Advisory
Fractional CFO and advisory packages — a standing relationship priced monthly, not a project priced by the hour.
Trusted Guidance.
Advisory
Discipline 02 of 06
Advisory is the standing relationship rather than the discrete project: the number you call before the decision is made, not after it has gone wrong. It is sold as a monthly package with a defined scope, because availability billed by the hour turns every call into a decision about whether to make it — and the calls that go unmade are the expensive ones.
Discuss a advisory engagementWhat it covers
The work
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01
Fractional CFO
The finance seat filled monthly rather than hired: the close and the reporting pack, forecasting, capital structure, and the lender, investor and distribution conversations that come with them.
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02
Standing counsel
A continuing relationship with the owner or executive team, priced for availability rather than by the hour.
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03
Board and governance support
Papers, pre-reads and the honest briefing that should precede them.
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04
Transaction readiness
What has to be true about the business, and its records, before it is put in front of a buyer, a lender or an investor.
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05
Succession and continuity
The questions a family enterprise postpones until an event forces them, worked through while there is still room to choose.
Who we work with
CFO and advisory packages
Not a closed list. The shape that fits is several entities under one ownership, reporting owed to somebody outside the business, and no full-time finance seat — where that is the situation, the sector matters less than it looks.
Family offices
A holdco or family office sitting above a group of entities, with reporting owed to family members and outside investors who are not in the business day to day.
Hospitality
Operating groups where each property or venue is its own entity, and the consolidated view of the group is the one nobody currently has.
Construction
Job-level economics, work in progress and retainage, where the profit on a contract is a schedule that has to be maintained rather than a line sitting in the ledger.
Retail
Multi-location operators carrying inventory and seasonality, usually with a lender expecting the same pack on the same day every month.
Method
How we work on it
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01
Learn the business first
The first weeks are spent understanding how the business actually runs and where its numbers come from. Advice given before that is guesswork with a covering letter.
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02
Stay in the room
We attend the meetings where decisions are actually made rather than receiving the minutes afterwards.
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03
Say the unwelcome thing early
While it is still cheap to change. An advisor who only agrees with you is an expensive way to hear your own voice.
Alongside
Read with the other disciplines
Start here
Talk to us about advisory
Describe the decision in front of you. You will get a considered reply and a straight answer about whether this is work we should be doing.