of 45–50%, and the ERP has been outgrown.
What we did
Deployed the monthly reporting package and a decision-ready KPI dashboard: margin by product, customer, and rep; DSO; inventory turns; cash conversion. Built the forecast and an internal DCF value bridge quantifying what margin and growth moves are worth in enterprise value. Redesigned the commission structure around gross profit with minimum-margin guardrails, allocated revenue targets by rep, supported supplier negotiations, and provided CFO oversight for the ERP transition.
Value created
Margin leakage visible by rep and product for the first time, with incentives rewired to protect it. Approval authority and controls that take the founder out of the check-signing loop. A value bridge that turns every operating decision into an enterprise-value question, and a sequenced expansion plan across five new verticals.
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Design-build studio goes from merchant loans to lender-ready
The situation
You run a design-build studio with ~$2.1M signed and a target of doubling revenue this year, but a municipal project with prevailing-wage payroll forced an emergency merchant loan, 90-day payment terms are standard, factoring costs 4%, and the books have not tracked profitability by project in years.
What we did
Rebuilt the chart of accounts around project-based accounting with WIP reporting and construction-appropriate revenue recognition, executed the prior-year cleanup, and installed the monthly close under CFO oversight. Built the 13-week cash forecast across projects, payroll, and material commitments, a project-level profitability model, and a 3-year financial model with working capital scenarios at 2x revenue. Prepared banking materials, ran a prevailing-wage impact analysis for bidding, and joined lender meetings to structure a credit line sized to the working-capital cycle.
Value created
Project-level margin visibility restored, so bidding and capacity decisions run on data. Cash tightness known twelve weeks out instead of the week payroll is due. A financing structure built for construction economics, ending the era of funding projects from the owner’s pocket.
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Irish fulfillment group turns a near-default into cash discipline
The situation
You operate a fulfillment business and a seasonal retail business that survived a near-default the prior year through asset sales. The P&L says profitable while the bank account disagrees, six figures of aged payables strain your most important vendor, margins swing monthly on labor-versus-billing timing, and the team has stopped trusting the reports.
What we did
Built a 13-week rolling cash model across both entities within the first two weeks and ran a standing weekly cash call to decide, together, what actually gets paid. Standardized both P&Ls so they reconcile to cash, installed a repeatable month-end close, integrated warehouse labor data into financial reporting to stop the margin swings, and built an order-level margin model for the seasonal business ahead of its peak, designed so the internal team could own every tool afterward.
Value created
Forward cash visibility replacing weekly surprises, and a payment discipline the vendor relationship could survive on. Two clean closes and a reporting pack the team believes. Unit economics stable enough to price with confidence, and a margin model that kills unprofitable orders before they are accepted.
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Law firm recovers the profit hidden in its own billing
The situation
You're a managing partner with no real-time view of profitability by client, matter, or practice area. Realization leaks through undisciplined discounting, billable time is hard to track against capacity, and AR drift keeps cash tight while the firm plans aggressive growth.
What we did
Ran a comprehensive financial cleanup and built a law-firm-specific dashboard: revenue and profit per attorney and practice area, utilization, realization, collection rates, and cash conversion. Modeled true profitability by matter type, built the realization-rate improvement strategy and pricing recommendations, established the 13-week cash forecast and AR discipline, and installed quarterly strategic reviews and a partner compensation framework tied to contribution.
Value created
Profitability visible at the level where pricing decisions happen: matter, client, practice area. A realization strategy with a target improvement path, collections on a managed cadence, and partner economics aligned to firm goals instead of history.
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Cybersecurity consultancy builds the finance function for a $45M plan
The situation
You lead a consulting firm with a decade in market and a three-year target of $45M, anchored on multi-year contracts. But receivables drift, profitability by client is unclear, the accounting platform is underused, and the finance function that got you here cannot carry the plan.
What we did
Cleaned and audited the financials, restructured the chart of accounts around profit centers, and implemented revenue recognition for prepaid and multi-year contracts. Built the dynamic three-scenario financial model, the 13-week cash forecast, and growth modeling for five new $3M multi-year clients. Later expanded into full accounting and payroll administration, including resolution of a ~$292K uncategorized-transaction backlog and reconciliation across 19+ accounts.
Value created
Confidence in the numbers, and true profitability by client and service line. A modeled path to $45M with staffing and working capital requirements quantified at each milestone. A finance function that scales with the plan: one team across accounting, payroll, and CFO leadership.
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