The Engagement
Three stages. You can stop after any of them.
Most engagements mix these, and you can start where the need is. Every stage has a defined endpoint.
01
The Diagnostic
2–4 weeks
$8,000 – $16,000
Stop here and you leave withA written plan you own
02
The Groundwork
1–3 months
$20,000 – $60,000
Stop here and you leave withA finance function that works
03
Ongoing
Monthly
Monthly fixed fee
For as long as it's the right answer
You can stop after any stage. The fee for each one is agreed before it starts.
The Diagnostic
Two to four weeks
You end up with a written plan. We start with an intake conversation to agree what you're trying to get to, then spend two to four weeks inside your numbers, your systems and your team working out what's in the way. The plan names the gaps, what each one is costing you, what to do about each, and in what order.
If something is already on a clock — a lender, a covenant, a board meeting — that gets handled first and alongside everything else. The sequence is how the work is built, not a reason to miss your date. And it ends whether or not you go further: the plan is yours either way, including the parts you'd rather hand to someone else.
What You End Up With
The Groundwork
One to three months
The Diagnostic gives us the lens. This is where we use it — taking the items that will make the biggest difference to where the business is going, and putting them in place. Most of it comes back to the same problem: a business can't manage what it can't see. So the work is usually defining what's worth measuring per channel, then getting the accounting system — and the inventory and customer systems around it — to produce those numbers in a form someone can use. You end up with a playbook your team runs every month. And you end up with better information behind the decisions that set the year.
It ends, and it ends in a decision. Either your team runs what we put in place — and I'll tell you what kind of team that takes — or we run it together for as long as that's useful. You don't need a full-time hire to change how you see the business, and either answer here is a good one.
What It Usually Includes
Ongoing
Monthly, ongoing
We run the month with you — the numbers, the rolling forecast, and the judgment on top of them. Above your team, not in place of it.
One monthly load, two horizons: the year you're in, and the long-range plan, kept honest against what actually happened.
If the standing session stops being worth attending, that's the conversation. The decisions are the point; the reporting is how we get to them.
What Runs Every Month
Working together
What it looks like on your side.
This is a collaboration. We'll talk things through, pull the data and financials together, and work out which metrics matter for your business. Nothing here is a surprise — you'll know what's involved before we start.
The money
What does this cost?
Ranges, because the work is sized to the business. Fixed fee agreed before each stage starts. Never hourly.
$8,000 – $16,000
The Diagnostic
Toward the top for multiple entities, multiple channels, or inventory that lives in more than one place.
$20,000 – $60,000
The Groundwork
Scoped after the Diagnostic — that's the point at which either of us can size it. A single entity with a few channels sits near the bottom; multiple entities and a lot of channels near the top.
Monthly fixed fee
Ongoing
Scoped once we both know what the month takes.
A full-time CFO runs $300,000 and up.
If the honest answer after the Diagnostic is that what you need isn't me, the plan is still yours.
Frequently Asked