Fractional finance
Your business can do more.
Let's build the plan to get there.
Part time finance leadership for owner run businesses that cannot justify hiring it full time. Cash flow forecasting, budgets, and monthly reporting built for the decisions in front of you.
The same analysis I run for a $500M+ consumer brand, at a scale that fits your business.
Revenue is great. Cash is king.
Most businesses push for higher revenue and more sales. Nothing wrong with that. But if you are not collecting all of those dollars, your cash flow tells a different story than your income statement does. Same on the other side: pay out too fast and you shorten your own cash cycle.
Revenue gets all the focus.
Everything underneath it gets assumed.
Margin by product or service line
Total margin is easy. Margin by line is where the decisions are, and most businesses have never split it.
Cash collection cycle
One of the most overlooked levers there is. A little attention here and businesses collect a meaningfully higher percentage of what they bill.
Payment timing
Paying out faster than you get paid quietly finances everyone else with your cash. Nobody chooses it. It just happens.
Reporting built for a complex business
Several lines, locations, or projects rarely fit a standard P&L. The detail you need is usually already in there.
Start by finding out what is actually there
The Financial Health Check is one week of me going through your numbers: what came in, what went out, what you are sitting on and what you are still owed. You get a written list of what is costing you money, ranked by how much, and I will walk you through all of it.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, no commitment past it. And if your numbers are clean, I will tell you that instead of inventing a problem.
Three ways to work together
Financial Health Check
One week. A written list of what is costing you money, ranked by how much, and I will walk you through all of it.
Most people start hereMonthly retainer
Reporting you can actually read, a rolling forecast, and someone to call before the big decisions.
Project and hourly
Budgets, forecasts, account cleanups, financing a build-out, tracking a single job.
Finance and accounting are not the same job
Accounting records what already happened and is what your taxes are built on.
Finance decides what happens next, and what you can afford.
Most businesses have one and not the other.
Find out what your numbers are hiding.
Twenty minutes on the phone. I will tell you whether this is worth doing for a business your size, and if I don't think there is anything to find, I will say so.
Book a Call With MeServices and pricing
Three ways to work together
Most engagements start with the Health Check. Everything after it is quoted once I know what I am looking at, not guessed at before.
Financial Health Check
I go through what came in, what went out, what you are sitting on and what you are still owed. You get a written punch list ranked by dollar impact, and I will walk you through all of it. Fixed scope, fixed fee. If everything is clean, I tell you that.
Intro rate $750, first three clientsMonthly retainer
A monthly reporting pack you can read, plain-English commentary on what actually changed, and a standing call. The higher tier adds a rolling twelve month cash forecast, budget versus actual, and decision support on hires and large purchases.
Project and hourly
Budget builds, cash forecasts, account cleanups, financing a build-out, project accounting for a single job. Quoted flat wherever the scope is clear, hourly where it is not.
Intro rate $100, first three clientsCurious about AI?
While I am in your numbers I will point out where it would genuinely save you time, and where it would just be an expensive toy. The opinion is free.
Not sure which one you need?
That is what the call is for. Twenty minutes, no pitch.
Book a Call With MeWhat I look at
The first four things I check.
All four are calculable from records you already have. Run them yourself before you call anyone. If they all check out, you are in better shape than most.
You know today's balance. A forecast tells you what it looks like after payroll, taxes, and the equipment payment you forgot was coming.
Revenue tells you how busy you were. Margin by line tells you which work to do more of, and which to stop taking.
At $500K, every point below target is about $5,000 a year you earned and never received.
Past ninety days you collect 15 to 25 cents on the dollar. Aged receivables are not late money. They are lost money you have not written off yet.
Start with the Health Check.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, one week. You get the four above plus everything else worth flagging, ranked by what it is costing you.
Book a Call With MeScope
What I do, and what I don't do.
I work alongside your CPA and bookkeeper, not instead of them.
I do
- Budgets and annual planning
- Cash flow forecasting
- Monthly reporting you can actually read
- Cleaning up accounts gone sideways
- Planning and financing a build-out
- Project accounting for a single job
- Whether you can afford the next hire
I don't
- Taxes, of any kind
- Bookkeeping, AP or AR
- Audits or anything needing a CPA license
- Payroll
Finance and accounting are not the same job
Accounting records what already happened and is what your taxes are built on.
Finance decides what happens next, and what you can afford.
Most businesses have one and not the other.
About
Jay Terrell, MBA
Big-company finance discipline, applied at the scale your business actually operates at.
I am a Finance Manager at a consumer brand doing over $500 million a year, where I own the P&L for its fastest growing channel and run company-wide budgeting and forecasting. I was the first finance hire on my team and built the forecasting, reporting and margin systems the business now runs on.
Before that, nine years across accounting and finance, including business management firms where the clients were closely held businesses and the work looked a lot like this.
Twenty minutes, no pitch.
If I do not think there is anything worth finding, I will say so on the call.
Book a Call With MeContact
Find out what your numbers are hiding.
Twenty minutes on the phone. I will tell you whether this is worth doing for a business your size, and if I don't think there is anything to find, I will say so.
Book a Call With Mejay@findingmargins.com
Where I work
Huntington Beach, California. Serving Orange County in person and everywhere else remotely.
Finance consulting and advisory / Not a CPA firm / No tax, audit, attest or investment services offered
Benchmark figures are general industry references, not a forecast of any individual business's results