Sectors

Sectors we know well

We take work where we already understand the economics well enough to ask the second question. The six sectors below share a pattern: many moving parts, a close that is late for the decisions that matter, and a margin figure that changes depending on who allocated the shared costs. The services we apply are the same catalogue. The measures, and the arguments they settle, are specific.

Hospitality and retail

Multi-outlet F&B and retail

A group with eight or twenty sites does not have one business. It has a portfolio of contribution stories hiding inside a consolidated profit and loss. Labour as a percentage of sales, waste, delivery commission and the rent line decide whether a site is earning its keep. A fully loaded view that dumps head office onto every outlet in equal shares will make a strong site look ordinary and a weak site look doomed for the wrong reason.

We build outlet contribution first, then apply a written rule for shared kitchen, marketing and central cost. The weekly cash view has to respect the way delivery platforms and landlords actually pay and collect. Management reporting, cash-flow forecasting and profitability analytics are the usual starting mix. A dashboard is useful once the outlet file has survived two live months.

Trade lanes

Freight forwarding and logistics

Jobs look profitable in the operations system and thin in the ledger. Agent costs, detention, demurrage and the odd rebate arrive on a different clock from the freight invoice. Lane margin and load profitability are the measures that tell you whether volume is worth defending. A cash forecast that treats a billed shipment as a receipt will be wrong by two or three weeks for the customers who pay on statement.

We build a job-to-ledger bridge, a lane and customer contribution view, and a 13-week cash file that uses collection curves rather than invoice dates. Multi-entity, multi-currency groups need a rate policy that the pack and the cash view both honour. Close support, working-capital analytics and modelling for a new lane or a rate change sit on top of that base.

Partnerships

Professional services firms

Hours are recorded. Bills are sent. The ledger closes. Somewhere between those three systems, utilisation and realisation part company, and work-in-progress older than 90 days becomes a conversation rather than a figure. Partner-level contribution is often a year-end exercise, which is too late to change staffing or a fee arrangement.

The measures that matter are utilisation, realisation, WIP ageing and contribution after write-offs. We join the time system to the ledger so the pack can show recovered hours, not only recorded ones. Pricing analytics help when discounting has become a habit for a handful of clients. Board packs are kept short enough that a partners’ meeting can finish the variance page.

Typical services: management reporting, close support, profitability analytics and a dashboard that refreshes from the same extract as the pack.

Recurring revenue

B2B software

Recognised revenue and collected cash part company for long stretches, especially where annual invoices sit beside monthly plans. Gross retention and net retention tell you whether the book is healthy. Cost-to-serve by cohort tells you whether a “logo” is worth the success team it consumes. A dashboard of product usage without a finance definition for the same customer will start a fight in the first steering meeting.

We start with a chart of accounts that can hold the cuts you already use in the product, then a cash forecast that treats an annual invoice as a collection profile. Cohort contribution and a simple cost-to-serve view come next. Modelling is used for pricing changes and for a hire plan that has to be paid before the cash arrives. We do not value the company and we do not advise on a raise; we will support the numbers a process asks for when the request is a reporting one.

Physical goods

Manufacturing and distribution

Gross margin after freight, returns and the true cost of a rush order is the figure operators can act on. Inventory days by category, and the age of the slow lines, decide how much cash is sitting in the warehouse while the P&L looks acceptable. Standard cost that has not been revisited since the last system change will mislead every dashboard you put on top of it.

We reconcile a production or stock view to the ledger before we present it. Working-capital analytics and the 13-week cash file share the same inventory and payables extracts. Budgeting is useful once the pack can explain last month. Data clean-up is often the first paid work, because a chart that cannot separate freight-in from freight-out will waste the rest of the engagement.

Contracts and sites

Property and facilities management

Contract contribution is easy to claim and hard to show. Recoverable cost, non-recoverable cost, sinking funds, deposits and billed arrears sit in accounts that were often designed for a single building and then stretched across a portfolio. A site that looks profitable can be carrying another site’s labour. A cash view that ignores deposits and sinking funds will frighten a board that was never short of operating cash.

We map the chart so contract, site and recoverable flags can be reported without a monthly archaeology project. Management reporting and working-capital analytics are the core. A dashboard of arrears is only commissioned once the ageing reconciles to the control account. If you operate across Singapore and Malaysia, we will keep the currency policy in the same note as the pack, so a rate movement is a line, not a surprise.

Next step

Tell us the sector and the close date

A diagnostic is still the right first step. Bring last month’s pack, the cash file if you have one, and the question the board asked that you could not answer in the room.

Book a diagnostic call [email protected]