Better finance, not just better software.
Planning, reporting and consolidation that finance actually runs, on numbers nobody argues with, with useful AI on top. A small UK team, fixed fees, and the unglamorous half done first.
None of this should be hard.
The numbers come from four systems and none of them agree.
The budget is a folder of workbooks, each with somebody’s initials in the filename.
The pack takes a fortnight, and by the time it’s out the questions have changed.
Everything after the ledger.
Five practices. Most customers start in one and end up touching several.
Planning
Budgeting and forecasting, plus the operational planning that feeds them – headcount, sales, demand, supply chain, projects. One model finance owns and runs, rather than a folder of workbooks.
Consolidation
Statutory and management consolidation – intercompany, currencies, eliminations, ownership – done in a system rather than rebuilt in a spreadsheet every month end.
Reporting & analytics
Management packs, board reporting, dashboards, and the analysis behind them, refreshed from the same numbers as everything else. Reporting is the start, not the job.
Data integration
Getting clean, current data out of the systems it lives in, automatically. It’s the part that decides whether everything else works. It’s an old problem – time to solve it.
AI for finance
What AI is genuinely useful in a finance function today, what isn’t, and how to be ready for the part that’s coming. And steps to take right now.
Data integration
Most of the work is in the data.
The tool is the easy part. Getting clean, current data out of the systems it actually lives in – the ERP, the payroll file, the CRM, the workbook somebody maintains by hand – is where projects fall over.
So that’s where we start, and we build on dedicated integration tooling rather than just a software vendor’s own connectors. That’s the difference between integrating to a fixed list of supported systems, and integrating to anything with an open API, a database we can reach, or a way to drop a file on a schedule.
Self-assessment
Find out where you are, and where to start.
The Finance Check is one page of multiple choice questions about how finance runs today. You get a score, a sense of where the time is going, and something you can put in front of whoever signs things off.
No call required. Nobody rings you afterwards unless you ask them to.
Questions people ask
How do you price projects?
Fixed fee, agreed before anything starts. You get a scope and a number, and the number on the proposal is the number on the invoice. If the scope changes we talk about it first – nobody likes a surprise line item.
How long does a first phase take?
Usually weeks rather than quarters, but it’s a little bit “how long is a piece of string” until we know the state of your data, and what you want to do. What we do shoot for is something live and usable, quickly, to start getting you a return on your investment.
Do we need our data sorted out first?
No, and if you wait for that you will wait a long time. Getting the data usable is part of the work, and it is normally one of the biggest parts. What helps is knowing which system is the master for each thing – that conversation is worth having early.
We already have a tool. Is it too late?
Not at all, and it is a very common place to start. Quite often the tool is fine and the model built in it has drifted. A health check is a fixed-price look at the model, the data and the process, with the findings written down and the fixes ranked.
Who actually does the work?
A small UK team, working directly with you – no offshore delivery arm and nobody you haven’t met. Everything is run through Teamwork.com, which lets you see exactly what’s left to do, and calls are recorded and transcribed so decisions are written down rather than remembered.
What happens after go-live?
Whatever you want to happen. Some teams take it over completely, which is fine and is usually the plan. Others would rather not own the admin, and we can keep the model, the integrations and the calendar ticking over instead. We’re always here if you need us.
The Compass
One email a month.
Our newsletter on FP&A, consolidation and AI in finance, for people who’d rather not read LinkedIn all day.
No obligation, and no follow-up unless you want one
Start with a conversation that has a scope.
Thirty minutes, free, and you’ll know by the end whether there’s anything here for you. Most of the organisations we speak with aren’t looking to buy anything right now – we’re happy to educate and inform, for when the time is right.