Financial Clarity Audit
Know exactly where your business stands, in four weeks.
Your accountant tells you what happened last year. This tells you what to do next.
Book a call- Fee
- £3,500 fixed fee
- Duration
- 3–4 weeks
A fixed-fee, fixed-timescale review of one question: can your business actually be steered?
Do you have the information, the cash visibility and the margin clarity to make confident decisions? Or are you making them on instinct and last year's accounts?
What gets assessed
Six areas, rated red, amber or green.
Financial Clarity Scorecard
- Rated amber
Cash
Whether you can see your cash position without asking, and how long money sits in debtors and work in progress before it comes back.
- Rated red
Margin
Which jobs, clients or sites actually make money, and whether anyone in the business could tell you.
- Rated amber
Pricing
Where your prices came from, when they last moved, and what you are really recovering once the work is done.
- Rated green
Finance function
Who does the work, how long the month-end close takes, and what happens the week that person leaves.
- Rated red
Reporting and KPIs
The numbers that reach you each month, measured against the ones you would need to run the business properly.
- Rated amber
Owner position
How you pay yourself, whether the drawings have outrun the profit, and how much funding headroom is left.
Each area is rated against how a well-run business of your size operates, not against an abstract standard. The benchmark is the point. A red on pricing means money is leaving the business this month.
Nothing is graded to be comfortable.
What you receive
Four things, at the end of week four.
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Financial Clarity Scorecard
One page. Six areas rated, benchmarked against how a well-run business of your size operates.
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Top five risks
What will bite, and roughly when.
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90-day priority plan
Ranked, with the cash or profit impact of each action set against it.
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Findings session
Ninety minutes with the owners, walking the whole picture.
Illustrative example
Four weeks later, this is what lands on your desk.
Every audit produces the same three things. This example is a £4.2m precision engineering business with 38 staff and a bookkeeper.
Financial Clarity Scorecard
- Turnover
- £4.2m
- Staff
- 38
- Reviewed
- 4 weeks
- Overall
- Act now
- Rated red
Cash
Debtor days at 74 against a 45-day benchmark. £310k sitting outside terms. No forward cash view beyond the bank balance.
- Rated red
Margin
Profit is visible at company level only. Three of eleven job types are probably loss-making and nobody can prove otherwise.
- Rated amber
Pricing
Rates unchanged since 2023. Recovery running at 71% of standard. Discounts agreed on the shop floor, not reviewed.
- Rated amber
Finance function
Month-end closes on working day 18. One person holds the ledger, the payroll and the bank. No cover, no documentation.
- Rated amber
Reporting and KPIs
A profit and loss account, six weeks late. No cash forecast, no order book view, no agreed KPI set.
- Rated green
Owner position
Drawings comfortably covered by profit. £250k of undrawn facility. Succession not yet discussed with the next generation.
Deliverable two
Top five risks
What will bite, and roughly when.
- 01
Cash dips below the overdraft floor in August
Forecast trough of £40k against a £150k working floor, roughly four months out.
- 02
One job type is eating the margin it earns elsewhere
Indicative erosion of £86k a year, growing with volume.
- 03
The business stops if the bookkeeper does
No cover for month-end, payroll or the bank. Nothing written down.
Two further risks set out in the full pack.
Deliverable three
90-day priority plan
Ranked, with the cash or profit impact of each.
- 01 +£140k
Rebuild the rate card and recovery model
- 02 £190k cash
Collections routine to bring debtors to 45 days
- 03 Decision data
Job-level margin reporting on the eleven job types
- 04 8 days
Move month-end close to working day 10
- 05 Visibility
Rolling 13-week cash view
Presented and talked through in a ninety-minute session with the owners.
How it works
Four weeks, and you know where you stand.
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Week 1
Kickoff
A call, and a standard ten-item data request.
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Week 2
Desk review
Your numbers, gone through properly.
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Week 3
Interviews
You, and whoever handles your finances.
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Week 4
Findings
The pack, and the session to walk it.
Where it leads
The diagnosis is yours to act on.
The audit tells you what is working, what is not, and what to do first. You can take the ninety-day plan and run it yourself, and plenty do. That is a good outcome.
If you would rather have someone in the business each month working through it, that is the retainer. If one specific thing needs fixing properly, that is a scoped project. Either way, it is the next conversation, not a condition of this one.
Four weeks from now you will know where you stand.
For owners of profitable businesses who suspect the numbers are hiding something, and want to know before it costs them.
Book a callThirty minutes, and you will know whether it is worth taking further.