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Straight answers before you book a call

These are the questions that arrive before a thirty-minute review. The answers are the same ones we give on the call. If your situation is odd, write it in the form anyway — the useful work is often in the exception.

Getting started

Are you replacing our accountant?

No. Your accountant keeps the books, prepares statutory accounts and handles filings. We read those books and the operational systems around them, then turn the month into a pack leadership can use while the month is still relevant. If the ledger is behind, we still start with an audit of what exists, and we will say when a gap belongs with the accountant before the analytics can be honest. The two roles meet on definitions — what counts as revenue, when a period cuts off — and then they stay in their lanes. You should keep the firm you already trust for compliance. We sit beside them, not over them, and we will not file anything on your behalf.

How fast can we see the first output?

On a standard single-entity sprint, the aim is a first working draft inside a week of a clean audit, and a pack you can trust inside about ten working days. “Clean” means the source files cover the entities and accounts in the story, with named currency rates and a cut-off rule. If the audit finds missing marketplace exports or mixed entities, we put the extra days in writing before the build starts rather than discovering them in silence. After handover, a typical monthly close is five working days, and a defined board question is usually turned around in forty-eight hours. Those timings are indicative; scope and data quality change them, which is why the audit note exists.

Our books are two months behind — do we start with that?

Yes. Waiting for a perfect close is how another month disappears. We start with the files you have, including a late ledger, and the audit will say what can be built now versus what must wait on your accountant. Sometimes the useful first artefact is a cash forecast from the bank and processors, because those feeds are current even when the P&L is not. Sometimes it is a mapping of last quarter so the next close has a format to land in. We will not pretend a five-day reporting pack is available until the source can support it. We will also not ask you to pause the business until the books catch up. The first call is where we choose the artefact that still helps in that state.

Which systems do you need access to?

Read access to the ledger is the usual start — Xero, QuickBooks or NetSuite — or a complete export if access is restricted. We also need bank and payment-processor files for every account in the story, a billing or commerce export that explains revenue by channel, and a headcount or payroll summary. If pipeline quality matters to the pack, HubSpot or the CRM you actually use is in the list. Dashboards, if you want them, are built in Looker Studio, Power BI or Google Sheets, matching whatever the team already opens. We do not require a migration. If a system cannot be shared, a complete export on the collection days will do, as long as it repeats. The named owner on your side is as important as the login.

Working together

Who owns the models you build?

You do. The working files, the mappings and the pack format are yours at handover. We keep a copy only as needed to run a retainer, and we hand back a clean set when an engagement ends. You may take the model to another adviser or bring it in-house; the instruction sheet is written for that moment. What you are buying is the assembly, the calendar and the trail to source, not a licence that expires. We ask that our name is not left on a file that has been rewritten without us, simply so a later reader is not confused about who last checked it. Intellectual property in your underlying data never leaves your organisation. Details sit in the terms, in ordinary language.

Do you sign an NDA?

Yes. We will sign a reasonable mutual confidentiality agreement before we receive ledgers, payroll or board material. If you already have a paper your counsel uses, send it with the first message and we will read it on the same working-day rhythm as everything else. We do not need a special ceremony to start a conversation about what is stuck; we do need the NDA in place before files with customer or people detail move. Hosting of this website and of working files is on professional infrastructure; we do not put client packs in personal inboxes as the system of record. If your group requires a particular region for file storage, say so on the call so we can meet it or tell you that we cannot.

Can we pause a retainer?

You can end a retainer with thirty days’ notice, which is the clean way to stop the calendar. A pause is sometimes the right commercial word when a raise, a leave period or a restructure means the pack would be fiction for a month or two. We treat a pause as a dated stop and a dated restart, written down, rather than an informal “we will see”. Fees do not run during a documented pause. Restarting may need a short audit if systems or entities changed while we were away. We would rather have that conversation than keep issuing a pack nobody is reading. If the pause is really a change of artefact — board cycle instead of monthly — we re-scope instead of freezing.

What happens at the end of an engagement?

You keep the models, the pack format, the mappings and the recordings from handover. We remove our standing access to your systems, send a short close note that lists what was delivered and where the live files sit, and remain available for a fixed-scope follow-up if a later quarter needs a refresh. There is no lock-in and no exit fee beyond work already scoped. If a retainer simply runs to its notice date, the last pack is the one already on the calendar. We do not withhold files pending a conversation. The aim is that someone on your side can produce the next draft without us, which is why the instruction sheet is part of the work rather than an afterthought.

Data & money

Can you work with three entities and two currencies?

Yes, and it is a common shape for groups that sell from Singapore into the region. We map each legal entity first, name the reporting currency — usually SGD — and write down the rate source so two packs cannot disagree about the same month. Intra-group turnover is shown and then removed so growth is not counted twice. Two currencies is straightforward when the rate rule is still; five currencies with ad-hoc rates is a longer audit. Pricing moves with the number of entities and currencies because the close has more cut-offs to keep honest. We will not hide a regional group inside a single-entity starting price. The audit note is where that is sized, before the sprint is promised.

What if our numbers turn out worse than we thought?

Then the pack should say so, on the date, with a trail. We will not smooth a margin to make a meeting easier, and we will not bury a cash gap in a plug. The useful work in that moment is to separate a definition problem from a trading problem: sometimes “worse” is two files counting contribution differently; sometimes the business is spending faster than it is collecting. Either way, you get the figure and the cause in language you can use with the board. We do not attach a lecture. We do flag when the data are too thin to support a strong claim, which is its own kind of honesty. A worse month is exactly when a five-day close earns its keep, because the next decision still has to be taken.

Do we need a dashboard or is a spreadsheet fine?

A dated spreadsheet, with a PDF of the pack, is enough for many companies and is often better than a dashboard nobody maintains. A dashboard is worth it when several people need a daily glance at the same cuts — channel, outlet, cash — between monthly packs, and when you already live in Looker Studio, Power BI or Google Sheets. We will not push a visualisation layer as a mark of seriousness. If the team’s habit is to open a sheet on Monday, we build the honest sheet. If the habit is a wall-mounted dashboard, we pipe the same grain into that tool. The test is whether a figure on the screen can be rebuilt from source. If it cannot, it does not ship, whatever the medium.

How do you handle month-end when our sales data lands late?

We write the cut-off rule in the scope so “late” has a meaning. If marketplace or billing exports arrive on working day two, collection simply runs through day three and the draft stays on day four. If they arrive after the release date, the pack ships with a named estimate and a dated revision, rather than waiting in silence or hiding a plug. Recurring lateness is a process issue we will raise: sometimes the platform can be pulled a day earlier; sometimes the calendar should shift so the pack is honest. We do not change the definition of the month to make a late file look on time. Directors would rather see a pack that declares its missing piece than a tidy file that moves again on Friday.

Still stuck on a number

Bring the question the pack cannot answer

If it is not in the twelve above, it is probably the one we should hear on the call.

Talk to us